At a packed rally in Moon Township, Pennsylvania late Tuesday, President Donald Trump praised U.S. energy independence and said that he is “all for fracking,” and told supporters that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is against “oil, guns, and God.”
“Under my administration, we proudly achieved energy independence,” Trump said, to applause.
Trump drew attention to Biden while talking about energy.
“I am not the candidate—two, two candidates—that said ‘we’re not going to have fracking, we’re going to ban fracking,’ and he said that for a year,” Trump said of Biden. “Then all of a sudden [Biden] said ‘well maybe we’ll have some fracking.’ By the way, you know that’s not going to last because the radical left won’t let him get away with it. And I’m all for fracking.”
Biden in late August said that he will not ban fracking. Previously, Biden said at a March democratic primary debate “No more—no new fracking.” Biden’s campaign then said he meant he would not allow new federal land-drilling leases. The Trump campaign said that the Biden campaign was “attempting to walk back his previous statements after realizing voters aren’t happy about his proposal to kill thousands of jobs.”
Trump during his speech joked about Democratic opponents at large who “don’t want petroleum products” and their support for wind energy.
“They want wind, ‘let’s open up wind, let’s have some wind,’ and every once in a while the wind will blow and you’ll produce a couple of things, and then you can—then you can close down your plant for the rest of the season. You can watch those birds fly out of the sky,” he joked.
“Gee, I always say it’s a bird graveyard under the windmills,” Trump continued. “It doesn’t have the power. It doesn’t have the staying power. Do you see what’s happening in California? Blackouts, rolling blackouts. How would you like that in Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania?”
The president warned voters, “Your security and your jobs are in very grave peril because the radical-left maniacs, they don’t want to have anything to do with energy. … They have the Green New Deal, where there will be no energy almost of any kind.”
Trump said, “Days ago, Biden reiterated his pledge to require net-zero carbon emissions. That’s basically saying, do you know what that is?”
“There’ll be no more oil, there’ll be no more gas, there’ll be no more nothing, there’ll be no more industry, there’ll be no more country, that’s what it’s saying really,” Trump said. “And that would instantly shut down all fracking and all mining immediately in Pennsylvania, sending your jobs overseas, sending your money to somebody else, not you.”
Trump’s tax and regulation cuts have increased U.S. production of oil and natural gas. The United States under the Trump administration became the world’s top producer of oil and maintained its position as the top global producer of natural gas. The country in 2019 became a net exporter of petroleum (crude oil and refined) products for the first time since 1949, and is on its fourth consecutive year as a net exporter of natural gas.
The president said at another part in his speech, “This election is a choice between Pennsylvania and China. If Biden wins, China wins.”
Trump condemned the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus and said that amid the pandemic he has taken measures to protect U.S. jobs.
“During the pandemic, I’ve suspended the entry of foreign workers who threaten American jobs,” Trump said. “As our economy reopens, I want to ensure that Americans are first in line to get the great jobs and the high wages, America first. Biden wants to flood the economy with cheap labor to replace U.S. workers.”
“As President, I know my first duty is always to take care of you, the American worker, that’s what we’re taking care of,” Trump later added, as he accused Biden of copying his own campaign by using the phrase “hire American.”
Biden accused the president of having brought “economic turmoil” to the locals.
“President Trump’s failed leadership didn’t bring jobs back. Instead, his tax breaks for the super-wealthy, his reckless trade wars, and his refusal to act to stop COVID-19 from spreading—even when he knew how dangerous the virus was—has led to the worst jobs crisis in close to a century and 200,000 deaths,” Biden said in a statement on Tuesday. “Pittsburgh now faces an unemployment rate of nearly 15 percent and has lost 3,000 manufacturing jobs since Trump took office. Yet President Trump still has no plan to get us out of this crisis.”
Trump spoke for about 90 minutes and touched on various other topics, including his upcoming announcement of a Supreme Court nominee, strong border security, increased jobs, and price transparency with respect to health care. He also touched on the Second Amendment and his support for religious liberty and free speech.
Trump praised Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) for his statement released earlier in the day in support of a vote in the Senate on a Supreme Court nominee to take up a position left vacant by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Sept. 18. Trump said he would announce the nominee on Saturday.
“He [Romney] was very good today,” the president said. “Now I’m happy. Thank you, Mitt.”
Trump also spoke of his support for law enforcement and public security, and condemned the riots. At one point, Trump alleged that people were using tuna cans and soup cans as objects to throw at police, and even name-dropped brands Goya and Bumblebee.
“They go out to buy tuna fish and soup. You know that, right? Goya, I hope. Goya, he’s great, isn’t he? Great guy. They go out and buy Goya because they throw it, they throw it. It’s the perfect weight, tuna fish, they could really rip it, right, and that hits you? No, it’s true. Bumblebee brand tuna,” Trump said.
“I was with Greg Abbott, I was with Ron DeSantis, Texas, and Florida, and other Governors that can’t even believe a thing like that could happen, but they get caught,” he later added. “They’re walking up there like 30 cans of soup, they have like 25 cans of tuna. They get caught, ‘I’m bringing this home to my family. How dare you stop me?’ No, no, no, they use it as ammunition. It’s terrible.”
Bumble Bee Seafoods, which in 2018 said that the president’s tariffs on Chinese tuna would be “devastating” for the business, said on its Twitter account late Tuesday, “Eat em. Don’t throw em,” in an apparent response to the Trump’s rally statements.
The Epoch Times could not independently verify Trump’s statements on the use of tuna and soup cans as projectiles by rioters amid the recent unrest across the country.
Reuters contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
