NEW YORK CITY, New York — In a series of three campaign events post debate, Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump rolled out a new campaign theme highlighting his populist nationalism and contrasting that with Hillary Clinton’s elitist globalism.
Angel Mom Michelle Root, whose daughter Sarah Root was killed by an illegal alien, joined Trump on stage in Council Bluffs, Iowa, to help paint the picture of what the world be like if Hillary Clinton were elected president.
“I just wanted to say thank you everybody for turning out for Mr. Trump,” she said. “Hillary called me deplorable and irredeemable. She is not a friend to women, I just want to tell you that right now. The Obama-Clinton policies released the man that killed my daughter after he showed up at the borders. Then after he killed my daughter, they released him again. Now where is he? Nobody knows. Donald Trump is the only person that cared about us when no one else could and would. If Hillary wins, how many more girls are going to die? How many more women will die at the hands of their policies? Thank you, thank you Mr. Trump.”
When Trump took the stage, he lit into Hillary Clinton with a stronger-than-ever line of attack focused on her deep corruption related to the Clinton Cash narrative—a narrative that Clinton and debate moderator Lester Holt conveniently avoided on Monday night—honing his new key phrase: “Follow The Money.”
“We are going to take on the special interests, the lobbyists, and the corrupt corporate media that have rigged the system against every single American,” Donald Trump said on stage in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
He continued:
I’ve been reading stories over the last couple of days that are so inaccurate and so dishonest, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life and I’m willing to take it on because—and I didn’t need it, believe me I didn’t need it. I have a great company, I built this great company and somebody said ‘you know he could be at a point where he’s enjoying the fruits of his labor’ and here I am working harder than ever before.
I’m like a lot of people in the different rooms and different stadiums where 18 years ago their wages and real wages were higher than they are today. They had one job, now they have two jobs and they’re working harder—much harder—and they’re making much less money. That’s what’s happened in our country and the only thing I can say is I’m also working harder.
WATCH TRUMP’S FULL SPEECH IN COUNCIL BLUFFS, IOWA:
After noting he’s spent tens of millions of dollars of his own money of his campaign, he says it’s because “we’re not going to be controlled.”
“We’re not going to be controlled,” Trump reiterated. “We’re not going to be controlled. We’re going to take our country back and it’s going to be a beautiful thing. This is a movement. We have a movement going on like I think they’ve never seen before.”
From there, Trump noted that his vision for the country is a government that serves the people—not one that serves the politicians like the way the Clintons have used government to their own personal benefit.
“We are going to create a new government that serves you, your family, and your country,” Trump said. “We’re going to lower taxes by a lot, less regulation, more affordable childcare, fair trade deals, secure borders, thriving family farms—millions and millions of new jobs. We are going to end the Clinton Corruption—total corruption—“
After Trump had to stop for nearly a full minute as the crowd of thousands chanted “LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP!” Trump continued by noting it’s “horrible, horrible what’s happened to this country” and that he, unlike Clinton will “restore dignity and honesty to government service.”
“Hillary Clinton is an insider fighting for her donors and her insiders,” Trump said, but “mostly fighting for herself. I am an outsider fighting for you. We’re fighting together. We’re fighting together.”
From there, he launched his new campaign theme: “Everything you need to know about Hillary Clinton can be understood with this simple phrase: Follow The Money.”
“Follow The Money,” a reference back to investigators who look for motive in a certain wrongdoing by someone, is what several Trump aides tell Breitbart News going to be a huge new focus of the campaign. Trump is going to, since Monday night’s debate at Hofstra University an hour away from here on Long Island leading up to the next debate in St. Louis, they say, highlight the contrast of how Hillary Clinton stands up for special interests so as to enrich herself while he stands up for ordinary American workers. The populist pitch has been common throughout his campaign, but aides say to expect a reinvigorated triple down version of it in the coming weeks.
Trump is fighting for the everyman, while Clinton is fighting for herself, they say will be the message. And all of Clinton’s actions to take the conversation off the economy and jobs and national security—and onto trivial personal squabbles that Trump has had over the years—play right into their hands: He’s the serious candidate, they say, fighting for Americans and talking about real issues.
While the dishonest mainstream media may believe Hillary Clinton won the debate because she landed a couple decent punches on Trump on nonsense issues, Trump spent the night and the days since showing he’s concerned about Americans’ economic prospects, their safety, their security and their families.
And as such, he’s expanding his chances electorally and is planning a western trip that will focus on several states he’s doing well in so far—like Nevada and Arizona—as well states nobody in politics thought he had a chance in before like New Mexico and Colorado. Trump’s succeeded, they believe, in Monday night’s debate at one thing for sure: He connected to many Americans who feel like the system is broken and nobody cares…except for him.
“In her campaign for President, Hillary Clinton has received $100 million dollars in contributions from Wall Street and the hedge funds,” Trump continued in his Council Bluffs speech. “She received $4.1 million in speaking fees from financial firms. I’d like to see what she said. Where are the papers? Bernie—Bernie was asking for the papers, but Bernie gave up.”
As Trump was saying this, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders—who failed his bid to beat Clinton for the Democratic nomination thanks to a lopsided effort by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to tilt the scales in Clinton’s favor, as evidenced by leaked emails published right before the Democratic National Convention—Clinton and a defeated and surrendered Sanders appeared together in New Hampshire.
