In what may be his final tour of Wisconsin before Tuesday’s election, former President Donald Trump returned to the Milwaukee arena where he formally accepted the Republican Party’s presidential nomination a few months ago.
Trump told his supporters Friday night at the Fiserv Forum that if he is elected, “America will be bigger, better, bolder, richer, safer and stronger than ever before.”
It wasn’t until July that Trump took the stage at the Fiserv Forum during the Republican National Convention to formally accept the party’s nomination during the four-day event.
Vice President Kamala Harris then took over the RNC venue for a rally of her own during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.
And on Friday, Harris held a competitive rally and concert just six miles away at the Wisconsin State Fair Exposition Center.
Trump and Harris each hope to win this battleground as they vie for the White House.
Here are some takeaways from Trump’s Milwaukee rally:
Trump criticizes the economy, the jobs report shows
Trump labeled the latest jobs report “pathetic” and said the economy “stinks.”
The jobs report shows that hiring slowed significantly as employers added only 12,000 jobs in October. Two hurricanes in the Southeast and several worker strikes were expected to lower the total, but it was still much lower than expected, USA TODAY reported.
The unemployment rate remained stable at 4.1%, the Labor Ministry said on Friday.
He also promoted tariffs – taxes imposed by the government when foreign goods enter the US – saying it was “the most beautiful word in the entire dictionary.”
“You’re going to get so rich with the word tariff,” he told the crowd.
Economists say tariffs would result in higher prices for consumers.
Microphone problem irritates Trump: ‘I’m working to death with this stupid microphone’
Trump pulled the microphone from its stand relatively early in his speech when people in the audience said they couldn’t hear.
Finally he held the microphone and after a while he started complaining that it was heavy.
“Do you want to see me beat the shit out of people backstage? …I’m seething here. I’m working my butt off with this stupid microphone,” Trump said. “I’m blowing out my left arm, now I’m blowing out my right arm and I’m blowing out my damn throat too, because of these stupid people.”
His discussion of the microphone issue continued for a while, including mimicking the microphone stand being too low. At one point he seemed to get tired of holding it.
RFK Jr. tells Trump supporters as they cast their votes: ‘Don’t vote for me’
Former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Trump supporters to vote for Trump and not him.
Kennedy, who dropped out of the presidential race in August and endorsed Trump, is still on the ballot in Wisconsin and Michigan.
He filed a lawsuit to remove himself from the Wisconsin ballot in early September, but Wisconsin law states that anyone who files nomination papers and is eligible to appear on the ballot — which Kennedy did — cannot be denied the nomination.
Republicans worry he could pull votes from Trump in Wisconsin and Michigan — two key battleground states.
“If you go to the polling booth on Tuesday, you will see my name on the ballot,” he said. ‘I don’t want your vote. I want you to vote for Donald Trump.”
Trump falsely claims he won Wisconsin twice
Trump claimed he won Wisconsin twice, when in fact he only won the battleground state in the 2016 presidential election, but not in 2020.
“I won it, despite your difficulty,” he said of 2016. “I actually won it twice, but these are small details.”
In 2020, voters gave President Joe Biden a victory by about 21,000 votes, after electing Trump by a similar margin just four years earlier. The state’s 2020 election results have been confirmed by recounts paid for by Trump, court rulings, a nonpartisan state audit and an investigation by a prominent conservative group.
Just like during the RNC, the crowd mimics Trump’s gaze
At the RNC, supporters wore mesh, cotton or napkin ear patches similar to the ones Trump wore to the convention after surviving an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania a few days earlier.
Trump on Friday recalled the patch he was wearing.
“We had a little event here, you know. … That was the convention,” he said of the Fiserv Forum, adding that he was “a little embarrassed walking out with a rag.”
On Friday, in addition to their distinctive red hats, some supporters added yellow or orange safety vests, an imitation of the reflective vest Trump wore on Wednesday at a rally near Green Bay.
The vest was meant to highlight President Joe Biden’s apparent reference to Trump supporters as “garbage,” in response to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash” during a Trump rally on Sunday in New York.
Biden and the White House quickly tried to clarify that Biden was specifically referring to Hinchcliffe. Harris also distanced himself from Biden’s comment.
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson slams Trump ahead of meeting at Fiserv Forum
In a statement from Harris’ campaign, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson recalled Trump’s comments ahead of the RNC, in which he called Milwaukee a “terrible city.”
“Donald Trump calls us a ‘terrible’ city and spends every visit here complaining about his own problems instead of proposing solutions to improve our lives,” Johnson said. “That’s not what Milwaukee and Wisconsin are about.”
Johnson, a Democrat and outspoken supporter of the vice president, said Harris would “fight for all of us and set a hopeful, more optimistic vision for the future.”
Lawrence Andrea of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this story.
Alison Dirr can be reached at adirr@jrn.com.
This article originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Takeaways from Donald Trump’s return to the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee
