President Trump slammed Democratic Senate candidate Phil Bredesen at a rally on Tuesday, claiming the former Tennessee governor would be a “total tool” of congressional Democratic leaders if he wins the seat this fall.
The Tuesday night rally in Nashville was intended to help Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who is running against Bredesen to fill retiring GOP Sen. Bob Corker’s seat. But the president spent most of his time criticizing Blackburn’s opponent and railing against Democratic leaders for their recent attacks against his rhetoric on immigration and MS-13.
“So Marsha’s very liberal Democratic opponent, Phil Bredesen, I never heard of this guy. He’s an absolute tool of Chuck Schumer and of course the MS-13 lover, Nancy Pelosi,” Trump told the crowd.
Echoing a line of attack he first used at the Susan B. Anthony gala last week, Trump claimed Pelosi, the Democratic House minority leader from California, “loves MS-13,” a transnational criminal organization that operates under the motto, “kill, rape, control.”
Pelosi and Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader from New York, both condemned Trump earlier this month after he used the word “animals” to refer to members of the MS-13 gang.
[Related: Kellyanne Conway: Critics of Trump’s ‘animals’ comment owe him an apology]
“I said they’re animals and she said, ‘How dare you say that,'” Trump told his Nashville crowd, adding that MS-13 has “transformed once peaceful, beautiful communities … into bloodstained killing fields.”
Trump continued, “Democrats have opposed every common-sense measure necessary to stop this horrendous scourge of crime, to dismantle MS-13, and to stop illegal immigration.”
The president urged his supporters in Tennessee to back Blackburn in the November midterm elections to ensure his administration the ability to tighten loopholes that allow criminal illegal immigrants to enter the U.S.
“We have to get the votes. We need the votes. Phil, whatever the hell his name is, this guy will 100 percent vote against us every single time,” he said of Bredesen. “We need Marsha Blackburn to win.”
