People were starting to "trickle out" of Donald Trump's Pennsylvania rally while he was still speaking on Saturday, leaving more "empty seats," according to a campaign reporter for USA Today.
As Trump spoke past the one-hour mark, some MAGA supporters began to leave, according to reporter Zac Anderson, who covers Trump and Republicans for the news outlet. Anderson was reporting from the rally.
"Looks like people are starting to trickle out of the Wilkes-Barre Trump rally as he goes past the hour mark," the reporter wrote, including a video update. "There appears to be more empty seats."
Vice President Harris' presidential campaign flagged the news from Anderson, and wrote, "Trump’s audience is exiting as he rambles incoherently in Pennsylvania, leaving even more empty seats."
Donald Trump on Saturday shouted out North Carolina from the stage while speaking at his rally in Pennsylvania, leading some observers to ask if the former president simply forgot where he was.
Trump, who earlier in the speech admitted to going "off teleprompter" to insult his former political foe, Joe Biden, was talking about how long his speeches are when he made the possible error. He was specifically noting that people demand he speak more than Biden.
"They have a tent, and the tent is set up. They have hundreds of them, and they wait," Trump said.
"And then I walk in, and speak for 15 minutes, and leave. I don't know... Would that be ok, North Carolina?" Trump asked the attendees of his rally located in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign quoted Trump as saying, "Would that be okay, North Carolina?" and then added simply, "He is in Pennsylvania."
Republican Voters against Trump said, "Trump doesn't know what state he's in."
"He just asked the crowd at his Pennsylvania rally, '...would that be okay, North Carolina?' Trump is the oldest candidate for President," the group added.
Harris spokesman Sarafina Chitika also chimed in: "Once again asking: is [Trump] ok?"
MSNBC executive producer Kyle Griffin said, "Trump confuses the state he's in — shouting out North Carolina when he's in Pennsylvania."
One reporter had an alternate take. Julia Manchester of The Hill wrote, "Trump did not confuse Pennsylvania and North Carolina here."
"He is addressing a group of supporters from North Carolina who are at his rally in Pennsylvania. Before this clip he says 'I have another group from North Carolina. We love North Carolina,'" she added.
Donald Trump Saturday admitted to going "off teleprompter" to speak about President Joe Biden while he was campaigning in Pennsylvania.
Trump has been advised by various GOP insiders and pollsters to stick to a disciplined message at his rallies, but over the weekend he decided to go off-message to insult his old political foe, Biden. The former president's rally was in Wilkes-Barre.
"Joe Biden hates her, ok? Hates her. You don't mind if I go off teleprompter for a second, do you?" Trump asked the crowd. "Joe Biden hates her. This was an overthrow of a president. I spent a hundred million dollars fighting Joe Biden."
Jonathan Greenberg, the investigative journalist who exposed Trump's Forbes 400 "John Baron" scandal in the Washington Post, said, "Please, do go off the teleprompter & keep whining, demented grandpa!"
"You're doing GREAT! And someone will change that poopy diaper soon," Greenberg then added.
Bloomberg TV contributor Daniel Micovic said, "The campaign is imploding in front of our eyes."
Veteran Jared Ryan Sears said, "Biden chose her out of a vast field to be his Vice President, has routinely praised her, and immediately endorsed her when he stepped down."
"Trump is simply projecting his own hatred for his Vice Presidents," he added on Saturday.
Kelsie Taggart, digital media director for a Republican accountability group, also chimed in on a later portion of Trump's speech.
"Trump struggles to stay on prompter and resist his urges for unhinged conspiracies," she said Saturday. "This is turning out to be one of the most scattered rallies in a long time."
"Can’t help himself can he?" asked Bob Hudson, a policy academic at the University of Kent.
Ameshia Cross, a Democratic Strategist, had this to say:
"Trump really wanted to keep campaigning against Biden and refuses to accept that Harris is at the top of the Dem ticket. She is his opponent whether he likes it or not AND there is no amount of whining that will change that reality."
"His stop in Omaha highlights the campaign’s effort to win the single electoral vote from the 2nd Congressional District, a swing district that supported Barack Obama in 2008 and Joe Biden in 2020," according to MSNBC.
During an appearance on MSNBC on Saturday afternoon, former GOP campaign adviser and current Donald Trump critic Tara Setmayer claimed the former president is unable to get his campaign back on sure footing because he doesn't know how to deal with possibly losing to a Black woman.
