Trump Speaks in Rural Wisconsin on Saturday, Pushes Early Voting
Two-hour speech at airport in Mosinee offers false claims about his criminal cases.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Mosinee, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. Rob Mentzer/WPR
Former President Donald Trump addressed a rally of thousands in central Wisconsin on Saturday, seeking to maintain the political hold he’s had over rural voters in the state.
The rally was Trump’s first appearance in central Wisconsin since 2020. The campaigns for both Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris have heavily targeted the state, but the rally was the first high-profile stop in central Wisconsin by either candidate, and it drew attendees from across the region. Some were waiting in line for the 1 p.m. event as early as 5 a.m.
In a speech at the Central Wisconsin Airport that clocked in just shy of two hours, Trump used the first 30 minutes or so to discuss his criminal indictments and convictions, which he characterized as witch hunts. Referencing a judge’s decision this week to postpone his sentencing in a New York case, Trump falsely said the postponement reflected the fact that “everyone realizes there’s no case, because I did nothing wrong.”
In fact, Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts related to his hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign. He will be sentenced on Nov. 26. Criminal cases against the Republican presidential nominee are ongoing in Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C.
Trump also said that if elected, he would bring the war between Russia and Ukraine to an end.
“I’ll tell you what,” Trump said. “I will have that war finished and done and settled before I get to the White House. As president-elect, I will get that done.”
Doing so would be a violation of the Logan Act, a federal law that prohibits private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Mosinee, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. Rob Mentzer/WPR
A rally attendee waves a sign reading ’47’ at Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign event in Mosinee. Rob Mentzer/WPR
In speeches introducing Trump, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson offered political red meat to the crowd and made a pitch to attendees to get involved in the campaign. Tiffany said volunteers in his district have knocked on more than 20,000 doors. Trump supporters, he said, should speak with hunters in their lives and let them know that a “Kamala Harris administration will take their guns.” The claim is not based on any policy proposal, and Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have repeatedly said they support hunters’ gun rights.
Johnson asked the assembled crowd to vote early.
The pitch in favor of absentee voting was a contrast to the party’s approach in 2020, when Trump repeatedly said voting outside of Election Day was a method open to fraud.
Trump also brought out Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde during his speech. Speaking of Harris and his opponent, Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Hovde said that “everything they’ve said has been a lie.”
Before the event, Democrats held a press conference in Wausau, saying that Trump’s proposed blanket tariffs on imports from China and other countries would raise costs for Americans by an average of $4,000 per year.
In a statement from the press conference, ginseng farmer Ming Tao Jiang said the proposal “pose(s) a threat not only to my business, but to all Wisconsin small businesses. Trump is running on a backwards economic plan that would decimate the economy, kill businesses, and raise costs.”
Trump defended the tariff policy in his speech, comparing his policy views to those of the “highly underrated” President William McKinley.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde speaks at the Trump rally in Mosinee on Sept. 7, 2024, while Trump looks on. Rob Mentzer/WPR
A supporter wears a Trump hat at the Mosinee campaign event. Rob Mentzer/WPR
Outside the rally, vendors sold Trump merchandise, including T-shirts depicting the former president’s fist-up pose after the bullet from an attempted assassination grazed his ear at a July rally in Pennsylvania. Inside, a party atmosphere prevailed, including people dressed in head-to-toe American flag suits and a sea of red “Make America Great Again” hats. Before Trump arrived, country singer Gretchen Wilson performed her 2004 hit, “Redneck Woman.”
In the wake of the assassination attempt, the Secret Service reportedly asked Trump not to hold rallies outside. This rally was held outside, though entry included tight security checks. In a concession to safety, Trump and other speakers appeared behind bulletproof glass.
Trump, GOP seek to boost rural voter turnout at central Wisconsin rally was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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More of the same tired, old stuff. His speeches and rallies reflect him – tired, old, and incoherent. Throwing Tiffany, Hovde and Johnson into the mix makes it a MAGA lovefest worthy of the metaphorically deaf and blind minions in attendance.
These are the same people that crab about the economy (because that topic and immigration are the only drumbeats they hear from these clowns) and then spend money that could be used to buy eggs, milk, bacon, and bread – that they claim they cannot afford anymore because of Bidenomics – on Trump/MAGA junk that is worthless garbage.
They couldn’t see the irony in this situation if it slapped them in their collective faces.
You are so right TosaGramps. Convicted felons like *RUMP miss the target every time. He (and Maybelline Vance) blame Bidenomics, while not even talking about how corporations like KROGER inflated prices beyond ordinary inflation. (KROGER executives have admitted to this in testimony…during a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) antitrust trial ). HARRIS at least wants to address price gouging…and hits the mark that “Grab them by the “P”” *RUMP can’t.
This story ignores or sanitizes much of the insanity in Trump’s speech — kids coming home from school with a gender change, infants killed after birth, immigrants taking people’s houses. It does a real disservice to clean things up and make him appear rational or normal.
For the life of me, I don’t know how Kamala Harris can prepare for debating this guy. How does one prepare for any thought that comes into your opponent’s head then exiting his mouth in a word salad that even his English professor friends couldn’t make sense of, much less the general populace.
I hope she’s prepared to respond to his non-sensical blathering with a break-the-4th-wall, Ferris Bueller-like look directly into the camera, couples with a rhetorical “Do we REALLY want this guy to be the President AGAIN?!?”
Doing that would win the debate on ballsy-ness alone!
There is a good chance that one year from now, even our semi-democracy (Electoral College, United States Senate, filibuster, etc.) will be a thing of the past. And that large numbers of people, Trump’s fans, will welcome its passing. Just as large numbers of Germans, Italians, French and others did at this point in the 20th century with the rise of fascism.
There are some valuable quotes that put what is happening in context.
First, “We should always beware that what now lies in the past once lay in the future.” (T.W. Maitland) Let’s see what the breakdown among voters is when Trump’s and Vance’s misogyny, racism, nativism and homophobic appeals, always grounded in violence, are fully implemented.
Another valuable quote: “There are no conditions to which people cannot become accustomed, especially if they see everyone around them living in the same way.” (Tolstoy). We’ll get used to Trump’s brand of corruption, violence/ retribution, mass deportation and the shredding of what is left of democracy as he emulates his role models Putin, Orban, Bolsonaro. And, as elsewhere, those who do not “go along with the program” will face severe consequences.
Two other valuable quotes with universal application to his fans/ Fox News and the other Trump propaganda outlets: “People don’t believe lies because they have to. They believe them because they want to.” (Malcolm Muggeridge) And, “It’s not a lie if I believe it.” (George Constanza of Seinfeld)
And a final one: “Experience teaches that the masses must be given for all ….complex processes, a simple, easily grasped explanation. According to what I know of history, I see that mankind could never do without scapegoats.” (the warden in “Darkness at Noon”) When stripped of its veneer, Trump’s promise to his followers is really not to make their lives better, but to make those of “the others,” worse. And, it is no accident that most of those “others” represent the movements and social advancements of women, minorities, lgbtq people and people with disabilities. Alll of whom are to be “put back in their place” in Trump’s made great again/white men still #1 America.
Here’s the whole story, which is much worse and much crazier than the WPR report
https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/september-7-2024?r=9m3bg&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Subscribing to Heather Cox Richardson’s daily email has been one of the best things I’ve done to understand current political activity and its context.