Philadelphia, November 4 (RHC)-- Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has given a profane and conspiracy-laden speech two days before the presidential election, as his Democratic rival Kamala Harris spoke at a historically Black church in the battleground state of Michigan.
Opinion polls show the pair locked in a tight race, with Vice President Harris, 60, bolstered by strong support among women voters while former President Trump, 78, gains ground with Hispanic voters, especially men.
In remarks on Sunday that bore no resemblance to his standard speech in the campaign’s closing stretch, Trump spoke about reporters being shot and suggested he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden.
The former president also resurrected old grievances about being prosecuted after trying to overturn his defeat four years ago.
Trump intensified his verbal attacks against a “grossly incompetent” national leadership and the American media, steering his Pennsylvania rally at one point onto the topic of violence against members of the press.
In a meandering 90-minute rally speech two days before Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election, Trump noted gaps in the glass panes around him.
The former president has survived two attempted assassinations this year, including being grazed in the ear by a gunman’s bullet during a July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Surveying the gaps, Trump said: “To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news and I don’t mind that so much.”
The Donald's rhetoric has become increasingly unrestrained in the campaign‘s final weeks. Arizona’s top prosecutor on Friday opened an investigation after Trump suggested prominent Republican critic and former congresswoman Liz Cheney should face gunfire in combat. He said Cheney would not be willing to support foreign wars if she had “nine barrels shooting at her.”
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung issued a statement after the media remarks on Sunday, saying Trump was looking out for the media’s safety. “The president’s statement about protective glass placement has nothing to do with the media being harmed or anything else. It was about threats against him that were spurred on by dangerous rhetoric from Democrats,” the statement said.
Trump spent a considerable amount of his speech attacking the news media at the rally, at one point gesturing to TV cameras and saying, “ABC, it’s ABC, fake news, CBS, ABC, NBC. These are, these are, in my opinion, in my opinion, these are seriously corrupt people.”
