As far as President Trump is concerned, there are four issues that will define the 2018 midterm elections, to be held on Nov. 6: “Kavanaugh, the caravan, law and order, and common sense.”
Stumping for Republican senate candidate Matt Rosendale at a rally in Montana on Thursday night, Trump touched on a number of issues, including perhaps most controversially, then-Congressional candidate Greg Gianforte’s body slam of journalist Ben Jacobs last year. Trump recalled the incident at the rally, praising Gianforte.
“Never wrestle him. Never. Any guy that can do a body slam, he’s my kind of, he’s my guy,” Trump said.
Trump also took the opportunity to elaborate on the four themes of the elections in his estimation. On Kavanaugh, Trump said that “what they [the Democrats] did to Brett Kavanaugh and his beautiful family is a national disgrace that will not soon be forgotten.”
Trump riled up the crowd, yelling that Sen. Dianne Feinstein “leaked” the letter that Christine Blasey Ford wrote to her about her alleged assault at the hands of Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh. “Come Election Day,” Trump said, “Americans will remember Kavanaugh.”
The caravan to which Trump referred is a several thousand person strong march of people making their way from Honduras to the U.S. While many of them are migrants, some are reportedly participating as an “act of protest” against Trump’s immigration policies. Trump warned that he is “willing to send the military to protect our southern border if necessary,” a point he echoed in a tweet on Thursday.
“I must, in the strongest of terms, ask Mexico to stop this onslaught—and if unable to do so I will call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!” He wrote. He further demanded that a wall get built at the border and blamed illegal immigration on Democrats, claiming they are the party of “open borders” and “crime.”
Trump went on to jokingly suggest that he would take the blame for illegal immigration, because he “created such an incredible economy” and “created so many jobs” that “everybody wants to come in.”
“The choice could not be more clear,” he concluded. “Democrats produce mobs. Republicans produce jobs.”