Donald Trump Jr. rallies Iowans in Cedar Rapids as Election Day nears
Donald Trump Jr. hosted a Make America Great Again rally in Cedar Rapids a week before Election Day, telling people to encourage their friends and family to go vote in these final days
The president’s son and Executive Vice President of The Trump Organization Donald Trump Jr. speaks during a Trump rally on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2020 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Cedar Rapids. Trump Jr. encouraged around 200 people who were in attendance to vote in the upcoming election and to support all of the Republican candidates on the ballot.
October 27, 2020
With just one more week until Election Day, Donald Trump Jr. rallied more than 200 people in Cedar Rapids, slamming Joe Biden and the Democratic Party as being a “socialist, Marxist party.”
“The Democrats have nominated the most compromised candidate in the history of the U.S. presidency,” Trump Jr. said.
Donald Trump Jr. hosted a Make America Great Again rally in Cedar Rapids Tuesday night to rally Iowa Republicans ahead of Nov. 3. President Trump held a rally in Iowa earlier in the month and Vice President Pence will host a rally on Thursday in Des Moines.
The Cook Political Report is now considering Iowa as a state that could be a toss up in light of tight polling between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden. With Election Day near, campaigns are making their swings through Iowa in an attempt to win the state’s six electoral votes.
As said by other Republicans in the state, Trump Jr. said the Democratic Party is no longer “your grandparent’s Democratic Party.” Trump Jr. said the Democratic Party does not represent hard working Americans and that he has more blue-collar job experience than Biden.
“I’m the son of a billionaire from Manhattan and I’ve had more blue-collar jobs than Joe Biden,” Trump Jr. said.
Trump Jr. is Donald Trump’s eldest son and a trustee and executive vice president of the Trump Organization. Trump Jr. was a boardroom judge on Donald Trump’s reality television show The Apprentice and now serves on his presidential campaign.
While PolitiFact and other political operatives have identified Biden as a moderate Democrat, Trump Jr. said he won’t be moderate with Kamala Harris as his vice president. Trump Jr. said Biden would implement the Green New Deal and eliminate American energy.
Biden’s climate plan says that the Green New Deal offers a “crucial framework,” but Biden has not endorsed the Green New Deal legislation. His plan also calls for net-zero carbon emissions in 50 years, and Trump Jr. claimed this plan would “eliminate American energy.”
Trump Jr. talked about getting put in “Facebook jail” for posts that Facebook flagged as having misinformation. Trump Jr. was temporarily suspended from Twitter in late July for posting coronavirus misinformation and similar information has been removed from Facebook as well.
Trump Jr. asked the audience who else has been put in “Facebook jail” and a handful of audience members raised their hands.
Trump Jr. slammed Biden’s COVID-19 mitigation plans, and similar to the Iowa politicos who gave speeches earlier in the night, Trump Jr. said shutting down the economy is the wrong way to approach the pandemic.
In terms of COVID-19 safety protocols taken at the rally, temperatures were taken upon entrance and chairs were spaced six feet apart. Social distancing guidelines were quickly broken when people lined up to take photos with Reynolds and Hinson before the event. Attendees were also gathered along the perimeter of the a room in the Veteran’s Memorial Center.
Jacquelyn Herr and Emma Aquino-Nemecek are both retired Cedar Rapids residents who volunteer for Linn County Republican Women. Both women have been doing grassroots organizing for the Trump campaign since 2016 and showed up to Trump Jr.’s rally wearing “Women for Trump” hats.
“We voted for a president, not for a saint — he’s not a saint,” Aquino-Nemecek said of some of Trump’s language that is often deemed as locker-room talk. “He’s a sinner just like you and I, and that doesn’t mean that he’s not a good person. He’s the best president ever. And that’s because he delivers.”
Aquino Nemecek, the president of the Linn County Republican Women, said she immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines about 28 years ago, and she likes Trump’s tough stance on immigration policy. She said that she went through the expensive process of coming to the U.S. legally, and that other people should have to go through the same process.
“It’s a slap on my face and the rest of the people that I know who aren’t originally from this country for somebody to just go ahead and cross the border and get a free pass,” she said.
Also in attendance at the rally was Gov. Kim Reynolds, 1st Congressional District candidate Ashley Hinson, former Iowa governor and Chinese Ambassador Terry Branstad, and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue.
Hinson stumped before Trump Jr.’s speech, saying she hopes to be Reynolds’ partner in Washington D.C. to bring Iowa’s voice to Congress.
Reynolds also gave remarks and touted Iowa’s budget resiliency during the pandemic. She added that 80 percent of Iowa’s K-12 schools opened their doors to students and voiced support for Trump’s handling of the pandemic.
Joe Biden is also scheduled to make an appearance in the state on Friday — his first campaign event in Iowa since the caucuses.
