Travel pool note #5: Remarks over/ departure

President Trump ended his remarks at 4:53 pm

Pool was escorted out at the same time.

Motorcade was rolling to airport at 4:57 pm.

Some highlights to check against transcript:

Trump began by urging his supporters to vote early, and, toward the end of his speech, predicted he would shoulder the blame if Republicans lost the midterms but receive little credit if they won: “If we don’t win the midterms, they’re going to blame me, you know that. If we do win them, I will get no credit whatsoever. It’s true, I won’t get it.”

In a riff on changing the names of large bodies of water, Trump quipped that he might next rename the Atlantic or Pacific oceans: "So we need a river. We need an ocean. So I was thinking of either the Atlantic or the Pacific. We call it Trump Ocean. Or ocean of the Americas, something like that. We know we have to have, we should have, before I get out, I think we should have an ocean. And we need a great river."

Trump drew loud cheers when he told the crowd at one point, "Let's get off teleprompter."

He spoke about tariffs, closing the border, promised to enshrine into law a ban on men playing in women’s sports, and deliver $5,000 checks to Americans if Republicans win in November, calling it the “Trump dividend.”

He touted investments including $6 billion by Korea Zinc in Montgomery County and Smith County and a $275 million announcement by GM into the Spring Hill manufacturing facility.

On Kamala Harris’s prospects as a future presidential candidate, Trump said, “I don’t think so, I don’t know — who the hell knows? You never know in politics, Bill, do you?”

He praised the Tennessee delegation and said he doesn’t feel that way everywhere he travels: “I’m not happy with all congresspeople … I go to some states, I say, I’m not going to even mention their name.”

He said of Iran, “They are sort of calming down. They'll probably do a little bit extra before the election thinking it's going to hurt us, but we could end it really quick. They don't know how nice I’ve been to them.”

On trade with Canada, he said: “They're not entitled. We don't need their cars. We don't need anything that they have. And we lost a lot of money with them. … I like the national anthem O Canada, but I don't really have to listen to it. And we don't need hockey sticks. We don't need face masks. We don't need this kind of stuff. They sell us. We don't need it. So we'll see how it all turns out."

During the rally, someone in the crowd held up a sign that read: “TRUMP, I may only be 12 but I can be your next KAROLINE LEAVITT."

Katherine Doyle
The Washington Post