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Trump escalates attacks on Harris at St. Cloud rally as he seeks to turn Minnesota red • Minnesota Reformer

Theo

ST. CLOUD — Former President Donald Trump had new material about Vice President Kamala Harris ready before thousands of cheering supporters at a rally with his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, in St. Cloud on Saturday night.

Trump called Harris – the likely Democratic presidential nominee since President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign a week ago – a “radical left-wing nutcase” who supports defunding police, confiscating guns, allowing tens of millions of illegal immigrants into the country and restricting red meat consumption. He also said she is not very smart.

Trump also launched into his other favorite attacks: Biden, “fake news,” radical Islamic terrorism and violent “illegal aliens,” whom he compared to Dr. Hannibal Lecter from the horror film “The Silence of the Lambs.”

“I mentioned him because these people are coming to our country. They are closing their asylums all over the world. They are sending the criminals to the United States,” Trump said.

Trump showed some optimism in his speech, promising that America’s fate would change immediately as soon as he was back in the Oval Office: “Inflation will stop. Illegal immigrants will be turned back. The cartels will retreat. Crime will go down. Energy prices will plummet. Incomes will soar. And a world in chaos will quickly be transformed into a planet of peace.”

In fact, economists at numerous think tanks and Wall Street firms say Trump’s plans to stop immigration and raise tariffs on imported goods would raise inflation and lower inflation-adjusted incomes.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics and an economic adviser to the late Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign, told CBS MoneyWatch that consumers would be “furious” about inflation a year from now if Trump wins and implements his policies.

The line outside Trump’s appearance at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center snaked for nearly a mile through a residential neighborhood, with people sweating in 90-degree heat under T-shirts with slogans like “I’m voting for the felon” and “Mean tweets and cheap gas.”

Standing in line, Jake Wolf of St. Cloud said he believes Trump will bring the country “under control” by securing the border and banning “transgender shit from schools.”

Darla Schmidt of Montevideo befriended her colleague Brian Nelson of Pine City in line. Both said their biggest concern is the rising cost of living, which is eating into their wages, and they believe Trump will get prices under control.

When asked about the possibility of higher tariffs that could drive up prices, Schmidt said it was like cleaning the house: “At first it is unpleasant, but at some point it will prevail.”

Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a 2024 rally at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on July 27, 2024. Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images.

While around 8,000 supporters made it into the arena, over 1,000 were disappointed to be turned away and had to cheer on Trump’s image on a giant screen in the arena’s parking lot. reformer was with them outside the arena.

Trump said they would easily win Minnesota as long as “they don’t cheat.”

Ahead of the rally, Democrats, including Governor Tim Walz and U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, held their own event to mobilize 300 volunteers at the St. Paul Labor Center to launch a Saturday door-to-door campaign.

“Three days ago, the nation learned what we all know in Minnesota: (Trump and Vance) are just weird,” Walz said at the rally.

Walz is suddenly being heavily touted as a possible running mate for Harris, partly because of his sharp attacks on the Trump-Vance team: “They’ll be glad when we’re done with them and only ten points behind,” he said, according to a press release from Harris’ campaign team.

Despite its slightly purple hue, Minnesota has not turned red in a presidential election since the election of Richard Nixon in 1972.

Even as Trump tore down much of the Midwest’s blue wall in 2016, Minnesota remained stubbornly Democratic. Hillary Clinton won the state, albeit by only 1.5 percentage points, the narrowest margin in any election since Minnesota-born Walter Mondale won his only victory against Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Minnesota is so elusive that it was a particularly coveted trophy for Trump, who spent millions here in 2020 even as he lost ground in the state and now trails Biden by seven percentage points.

Trump vowed he would never return to Minnesota if he lost the state in 2020. However, in May of this year, he returned to speak at the Minnesota GOP’s annual Lincoln-Reagan Dinner and repeated the blatant lie that he won the state in 2020.

Although Biden has suffered declining approval ratings in recent years, he maintained his six percentage point lead over Trump in Minnesota, according to a June poll by KSTP/Survey USA.

Harris has increased the Democrats’ lead since becoming their all-but-certified presidential nominee, leading Trump by 10 percentage points – 50% to 40% – according to a KSTP/Survey USA poll released Saturday.

Ruby-red St. Cloud was friendly territory for Trump, who won 60% of the vote in Stearns County in 2020.

Trump supporters carry signs reading “Deport Illegals Now” before a rally in St. Cloud on July 27, 2024. Photo by Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer.

Vance took the stage first and delivered a speech lasting about 20 minutes in which he anticipated Trump’s message on immigration at the southern border, Islamic extremism and supporting the police, even though his running mate is now a convicted felon and faces charges in three other cases.

Vance also repeated a new attack on Harris over a tweet she sent four years ago in support of the Minnesota Freedom Fund, a nonprofit that pays bail for people facing criminal trials or immigration hearings. At the time, the organization paid bail for people arrested during the protests and unrest following the police killing of George Floyd. Harris has not been active with the organization beyond that one tweet, according to the organization.

“When rioters and looters burned American cities, including Minneapolis, Kamala Harris raised money to get them out of jail. Let’s throw them in jail and deport them,” said Vance, who is now on a ballot promising to pardon many of the people convicted of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, when Trump tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power after his election defeat.

The Minnesota Freedom Fund has released bail for more than 2,500 people awaiting trial since it was founded in 2016. It argues that the constitutional right to be innocent until proven guilty should not depend on a person’s income. Some of the people the organization has posted bail for have gone on to commit serious crimes, including rape and murder.

However, the Trump campaign also attacked the organization for rescuing Jaleel Stallings. Stallings was charged with killing police officers but was later acquitted of all charges by a jury. A police officer involved in the incident pleaded guilty to aggravated assault on Stallings and apologized to him.

Trump also falsely claimed on Saturday that he sent in the National Guard to quell unrest in Minneapolis following Floyd’s killing. In fact, it was Walz, who served in the National Guard for 24 years before entering politics.

Joining Trump on stage were Shannon Owen, whose husband Josh Own was killed in the line of duty as a Pope County Sheriff’s deputy, and Paul Perez, president of the National Border Patrol Council.

Despite Trump’s anti-immigrant message, the rally attracted many immigrants from East Africa. In his speech, he promised to reinstate the travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries such as Somalia.

Osman Dagane, an Uber and Lyft driver from Minneapolis, said he came early Saturday morning to organize East African immigrants to support Trump, brushing off Trump’s previous comments on immigration – including that Somali immigration to Minnesota was a “disaster.”

“Well, now he learns a lot,” said Dagane. “He didn’t know it then, but now he knows a lot.”

Dagane left the stage before Trump took the stage because he was primarily interested in seeing Vance. Thirty minutes after Trump’s speech, many people began to leave the arena, and only the most devoted remained.

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