Speaking with host Katie Phang, Setmayer noted that Trump running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has been a major drag on the ticket because of his history of maligning women and that Trump has a personal woman problem.
"So, J.D. Vance was brought on board to, theoretically, court a wider audience, a younger audience, and maybe even a female audience but none of that worked," she told host Phang.
"I'm sorry, but women are not going back and that is what we are doing at the Seneca Project with our messaging to women," she continued. "We are seeing that there are so many women across party lines that share that sentiment. They may have voted for Donald Trump or Republicans in the past, but they are looking at this ticket, looking at those types of comments, and they are saying 'What is wrong with these people? We are not doing this.'"
"And J.D. Vance? I don't know who he is attracting with that," she added. "Donald Trump has completely unraveled. He cannot handle the fact that he may lose to a woman, and a woman of color — he cannot handle it. So we are watching this every single day, people are wish-casting on the Republican side that he stays on message, but his message is his disdain for women and for women of color. That is why he consistently insults women and has for his entire career."
On Saturday morning former Republican National Chairman Michael Steele jumped all over GOP vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance (R-OH) for his tepid response to Donald Trump's latest attack on U.S. military service members.
During a speech on Thursday, the former president downplayed the value of the Congressional Medal of Honor given to war heroes by stating the Presidential Medal of Freedom carries more value.
Responding to questions about Trump stating, "It's the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but civilian version — it's actually much better because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they're soldiers, they are even in very bad shape because they have been hit so many times by bullets or they are dead," all Vance could offer up was, "I don't think him complementing and saying a nice word about a person who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom is in any way denigrating those received military honors."
He then added, "They are two different awards. And think, the president was saying some nice things about a person he liked and that is a totally reasonable thing to do."
From his perch as a host of MSNBC's "The Weekend," a fuming Steele lectured, "This whole episode just sucks hard. You know, it strikes at the core of what we value as a country. Think about the men and women who, I mean, we don't have a conscripted army. No one is being forced into military service yet these men and women, for reasons only they know, it is a vocation, it is a calling to going to service knowing that you could face harm."
"To have a then president, now former president, denigrate that, but more importantly, to have his running mate, who himself is a member of that service, who wore that uniform, who stood next to those men and women who served with him, many of whom he knows and knew would go off and be harmed or killed, to stand there and to give credence and justification to that excuse-making on behalf of Donald Trump," he continued.
"Shame on you J.D.!" he exclaimed. "Shame on you. You dishonor the uniform that you wore and that, to me, when you listen to a Gold Star family member, who you can still hear the difficulty of having to consume that crap from Vance and Trump, we are shocked by it because that is just not who we are as a nation."
"We have never, in the 230 years of this country's history, done that until the last seven years or so," he added.
Speaking with host Michael Smerconish on Saturday morning, CNN contributor and Democratic strategist David Axelrod suggested Donald Trump's campaign leadership would be doing itself a major disservice if they allowed the former president to take the stage and debate Vice President Kamala Harris next month.
According to Axelrod, if Trump's performance lately in his so-called "press conferences" is indicative of his state of mind, Trump's inner circle is setting itself up for a nationally televised disaster.
Simply put, he told the host, the former president shows no sign of being "competent."
"He thought that he had won when we were in Milwaukee, the talk there was of a landslide and it felt like they were talking about the terms of surrender that they were going to demand and he felt very serene that he had beaten this," he told the host. "Now all of a sudden his life is flashing before his eyes, and I think it's one of the things that's unsettling him."
"But they sent him out yesterday to do a press conference, or two days ago, about the economy and his big challenge is to make her [Kamala Harris] the incumbent not the turn-the-page candidate and he wants to link her to [President Joe] Biden in a way that will make her the incumbent and that was what the press conference was all about."
"Instead, he blew himself up and spent ten minutes on his legal problems and lashing out in other places and he overwhelmed the message of his own press conference," he continued. "He is not a competent candidate right now and one of the questions about this debate is 'Is that the guy who's going to step on the debate stage?' Because, if it is, they've got a world of hurt."
Reflecting on changes in Donald Trump's campaign leadership structure, a former official who worked in the ex-president's administration predicted heads will roll because his re-election chances are now seriously in doubt.
