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The former president’s latest endorsement included some custom headgear and affirmation of what tariffs could do for American industry.

Stumping through a swing state added up to scoring wins in steel country for former President Donald Trump during a rally in the hometown of golf great Arnold Palmer. Gathered at the airport in Latrobe, Pennsylvania named for the pro, the GOP leader asked President Ronald Reagan’s famed question as steelworkers showed their support with the gift of a hardhat.

“The president saved the steel industry with tariffs, you saved it with tariffs. And you’re my hero, and you’re the greatest president ever. We love you. So steelworkers for Trump and the rank-and-file Mon Valley Works wanted to endorse you,” said one of the union local members as a white hardhat that read “PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP” was proudly adorned by the onetime commander-in-chief.

As he had kicked off the rally, Trump had notably posed the question that then-former California Gov. Reagan had asked President Jimmy Carter during their second debate, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

Later on, during the rally, as he explained how three U.S. Steel union locals were endorsing him, the president specifically spoke to how the policies embraced by the Democratic Party had harmed industry in the Keystone State.

“For most of American history, Pennsylvania was the commercial and industrial powerhouse of the United States. But year after year, globalist radical left politicians and incompetents like [Vice President] Kamala Harris have waged a war on your commonwealth,” he said. “They’ve annihilated your steel mills, decimated your coal jobs, assaulted your oil and gas jobs, and sold off your manufacturing jobs to China and foreign nations all over the world. Under the Trump administration, we are going to take back what is ours.”

Specifically calling out the vice president, the Republican nominee told the crowd, “So if we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole damn thing, right? And starting on day one of my new administration, I will end Kamala Harris’ war on Pennsylvania energy. Because, you know, she’s going to ban — you know she’s going to ban fracking, right? 100%.”

“You know, she was against fracking, against all this stuff. And then all of a sudden, about a year-and-a-half ago, when she was getting killed in the polls, she said, I like fracking very much,” the president contended.

Meanwhile, to the steelworkers point, Trump talked up the benefits of tariffs in dealing with China during his administration to prevent what he referred to as “dirty steel,” bad structurally, from coming in. “I put a big tariff and it all stopped when I did that.”

Looking back, the president attributed tariffs to the great wealth the United States had at the end of the 19th century with an eye on being as prosperous again.

As the importance of the commonwealth, along with “blue wall” counterparts Michigan and Wisconsin, loomed larger with little more than two weeks remaining before Election Day and early voting underway, Trump added, “Pennsylvania, if you want to end this disaster, you must get out and vote. You have to go and vote. Get everybody you can.”

Kevin Haggerty
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