LATROBE, Pa. _ President Donald Trump rallied supporters Thursday night in Southwest Pennsylvania, days after his Democratic rival Joe Biden campaigned in Pittsburgh and condemned the destruction and violence that erupted after the police shooting of a Black man in Wisconsin.
Trump took the stage shortly before 7:15 p.m. Eastern time at an airport in Latrobe, 40 miles east of Pittsburgh, in Westmoreland County. Trump carried Westmoreland, a rural and overwhelmingly white area, in 2016 by a 2-to-1 margin over Hillary Clinton en route to his narrow surprise victory in Pennsylvania.
"Joe Biden wants to surrender your jobs to China. You know that," Trump said to cheering supporters. "He wants to surrender your nation to the radical left-wing mob."
Trump's rally in Pennsylvania comes after Biden traveled earlier Thursday to Milwaukee to meet with the family of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot seven times in the back by a white police officer late last month in Kenosha, Wisconsin, leaving him paralyzed.
Biden said he also spoke with Blake by phone for 15 minutes. "He talked about how nothing was going to defeat him, how whether he walked again or not he was not going to give up," Biden said during a meeting with community leaders at a church in Kenosha. "Fear doesn't solve problems. Only hope does. If you give up hope, you might as well surrender. There's no other option."
The Aug. 23 shooting led to peaceful protests against police brutality and systemic racism, but the demonstrations were overtaken by looting and riots. The unrest culminated in the fatal shooting of two protesters, allegedly by a 17-year-old Trump supporter from Illinois. Authorities charged teenager Kyle Rittenhouse with homicide. His lawyer has said he acted in self defense.
Trump has seized on the renewed civil unrest, trying to make it a defining campaign issue against Biden and divert focus from the coronavirus pandemic and the accompanying economic crisis.
The president, in his own trip to Kenosha on Tuesday, surveyed the wreckage of property destroyed by fires and blamed "domestic terror" for the violence. He did not mention Blake's name, but said he tried to call his mother. Trump also did not acknowledge issues like police brutality that led to the unrest, and accused Democrats of failing to restore order to Kenosha and other cities like Portland, Oregon.
Trump, who has described himself as the candidate of "law and order," quickly returned to that message Thursday in Latrobe.
"I will keep your jobs in America and I'll bring rioters, looters, violent extremists, anarchists _ we will bring them to justice, that's what we're doing right now," Trump said Thursday night.
On Wednesday, he threatened to withhold federal funding from any city his administration deems an "anarchist jurisdiction" that "disempowers or defunds police departments." Legal experts expressed doubts about his authority to take such action.
Hundreds packed into an airport hanger Thursday night at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe, with a large overfill crowd watching outside on a screen. The line of cars on the lone street leading to the small airport was at least three miles long.
Some people parked in nearby shopping centers and walked the rest of the way, forming an impromptu parade of supporters.
"This area isn't going red, it is all red," said Michele Lippert, of Homestead, about 40 miles west, outside Pittsburgh. "What I've noticed on Facebook is people are ashamed to be Democrats. My husband is a registered Democrat and he's just so embarrassed by the party right now."
Inside the hangar, most people who were wearing face masks removed them and sat in folding chairs positioned with little room next to each other. Bill Wittmer, 59, a programmer for a coal mine, said Trump supports his industry, whereas Democrats' interest in a so-called Green New Deal threatens it.
"None of that nonsense makes any sense to folks up here," he said.
Dawn Hoyman, 53, of nearby Derry, waited to buy dinner from a food truck outside and explained why Western Pennsylvania loves Trump: "He's pro-life, he's pro-God, and I am so freakin' excited to be here.
"I wish I could vote for him every four years," she said. "Congress don't have term limits, why should the guy at the top? He should be president for life."
The Trump campaign and his allies have also tried to appeal to voters in western Pennsylvania by falsely accusing Biden of wanting to ban fracking, the controversial drilling technique. The former vice president has said he wants to block the federal government from issuing new permits to drill for natural gas on public land, but that he would allow existing fracking operations to continue.
Biden is leading Trump in key battleground states including Pennsylvania, according to new polls released this week. A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday showed Biden up 8 percentage points over Trump in Pennsylvania among likely voters. A Monmouth University survey published earlier this week found Biden with a narrower advantage.
In addition to condemning violence during his speech in Pittsburgh on Monday, Biden blasted Trump for refusing to condemn Rittenhouse and Trump supporters who drove into Portland over the weekend and fired paintballs at counterprotesters. A right-wing protester was fatally shot during the conflict.
"This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country. He can't stop the violence because for years he's fomented it," Biden said Monday.
Vice President Mike Pence swung through Northeast Pennsylvania on Tuesday, declaring that even though Scranton is Biden's childhood hometown, the region is "Trump country now."