Appearing on MSNBC's "The Weekend," Olivia Troye, one of leaders of Republicans Against Trump, admitted that she is surprised vice presidential candidate and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) hasn't been cast aside.
Speaking with co-host Michael Steele, Troye began. "Watching the campaign, I think it's imploded."
"What has happened here is they were caught flat-footed," she continued. "I think they have nothing to counter this powerful ticket of two relatable people who are out there actually campaigning, talking to voters everyday showing that they they truly identify with the challenges they face."
"What does Donald Trump have?" she asked. "I guess, you know, I don't know, country club owner, maybe, lots of bankruptcies, convicted felon. Then you have J.D. Vance, who denigrates women and talks about menopausal women, childless cat and dog ladies, I don't know where they're going with this."
'I think you're seeing a lot of turmoil there," she continued. "I wonder how long some of these people are going to stay in their roles ... I think Trump is grasping here, trying to figure out what to do because he really does have no plan, no actual policy objectives and it is just a bunch of mudslinging."
"You know, I'm surprised he still has J.D. Vance on the ticket, I keep wondering if he's going to bump him off," she added.
A CNN anchor forcefully pushed back Friday as she unsuccessfully tried to get a Florida Republican congressman and military veteran to retract his statement that President Joe Biden sees the troops as "disposable."
Brian Mast, who served in Afghanistan as an explosive ordinance disposal technician and lost his legs in 2010 when an IED detonated, joined Kaitlan Collins on "The Source."
"What [former] President Trump said was insightful," said Mast. "There's nobody that goes and seeks to win a Medal of Honor. There's no service member that goes out there and says, "I'm going to get that Medal of Honor,' because it's something that you earn because of the valor that you show under the most deadly combat circumstances. Nobody wants that just like nobody wants a Purple Heart."
When the conversation later steered to Trump's comments denigrating military service — such as his comments about the late Sen. John McCain and John Kelly — Mast accused Biden of "squandering" the service of troops in the Middle East.
"They squandered the service of every veteran that served in Afghanistan because of that withdrawal, because they failed to talk about the failures that exist there," he said.
When Collins pushed back, and said she wasn't sure that was a "fair" statement, Mast doubled down.
"I think it's fair — they see us as disposable," he said. "When President Biden goes out onto a tarmac, checks his watch ... they're seeing us as disposable individuals."
As Mast continued his tirade, accusing the Biden administration of trying to strip veterans who use the Department of Veterans Affairs of their community care, Collins tried to interject.
"But congressman we — I have to stop you," she said. "I think you can disagree with them on policy. Disagree with them on the Afghanistan exit, we've had plenty of Republicans who have. But to say that President Biden doesn't appreciate military service given his son, I think, you would agree that's an unfair comment."
Not to be deterred, Mast disagreed.
"I wouldn't say that at all," he said.
"To say that he takes it for granted is not fair," she replied.
"You're talking words of [former] President Trump versus literal actions from the Biden administration," said Mast.
Collins tried again: "His son served in the military, congressman."
"His son did serve in the military," Mast acknowledged, "but he's treating the rest of us like we are disposable. And we are not."
A Gold Star father who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the nation's highest civilian honor — slammed former President Donald Trump over his comments that the civilian honor is better than the Medal of Honor — the nation's highest military award — because the later is often given to soldiers wounded or killed in combat.
“I watched Sheldon sitting so proud in the White House when we gave Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom," Trump said. "That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian, it’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor."
He added: "But civilian version, it’s actually much better because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they're soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead. She gets it, and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman, and they’re rated equal, but she got the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and she got it for — and that’s through committees and everything else.”
Khizr Khan, father of fallen Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq saving the lives of his fellow soldiers, spoke with CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins on Friday night and rebuked Trump's comments.
"I was saddened and appalled. That's typical Trump — hate and division. These awards are acknowledgment of a grateful nation, of the service of the recipient. And to create a division and a comparison, each award has its own significance and we must honor the recipients equally," he said.
Khan said that is "beyond Trump," who must "create controversy and divide and create hate."
"He was being himself," said Khan. "He has inherent contempt of men and women serving in uniform and those who have served."
Khan pointed to an instance in 2018 in Paris on the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, in which Trump called troops "suckers and losers."
And on Memorial Day in 2017, during a visit to Arlington National Cemetary, Khan pointed to Trump asking his chief of staff what's in it for the soldiers.
