US President Donald Trump is scrapping two of his last midterm election rallies, the Republican Party said on Thursday, as the 80-year-old leader lashed out at a reporter who asked whether he was “sick of travelling”, Dawn reported, citing AFP.
The exchange
Trump had just returned to Washington from a campaign trip to South Carolina, where he backed Senator Darline Graham. A Reuters reporter asked how he felt after weeks of rallies. “You’re sick to ask that question. You are sick,” Trump replied. “I feel perfect. You are disgusting. Put yourself in shape, you look like hell.” Before boarding his motorcade he added: “You’ve been following me for two weeks.”
He also told reporters he did not “feel like I have to go to Kansas”, where Republican Senator Roger Marshall is in an unexpectedly close race with the Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton.
What changes
The cancelled events were planned for Salina, Kansas, on Saturday and Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday. The Republican National Committee said in a statement that “with Republicans in a strong position in Kansas and Iowa”, the in-person rallies will no longer take place. Iowa has several competitive congressional races. In their place Trump will hold a “large number” of virtual “tele-rallies” across several states, the committee said, and MAGA Inc, a campaign funding group aligned with him, said it would host a series of tele-rallies with him in at least 19 states, including Kansas and Iowa, before Election Day.
Trump is still expected to travel to rallies in several states before Tuesday’s vote, and his final in-person rally is now set for Florida on Friday, the report said.
How hard he has campaigned
Trump has kept up what AFP calls a “gruelling schedule”, despite being the oldest elected president in US history. Since October 1 he has held 25 rallies in 19 states, often in rural, Republican-friendly areas. He has urged Republicans to “pretend I’m on the ballot” to boost turnout in spite of his poor approval ratings. He has also noted that the long speeches have been demanding. Sounding hoarse in Mississippi on Monday, he said, “God didn’t make your vocal cords to do a rally every day.”
The November 3 elections will decide whether Republicans keep their narrow control of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Why it matters
The change of plan is small in itself, since a president can reach voters by phone and video. It draws attention because of the way Trump answered a question about his stamina, and because the party chose to say that Kansas and Iowa are safe at the same moment that reports described a close Senate race in Kansas. Our readers will also see the midterms reach foreign policy: Trump has signalled he could attack Iran after the vote, as we reported in the Pentagon’s cost estimate for the Iran war, and the Federal Reserve held rates before the election; see the Fed’s decision. Among the things to watch are turnout in the swing states, the Senate results in Kansas and Iowa, and what the White House does about Iran once the votes are counted.
This article draws on reporting by Dawn and AFP.
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