SCRANTON, Pa. — At an incredibly loud and boisterous rally in Northeast Pennsylvania, Donald Trump made fun of Bill Clinton’s Democratic convention speech and generally kept the focus on the party.
“He didn’t mention my favorite chapter. He left one chapter out,” Trump said. “When he started the speech last night, he said ‘I met a girl,’ and I said that’s politically incorrect!”
“Then he said, ‘and then I grabbed her,’ and I said ‘boy this is getting really crazy, now what’s going on?'” Trump said. “And then when he said that, I knew that my favorite chapter would happen, and it didn’t happen! He didn’t talk about the kinds of things we want to hear about.”
The comments came hours before President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, as well as vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine, were set to address the convention. He also took aim at outgoing Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, calling her a “disaster,” before questioning Clinton’s loyalty to the party leader who helped her rig the system on her behalf.
“She was very, very disloyal,” Trump said of Clinton’s involvement in the DNC chair’s exit. “Now, the last person that I like is Debbie Wasserman Schultz. This person is a disaster and she has been for a long time … But think of how disloyal Hillary Clinton was to Debbie. Think of it! This was her crooked person This was her dishonest person. This was her person that was rigging the system for her.”
“We’ll take our Reince Priebus any day!” Trump said at one point, before turning to the DNC’s emails being hacked, possibly by the Russians. The real estate mogul dismissed Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook’s claim that he had a hand in the hack and subsequent release of 20,000 emails from the party but noted that he wishes he had that kind of power.
“I’m sitting there watching saying ‘what did I do?!’ … I wish I had that power. Man, that would be power,” Trump said. Earlier in the day at a press conference, Trump told Russia that he hopes they are “able to find” the 30,000 emails that Clinton deleted off of her private server.
He also briefly lamented Bernie Sanders officially losing the nomination on Tuesday during the roll call vote. Trump said he felt bad for “poor Bernie,” adding that “he just wants to go home and go to sleep” after this convention.
This was Trump’s third stop in Pennsylvania since he became the presumptive nominee, which has become a must-win for any potential November success. Reps. Lou Barletta and Tom Marino, two of Trump’s earliest supporters on Capitol Hill, were in attendance and spoke to supporters about an hour before Trump took the stage.
At one point, Trump made reference to the importance of the state, making this known to Republican Party of Pennsylvania Chairman Rob Gleason.
“If I don’t win this state, you’ll never be standing again,” Trump joking told Gleason.
