Trump delivers shorter-than-usual speech at chilly rally
Exactly two weeks from Election Day, President Trump delivered a shorter-than-normal speech at a packed rally in cold Erie, Pennsylvania, Tuesday night where he continued to downplay the pandemic despite surging cases around the country and claimed Joe Biden would bring "depression, doom and despair" if elected.
Trump, who remarked how cold it was (about 50 degrees and windy) multiple times throughout the night, spoke for only 57 minutes Tuesday night after holding back-to-back rallies in Arizona on Sunday. After spending the last few days raging at the press, Dr. Anthony Fauci (who was not mentioned), and calling for multiple opponents to be locked up -- the president's speech Tuesday night was tamer by Trump's standards.
The president blasted Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf for keeping restrictions on the state amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and not fully opening up the economy, with Trump continuing to claim that the U.S. is "rounding the turn" and eager to return to "normal life."
"We're rounding the turn on the pandemic -- 56%, and it's a record. Epic job growth. Safe vaccines that quickly end the pandemic. It’s ending. Normal life -- that's all we want," he said. "You know what we want? Normal life. Normal life will finally resume, and next year will be the greatest economic year in the history of our country."
But the U.S. is far from "rounding the turn" with over 41 states seeing increases in COVID-19 cases and 42 seeing an increase in hospitalizations, according to The COVID Tracking Project. Trump tried using Florida as an example of a state that previously saw a spike, recovered and opened up their economy, but the state is now also seeing an increase in cases, positivity rate, hospitalizations and daily deaths.
"You know, Florida’s open. All these -- Florida had a surge, great governor, surge went down," Trump said. "Arizona had a surge, went down -- great governor. Texas had a surge, went down. You guys never opened. What the hell is going on in Pennsylvania, right?"
First lady Melania Trump, who had been scheduled to appear, ended up canceling due to a lingering cough.
-ABC News' Will Steakin