Trump talks about reporters being shot, says he shouldn't have left WH

Donald Trump gave a profane and conspiracy-laden speech two days before the presidential election, talking about reporters being shot and suggesting he shouldn't have left the White House after his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

In remarks Sunday that bore no resemblance to his standard speech in the campaign's closing stretch, the former president repeatedly cast doubt on the integrity of the vote and 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 on to the topic of violence against members of the press.

 

The GOP nominee for the White House noted the ballistic glass placed in front of him at events after a gunman's assassination attempt in July at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and Trump talked about places where he saw openings in that protection.

I have this piece of glass here, he said. But all we have really over here is the fake news. And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. And I don't mind that so much.  "I have a piece of glass over here. I don't have a piece of glass there. And I have this piece of glass here. But all we have really over here is the fake news, right? And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. I don't mind that so much. I don't mind. I don't mind that," Trump said, referring the thick bullet proof glass around him and the gap in his protective glass. 

"I have a piece of glass here. The problem with that glass is it's I don't look great on television when you have a four-inch piece of glass that a howitzer can't go through. No, when you see yourself on television, you say, boy, you're really not very recognizable, to be honest with you, which is good. But here's the problem. So I have glass here. I have glass here. Now, I'm not worried about this. Look, what do I have? A couple of people. And they're friends, generally. There are a couple of people I don't like in that group, but that's like," he said.

His remarks were criticised by the Democrats. Harris-Walz Director of Rapid Response Ammar Moussa said as Harris spent today at church in Detroit, talking to voters about her vision to lift up all Americans, Donald Trump was busy violating the Ninth Commandment.

"I have a piece of glass over here. I don't have a piece of glass there. And I have this piece of glass here. But all we have really over here is the fake news, right? And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. I don't mind that so much. I don't mind. I don't mind that," Trump said, referring the thick bullet proof glass around him and the gap in his protective glass.

"I have a piece of glass here. The problem with that glass is it's I don't look great on television when you have a four-inch piece of glass that a howitzer can't go through. No, when you see yourself on television, you say, boy, you're really not very recognizable, to be honest with you, which is good. But here's the problem. So I have glass here. I have glass here. Now, I'm not worried about this. Look, what do I have? A couple of people. And they're friends, generally. There are a couple of people I don't like in that group, but that's like," he said.

His remarks were criticised by the Democrats. Harris-Walz Director of Rapid Response Ammar Moussa said as Harris spent today at church in Detroit, talking to voters about her vision to lift up all Americans, Donald Trump was busy violating the Ninth Commandment.

It was the second time in recent days that Trump has talked about guns being pointed at people he considers enemies after he suggested former Rep. Liz Cheney, a prominent Republican critic, wouldn't be willing to support foreign wars if she had nine barrels shooting at her.

His remarks also reflect that with less than 48 hours before Election Day, Trump continues to promote falsehoods about elections and argue that he can only lose to Democrat Kamala Harris if he is cheated, even though polls suggest a tight race.

Some of his allies, notably former chief strategist Steve Bannon, have encouraged him to prematurely declare victory on Tuesday even if the race is too early to call. That's what Trump did four years ago, kicking off a process of fighting the election results that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

His campaign later sought to clarify his meaning in talking about the media.

President Trump was brilliantly talking about the two assassination attempts on his own life, including one that came within 1/4 of an inch from killing him, something that the Media constantly talks and jokes about, campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement. The President's statement about protective glass placement has nothing to do with the Media being harmed, or anything else.  Donald Trump also expressed frustration over the current voting pattern as he urged his fellow countrymen to vote for him in this final battle and called for a mandatory voter ID.

The Democrats are opposing voter ID so that they can cheat, he alleged.

"I don't know why the hell we can't have a voter ID. The real Democrats want to have things like voter ID. They know it's crooked. There's only one reason you don't want a voter ID. There's only one reason, and that's to cheat. There is no other reason. There's no other reason. And they do cheat," Trump told his supporters at a rally in Pennsylvania, a battle ground state.

He said it's "damn shame" that nobody seems to talk about it. "I'm the only one that talks about it because everyone's afraid to damn talk about it. Then they accuse you of being a conspiracy-theorist... and they want to lock you up".

"They want to put you in jail. The ones that should be locked up are the ones that cheat on these horrible elections that we go through in our country," Trump said.

He also called for returning to the ballot paper system.

"You ought to damn well go to paper ballots. You ought to go to voter ID. You ought to have the election over by 9 o'clock. I'm hearing now they're going to take weeks. Can you imagine? They spend all this money, all this money on machines, and they're going to say, we may take an extra 12 days to determine. What do you think happens during that 12 days? What do you think happens? These elections have to be, they have to be decided by 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock on Tuesday night. Bunch of crooked people. These are crooked people," he said.

"In California, they just signed a bill that if you're an official or anybody, you're not even allowed to ask anybody for their voter ID. If you do, you've created a criminal act or something. I mean, they only do that because they want to cheat. What the hell are they doing? The whole world is laughing at us," Trump said.

"They're laughing at us. If nothing comes out of this whole thing, it's going to teach you damn well better get a different system. These bloodsuckers up there, they do nothing about it. What a shame. That's why the world laughs at us. They all have elections. France had crooked elections because they had paper ballots years ago. And they switched. And now they have paper ballots," he said.

"At 9 o'clock in the evening, they called the winner. They called the loser. Everyone home. Everybody was fine. They had voter ID. They had paper ballots. They had one-day election. At 9 o'clock, it was over. They called the winner. They called the loser. ... w they say, we'll wait till the next time. We got to get smart as a country. This is just one thing. It's all corrupt," Trump said.

He also took on his Democratic rival Kamala Harris,  "She (Harris) is corrupt. She's a corrupt person. I'm running against a totally corrupt person. I'm really not running against her. I'm running against a corrupt machine called the Democrat Party. It's totally a corrupt party," he said.

Harris, meanwhile, told a Michigan church congregation on Sunday that God offers America a divine plan strong enough to heal division,  The two major candidates offered starkly different tones with the campaign almost at an end, as Harris said voters can reject chaos, fear and hate."  She was concentrating on Michigan, beginning the day with a few hundred parishioners at Detroit's Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ. It marked the fourth consecutive Sunday that Harris, who is Baptist, has spoken to a Black congregation, a reflection of how critical Black voters are across multiple battleground states.

I see faith in action in remarkable ways, she said in remarks that quoted the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. I see a nation determined to turn the page on hate and division and chart a new way forward. As I travel, I see Americans from so-called red states and so-called blue states who are ready to bend the arc of history toward justice.

She never mentioned Trump, though she's certain to return to her more conventional partisan speech in stops later Sunday. But Harris did tell her friendly audience that there are those who seek to deepen division, sow hate, spread fear and cause chaos. The election and this moment in our nation, she continued, has to be about so much more than partisan politics. It must be about the good work we can do together.

Harris finished her remarks in about 11 minutes starting and ending during Trump's roughly 90-minute speech at a chilly outdoor rally in Pennsylvania.

Trump usually veers from subject to subject, a discursive style he has labeled the weave. But outside the Lancaster airport, he went on long tangents and hardly mentioned his usual points on the economy, immigration and rote criticisms of Harris.

Trump also referred to John Bolton, his former national security adviser and now a strident critic, as a dumb son of a b. And he repeated familiar and debunked theories about voter fraud, alleging that Democrats could only win by cheating. Public polls indicate a tight and competitive race across the battleground states that will determine the Electoral College outcome.

It's a crooked country," Trump said. And we're going to make it straight. We're going to make it straight.

Harris pushed back at Trump's characterizations of U.S. elections, telling reporters after the church service that Trump's comments are meant to distract from the fact that we have and support free and fair elections in our country. Those good systems were in place in 2020, Harris said, and he lost.

The vice president said she trusts the upcoming vote tally and urged voters, in particular people who have not yet voted to not fall for this tactic, which I think includes, suggesting to people that if they vote, their vote won't matter.