Energy the Focus of Trump Rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania

Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump takes the stage during a campaign rally in the 1st Summit Arena at the Cambria County War Memorial in Johnstown, Pa., on Aug. 30, 2024. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

In the gas- and coal-rich Keystone State, former President Donald J. Trump’s latest rally in Johnstown on Aug. 30 lingered on energy policy.

He accused Vice President Kamala Harris of seeking to put an end to fracking, which is opposed by the Sierra Club and some other environmental organizations.

“The people of Pennsylvania are smart. They’re not going to fall for it. ... If you do not have fracking, you do not have a commonwealth,” Trump said.

He also accused Harris of having “surrendered our energy independence” and faulted her administration for closing the Keystone XL pipeline.

Harris’s position on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to obtain oil came up during her Aug. 29 interview with CNN’s Dana Bash. She spoke to Bash alongside her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Bash pointed out that in 2019, Harris voiced support for a ban on fracking. Harris laid out that position during a climate-focused town hall on CNN with other Democratic presidential hopefuls, adding that she had worked to end the practice as California’s attorney general.

In her interview with Bash, Harris said she made it clear in 2020, as President Joe Biden’s running mate, that she did not seek to outlaw the practice.

“As vice president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking,” Harris told Bash.

At the rally, a speaker who came before Trump, Mark Caskey, cast Harris as a waffler on fracking.

Caskey founded Steel Nation, a company that builds steel buildings for oil and gas installations. He told the men and women who filled the 1st Summit Arena at Cambria County War Memorial that he spoke on behalf of America’s energy workers.

After praising Caskey’s remarks, Trump called him back to the stage.

“Can I shake your hand?” Trump asked. Caskey came up and, after obliging the former president, spoke a little more.

“We have the Marcellus Shale right below our feet,” he said, pointing to the stage beneath him.

Carla Sands, another speaker who took the stage before Trump, praised the natural gas sector in Pennsylvania.

She credited the shift to natural gas from dirtier fuels with helping to improve Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s air quality.

Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.) also spoke on energy production in his state.

Local and Rust Belt themes animated a speech from Stephen Miller, a longtime Trump ally and immigration hawk.

“This city is in my blood,“ Miller said. “Generations of my family are buried in the soil here in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.”

His brief but memorable remarks ended with a call for Johnstown to deliver a victory for Trump and to “fight, fight, fight!”—lines linking the Pennsylvania speech to the words spoken by Trump after the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania, just last month.

A short but unsettling incident during Trump’s speech also recalled Butler. An unidentified man was subdued while jumping a barrier surrounding the press pen. He was quickly apprehended and taken out of the event.

“Is there anywhere that’s more fun to be than a Trump rally?” the former president quipped as the chaos bubbled up and subsided.

A man is apprehended by security and police after jumping onto the media platform at a campaign rally for Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump at the 1st Summit Arena in Johnstown, Pa., on Aug. 30, 2024. Justin Merriman/Getty Images