When news broke that former President Donald Trump planned to hold a dial-in rally on the eve of Virginia’s gubernatorial election in support of Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin, former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe and his campaign went into overdrive.
Tweets went out. McAuliffe mentioned it on the campaign trail. Fundraising emails led with news of the rally.
When it came time for the actual event, Trump spoke for just under six minutes, hardly delivering a crazed screed or diatribe that McAuliffe built it up to be. The entire call, including an introduction and wrap-up by former White House aide Mercedes Schlapp, lasted about 11 minutes.
“Glenn’s running against, as you know, very shady Terry McAuliffe. I know him very well,” Trump said. “Something happened with him. He was not a successful governor. He was not a good governor. But he’s gotten worse in the sense that he’s made a corrupt bargain with the radical left, the extremists who now control the Democrat party. He probably had no choice.”
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Trump’s dial-in “rally” was similar in length to similar events he’s held for other candidates, and he repeated many of the same sentiments that he sent earlier in the day in statements.
Trump said McAuliffe would “massively raise taxes,” is “following their lead defunding the police,” and would “shred your Second Amendment.”
“He’s an apologist, and that’s all you can say on critical race theory. It just entered his vocabulary a while ago, and now it’s there, and now he’s trying to get out of it because he sees what it’s doing to his numbers,” Trump said. “He actually said, ‘I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should be teaching.’”
In a disciplined monologue, Trump did not question the integrity of Virginia elections or bring up his claim that President Joe Biden stole the 2020 election, a subject that he touched on in a different call into an October pro-Youngkin rally that his former adviser Steve Bannon led.
It is a core campaign message for McAuliffe to tie Youngkin to the former president, despite his having a drastically different temperament and political approach — going so far as to spout flat-out falsehoods.
“Guess how Glenn Youngkin is finishing his campaign? He is doing an event with Donald Trump here in Virginia,” McAuliffe said at an event in Fairfax, Virginia, at around the time Trump spoke on the phone rally. “Glenn Youngkin is closing his event with Donald Trump here in Virginia.”
Youngkin, a first-time candidate and former private equity executive, had no role in planning Trump’s tele-rally and did not join the call. Across the state, before the call at a campaign rally in Virginia Beach, Youngkin did not mention Trump once.
Youngkin has walked a tightrope in his campaign, keeping the former president at arm’s length without disavowing him or alienating his supporters. The strategy appears to be working for him, pushing him to a slight lead in FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics polling averages.
Trump, though, is eager to dispel the narrative that he is toxic to a Republican in a state that President Joe Biden won by 10 points.
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“He’s a fantastic guy,” Trump said of Youngkin on the call. “I’ve gotten to know him so well and our relationship is great. The fake news media would like to say something else because they’d like our big, giant, beautiful base, like there’s never been before, to not vote as much as they’re going to.”
“Glenn Younkin has had an enormously successful career in business as most of you know, running a very incredible company that employed hundreds of people,” Trump said. “He’ll be on your taxes and keeping them low. They’re going to raise them through the sky. And he’ll make Virginia really the envy of the world. You’ll watch, and he’ll be able to do it and won’t even be that hard.”
