In Missouri, Trump Makes Midterm Vote About Himself

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — President Donald Trump cast the midterm elections as a referendum on him and his agenda, arguing on Friday that a vote for any Democrat would empower “dangerous” and “crazy” people and sap the Republican Party’s fragile congressional majorities.

“Get out in 2018, because you’re voting for me in 2018,” Trump told thousands of supporters in the JQH Arena on the campus of Missouri State University. “They aren’t just extreme,” he said of Democrats. “They are frankly dangerous, and they are crazy.”

Trump came here, to a state he won by 19 percentage points in 2016, to boost Josh Hawley, the Republican attorney general who is challenging Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, in a race that Republicans regard as one of their best opportunities this year to pick up a Democratic seat. Polls show the two in a statistical tie, and the outcome could be critical in determining who controls the Senate, where Republicans hold a 51-to-49 edge.

But the event, like all of the campaign stops the president has held across the country in the run-up to the midterm elections, looked and sounded more like a boisterous re-election pep rally for Trump himself than a well-coordinated effort to lift the candidate who is set to face voters in November.

Hawley had only five minutes at the lectern, which he spent effusively praising Trump and savaging McCaskill for not being supportive of him. He criticized the senator for mocking the president’s vows to build a border wall, for opposing the tax cut Trump pushed through, and for coming out in opposition to Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee who is facing an accusation of sexual assault.

“When he makes a promise, he keeps it,” Hawley said of Trump. “When he makes a commitment, he delivers.”

“In 2016, this man and you made history,” Hawley told the crowd, adding that in his race, “everything that you voted for is on the line.”

The president noted that McCaskill had opposed Kavanaugh’s nomination, calling him “a fantastic man” and saying that he was confident the judge would be confirmed because he had been groomed for the position his whole life.

“He was born for the United States Supreme Court — he was born for it — and it’s going to happen,” Trump said.

He also appeared to allude to a report published earlier in the day about Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general overseeing the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, saying that there was a “lingering stench” in the FBI. Rosenstein had discussed recording the president in the White House and the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office, the report said.

“Just look at what is now being exposed in the Department of Justice and the FBI,” Trump said. “We have great people in the Department of Justice, but you have some real bad ones. You see what happened at the FBI. They’re all gone, but there’s a lingering stench, and we’re going to get rid of that, too.”

Thousands of supporters waved cardboard signs and wore hats bearing Trump’s election slogans — “Make America Great Again,” “Keep America Great” and “Drain the Swamp” — while two large placards bracketing a giant American flag declared “Promises Made” and “Promises Kept,” the argument the president has been making about his first two years in office.

Signs in support of Hawley were few and far between, and the digital banner around the arena directed people to send a text to Trump’s campaign, not Hawley’s, to sign up as supporters. Outside, vendors sold Trump paraphernalia, and attendees could take photographs in front of a large likeness of the president pictured in front of American flags, flashing a thumbs-up sign.

The president spoke at length about how his candidacy and electoral victory in 2016 had defied predictions, inviting his cheering audience to relive the night of the election with him. He imitated news anchors calling states in his favor and described his election as “one of the greatest nights in the history of our country, but far less importantly, one of the greatest nights in the history of television.”

The dynamic reflected the strategy Trump has embraced as he campaigns for Republicans this year, hoping to transfer his own popularity among core party supporters to candidates who need a highly motivated base of voters to succeed. But it carries risks as well; the president’s popularity here has declined since 2016, with a recent NBC News/Marist poll showing his unfavorable rating at 50 percent. And Republicans concede that his unique brand of popularity may not be transmittable to others on the ballot. “If he was on the ballot, there would be no question we would win both” the House and Senate, Rep. Billy Long, R-Mo., told the crowd as he warmed up the arena before Trump’s appearance. “Without it, we need your support.”

Trump acknowledged the challenge and the historical trend against the president’s party holding Congress in midterm elections, saying: “I know that the votes are sort of against us, but I don’t know why. We have the greatest economy in history.”

Praising Hawley as a star, Trump criticized McCaskill as a slave to Democratic leaders who had opposed his agenda at every turn, charging that she wanted to give unauthorized immigrants health care and education benefits.

“Democrats even want to give welfare and free health care to illegal aliens, all paid for by you, the great American taxpayer,” Trump said, twisting their position. “Republicans want to protect the safety net for truly needy Americans, not for illegal aliens.”

He was apparently referring to his administration’s proposal, under consideration for months, to punish immigrants for accepting food stamps, public housing and other government benefits to which they are entitled — but with one major mischaracterization: The rule would apply to legal immigrants, not people who are unauthorized. Trump argued that Democrats sought to undercut the legitimacy of his presidency, casting the coming elections as a culture war in which his supporters must fight to protect their way of life.

“The so-called resistance doesn’t accept the will of the American people. They don’t believe you have the right to run your own country, control your own lives, or defend the country’s borders, traditions and heritage,” Trump said. “This November, you will make your voice heard just like you did two Novembers ago, in the most exciting evening ever.”

As he recited a litany of warnings about Democrats, charging they would destroy Medicare, throw open U.S. borders to criminal immigrants and erode financial gains, Trump only rarely paused to remember the man for whom he was ostensibly campaigning.

“And Josh,” he remarked at one point, as if out of the blue. “Josh will help a lot.”