President Donald Trump on Thursday raised concerns over the viability of unsolicited ballots as he spoke to a packed crowd at a campaign rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
“Sign your mail in ballots, okay. You sign it, send it in, and you have to follow it,” Trump said at the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport, the venue for the rally.
He continued, “And if on election day or early voting that [vote] is not tabulated and counted, you go vote. And then if for some reason after that—it shouldn’t take that long—it [the mailed vote] comes in, they’re not going to be able to tabulate it because you will have [already] voted.
“You have to make sure your vote counts, because the only way they’re going to beat us is by doing that kind of stuff. I’m trying to be nice,” Trump said.
Trump expressed his concerns over universal mail-in voting, which he called “unsolicited ballots.” He has repeatedly expressed his concern about unsolicited ballots, saying they could lead to a surge in election fraud.
“Solicited’s okay because that’s when you’re asking [for the ballot] and you want it, then you send in the necessary paperwork and the documentation and you get the ballot and you fill it out. ... But you can’t, this whole thing with the unsolicited ... Unsolicited means you’re sitting there ... they throw these things in your face, and the [voter] lists are inaccurate, and people are dead, and dogs have gotten ballots, they have,” Trump said, to a crowd that responded with laughter.
“And they know I’m right, and everybody knows I’m right, and they say I’m right behind closed doors. It’s a disgrace what they do to our country.”
He continued, “It’s really unfair because our people have enthusiasm, they’re going out to vote, they’re all going out to vote.”
He went on, questioning certain lack of checks in the voting system, “They even have a provision where you don’t have to verify signatures, what is going on? And they have another provision in some states where you can harvest—that’s where you can grab them altogether and drop them—and in Nevada, they actually have a provision where they don’t have to be counted til 7 days after the election.”
“President Trump encourages supporters to vote absentee-by-mail early, and then show up in person at the polls or the local registrar to verify that their vote has already been counted,” Murtaugh added.
Packed Crowd
Hundreds of people turned up to the rally, most wearing red MAGA hats. The crowd filled the event space with several hundreds in the hangar, overflowing to a crowd of about a thousand or more outside the area, according to reports.“We have thousands of people behind this hangar, thousands, and we’re trying to get them in, I'd love to get them in, it’s an airport, let them go to the runways,” the president joked at one point during his rally. “We’re doing the hangar thing now because the arenas can’t do it because of the pandemic,” the president noted.
Trump expressed confidence that he will again win in Pennsylvania. He accused Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden of wanting to surrender Americans’ jobs to China.
“Joe Biden wants to surrender your jobs to China, you know that ... He wants to surrender your nation to the radical left-wing mob, he’s trying to change now, you understand, because we’re going up and he’s dropping like a rock in water,” Trump said.
“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,” he said. “We have over 400 right now under arrest, these are bad people.”
“Biden will never be able to protect your jobs or your family. He is a puppet of the socialist, Marxist, and the cop-hating extremists,” Trump said.
Trump thanked the Boilermakers Local 154 union, which has 2,500 active and retired members in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, for their endorsement.
‘Price Transparency ... Bigger than Healthcare’
The president hinted at a major action he will be signing on Jan. 1, 2021, called “price transparency.”“We’ve signed something that’s incredibly—you’re going to see, some people say it’s bigger than healthcare, and I signed it. Unfortunately it takes place on January 1st, you better elect me!” Trump said, to applause. “It’s called price transparency.”
“You‘ll be able to negotiate, you’ll be able to do things you’re not even able to do now with hospitals ... it could be bigger than healthcare,” Trump said.
“You’re going to see some unbelievable price reductions and that includes on drugs,” Trump said.
He promised a rapid “return to full employment, soaring wages, and record prosperity,” and more support for law enforcement and public safety.
“This election is about safety and this election is about jobs,” Trump said.
“We will hire more police, increase penalties for assaults on law enforcement, surge federal prosecutors into high crime communities and ban sanctuary cities,” he said. “We will appoint prosecutors, judges, and justices who believe in enforcing the law not their own political agenda, we will uphold religious liberty, free speech, and the right to keep and bear arms. We will strike down terrorists who threaten our citizens, we will not let them threaten our citizens, and we will keep America out of endless foreign wars.”
He added, “We will restore patriotic education to our schools and we'll teach our children to love our country, honor our history, and always respect our great American flag. And we will live by the timeless words of our national motto—in God we Trust.”
“For years we had a president who apologized for America, now you have a president standing up for Americans, standing up for the great people of Pennsylvania.”