John Kelly, the longest-serving White House chief of staff, confirmed reporting that Trump turning to him that day as they stood among those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
Khan, whose son is also buried in that section, said Trump has "no comprehension what sacrifice and service to country means."
"Time after time he has proven he has no capacity or capability — he is nothing but ego and appetite. Everywhere you see him speak, that is what is on display," said Khan.
GOP strategist Scott Jennings joined CNN's "OutFront" and sparred with Democratic strategist Aisha Mills.
After a clip played of Harris talking about the economy, Jennings called the vice president's characterization a "searing indictment of the conditions of the country."
"She was very effective at laying out how hard hit the American people have been by the policies of the Biden-Harris agenda," he said, pointing to inflationary prices on food, and high housing costs due to a shortage of housing.
"She and Joe Biden are in charge, and she has directly cast votes that have led to these conditions," he added.
Jennings then turned to Harris' unveiling of her plan to attack price-gouging.
"That is a total canard," he said. "This is not true. This is made up," he said, arguing it's a deflection tactic meant to distract from the root causes of inflation.
Jennings said there is no price-gouging at low-margin grocery stores, and said price-caps would lead to "bread lines, product shortages, black markets [and] hoarding."
"If you want to re-create the economic conditions of 'The Walking Dead,' Kamala Harris has a plan for you," he said.
The fiery rant prompted laughter and pushback from Mills, who said, "Every single Republican administration has had a horrible economy."
"They've sunk the economy, whether it's been inflation going up, whether it's been costs, whether it's been unemployment — every single Democratic administration, whether it was Clinton or Obama, and now we're seeing it with Biden-Harris, you've seen there be a reckoning and a right-sizing of the metrics that affect peoples' lives."
After Mills pointed to trickle-down economics as evidence that GOP-led economic policies don't help most people, Jennings insisted on responding.
"It's just simply not true that the economy is good right now and it's not good from a price perspective and not good in the minds of everyday people," he said.
He pointed to Biden's mid-30s approval ratings as evidence that people aren't satisfied with the state of the economy. If it were true, he said, that Biden was the "savior of the economy" a GOP-led economic turndown, he'd "still be running for president."
Mills immediately interjected, forcefully insisting, "That's not what I said."
As the two talked over one another, Mills tells Jennings, "Don't twist my words, Scott. That's not what I said."
"Yeah, it is," he fired back. "You did."
As Mills tried to insist Biden had to clean up the economy left by former President Donald Trump, Jennings retorted: "Then why isn't Biden running?"
"Because Kamala Harris is running on the same record! Kamala Harris is running on the same record, dude," she said, adding with a smile: "Catch up with us."
The Lincoln Project said Friday it received the letter over its ad, "Failures," which attacks top Trump advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles.
"They got it wrong," the ad says before playing a clip of President Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 presidential race. "They told you that Biden should never quit — that you should spend all that time, all that money, so much money, focusing on Biden. How he's too old."
"Now it's Harris. She's younger than you — by a lot. Faster on her feet. Better than Biden was on camera. They were wrong. But they're wrong a lot. Wrong that Vance would help you. You know he's terrible. Wrong that you have the race sewn up. It's sad, Donald. They spend more time trying to keep you under control than trying to win. More time trying to keep you from looking at what they're spending. What they're doing behind your back. Sad."
The ad later questions, "If Susie and Chris got it so wrong, what else have they screwed up?"
The Lincoln Project blasted the two in a news release Friday afternoon as "losers" who "can’t stand to be laughed at or mocked."
The group defended the ad, saying that LaCivita and Wiles "apparently didn’t appreciate that our ad states the obvious–Chris and Susie have royally screwed up Trump’s campaign and selected for him the weirdest ever VP candidate — kookier even than Sarah Palin."
The organization then went on the offensive, attacking the MAGA leader, saying his campaign is in "shambles" along with "his mind," and mocking his decision to bring back Corey Lewandowski "to babysit" Wiles and LaCivita.
"Someone needs to tell Trump, Vance, Lewandowski, LaCivita, and Wiles that there’s no crying in politics," the group said, jabbing them as it suggested they stand to lose their jobs, which pay their "astronomical CONsulting fees."
"We would even feel bad for them if they cared about the country more than money and power. Regardless, if they can’t take the heat, they should probably stay out of the proverbial kitchen," The Lincoln Project said, insisting the ad will remain up.
