Prediction and profanity: In Minnesota, Trump says he will win the traditionally Democratic state
Former President Trump used a day off from his hush money trial to headline a Republican fundraiser in Minnesota, a traditionally Democratic state that he boasts he can carry in November.
Trump took the stage late as he headlined the state GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan dinner in St. Paul after attending his son Barron’s high school graduation in Florida.
He declared his appearance to be “an official expansion” of the electoral map of states that could be competitive in November.
“This November the people of Minnesota are going to tell Crooked Joe Biden — right? ‘The Apprentice’? ’You’re fired!’ ” Trump said, referencing his former reality television show and the catchphrase he used on it.
Trump boasted that the steep tariffs he imposed on foreign steel while serving as president brought the Iron Range, the iron-mining area of northeastern Minnesota, “roaring back to life.” The area, with a heavy population of blue-collar workers and union workers, used to be solidly Democratic, but the region has been trending Republican in recent elections.
The star prosecution witness in Donald Trump’s New York hush money trial, Michael Cohen, has taken the stand.
He also made a profane attack on President Biden and called him “a horrible human being,” then attacked his golf game.
Trump was using part of the day granted by the trial judge for the graduation to campaign in Minnesota, which no Republican presidential candidate has won since Richard Nixon in 1972. In 2016, Trump fell 1.5 percentage points short of Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Biden beat Trump by more than 7 percentage points. Trump on Friday night repeated a false claim that he won Minnesota in the 2020 election, wrongly declaring he won “a landslide in your state.” There’s no evidence that there were any serious irregularities in the state.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota, a Biden ally, said the Trump campaign is “grasping at straws” if it thinks he can win the state. “The Biden campaign is going to work hard for every vote.”
The dinner coincided with the party’s state convention and the roughly 1,400 attendees included former U.S. Sen. Rudy Boschwitz and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, who has been a prominent promoter of false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
Tickets for the dinner started at $500, ranging up to $100,000 for a VIP table for 10 with three photo opportunities with Trump.
Trump’s youngest son, Barron , graduated Friday morning from the private Oxbridge Academy in West Palm Beach, Fla. The former president, who attended the graduation with his wife, Melania Trump, and her father, Viktor Knavs, had long complained that Judge Juan M. Merchan would not let him attend the graduation before Merchan agreed not to hold court Friday.
On Saturday afternoon, Trump was in Texas to address members of the National Rifle Assn.
Associated Press writer Karnowski reported from St. Paul, Price from New York.
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