“The same groups paying Bill and Hillary for their speeches were lobbying the federal government,” Trump continued:
Twenty-two groups paying Bill Clinton for speeches lobbied the State Department while Hillary was Secretary of State. And don’t forget the Clinton contributors were appointed to advisory boards by Secretary Clinton – and guess what? They wrote checks. The favors were granted and all of these people or at least a lot of them wrote checks. She even gave up 20 percent of Uranium—you know what happens with Uranium, don’t you?—and who controls that 20 percent? Russia. Russia. Russia. She disgraced the office of Secretary of State by putting it up for sale — and if she ever got the chance, she would put the Oval Office up for sale too and nobody has any doubt about it. We can’t let that happen.
Trump campaign sources tell Breitbart News to contrast what Trump laid out in Iowa—and later on Wednesday in Wisconsin—back to what he detailed in Melbourne, Florida, on Tuesday in an uplifting policy-focused speech. That combination, they say, will help paint a picture of someone who is fighting for American workers against what Trump says is the “rigged political system.” The everyman warrior, if you will, is taking on all comers: The media, the politicians, the lobbyists, foreign influence agents, and anyone or anything else that represents a threat to America. In other words, it’s Trump against the world.
WATCH TRUMP’S FULL SPEECH IN WAUKESHA, WISCONSIN
“Our country is filled with so many amazing people, people who lift us up and inspire us,” Trump said at the Florida rally with thousands in attendance, before calling out to his friend former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the audience. He then contrasted Clinton’s defense of the status quo with his specific policy plans that he’s been laying out in detailed policy-laden speeches throughout the past several months, while Clinton has run a policy-free campaign.
“Ours is truly a special country,” Trump added a moment later:
And we must never stop fighting to keep the American dream alive. Never. Never. Unfortunately now for too many Americans the American dream is now out of reach. It’s not working. Our country isn’t working. So many things are going wrong.
Last night when I debated Secretary Clinton on America’s future, for 90 minutes I watched her very carefully and I also was holding back—I didn’t want to do anything to embarrass her—but I watched her and she was stuck in the past.
For 90 minutes, on issue after issue, Hillary Clinton defended the terrible status quo while I laid out our plan—all of us together—to bring jobs, security and prosperity back to the American people. For 90 minutes she argued against change while I call for dramatic change. We have to have dramatic change. We have to get rid of Obamacare. We have to strengthen up our depleted military—it’s in such bad shape—we’re going to do a lot of great things folks.
WATCH TRUMP’S FULL SPEECH IN MELBOURNE, FLORIDA:
Trump detailed several polls that showed he won the debate, before he again laid out the contrasts with Clinton.
“I watched last night, I found it so interesting—I knew I was going into a situation where you were going to have one of the largest audiences in the history of television and I took a deep breath and I pretended I was talking to my family, I just blocked it all out,” Trump said.
He continued:
It’s very interesting. And she was talking about what she was going to do to get rid of ISIS, what she was going to do on childcare, what she was going to do on all these different things. And I kept saying, for 26 years you’ve been doing nothing. Nothing. For 26 years, she’s done nothing.
When she ran for the Senate in New York, New York was having a big problem keeping jobs because her husband signed NAFTA and NAFTA was draining the jobs out of our country going to Mexico and other places but NAFTA was a disaster—probably the worst trade deal ever signed by anybody anywhere in the world. NAFTA was a disaster.
She promised running for the Senate years ago 200,000 jobs for upstate New York. It was a disaster. Not only didn’t they come, but they lost so many jobs—you have to see it now. It’s so sad when you see what happened to upstate New York. It is a disaster. The companies have left and gone to Mexico and other places, the jobless situation is horrible and she said she was going to do something about it and the day after the election it was like ‘bye-bye.’ And that’s exactly what would happen if she ever won.
After walking rally goers through how “we can’t let that happen,” because “we know her too well,” Trump called Clinton “the candidate of yesterday.”
“And ours is the campaign and we are the people of the future,” Trump said, adding:
Hillary Clinton defended every major failure that she helped to create. She defended the Iran deal, one of the worst deals ever. She defended her role in unleashing ISIS. She is responsible along with Barack Obama—they created a vacuum by getting out of Iraq which they should have never been in in the first place. And does everybody believe me, I was against going into Iraq.
It was so well-documented, and Sean Hannity is now saying ‘he was absolutely against it’ and nobody wants to call him because nobody wants to hear that. But she defended the conditions of our inner cities where African American families are living in a situation where nobody should be forced to live in and what’s happened is government led by Democrats should be ashamed of themselves.
Trump then detailed how Clinton’s “only experience is at failure,” and how she “bragged” about having “traveled all over the world.”
“It’s true, she traveled all over the world,” Trump said. “And you know what it got us? It got us nothing. It got us debt and it got us death. We have death and debt. And unemployment. We have all bad things. And I said last night, I said ‘You know, Secretary: You are experienced. But it’s bad experience because everything you did turned out bad.’”
Trump, later in the speech, “summed up” his “economic agenda” in “three beautiful words”— “jobs, jobs, jobs”—and then explained his positive change policy agenda:
We will cut your taxes, and let you deduct the cost of childcare, it’s about time. We will reduce regulations and create millions of new jobs for our country. We will unleash American energy adding trillions in new wealth for our workers. We are going to shrink our trade deficit and protect American manufacturing which is being led to slaughter—being led to slaughter. Florida has lost one in five manufacturing jobs since NAFTA. That’s the economic legacy of Bill and Hillary Clinton, folks.
The tax, trade, energy and regulatory reforms I propose will create at least 25 million new jobs over the next 10 years—and that will happen. Let me tell what else we’re going to do: We’re going to repeal and replace the horrible Obamacare. Clinton on the other hand wants to expand the Obamacare disaster and put the government completely in charge of America’s healthcare.
Two other major reforms I’m proposing are school choice and ending Common Core. We’re going to end Common Core. I want every disadvantaged child in this country, including every poor Hispanic child in this country and every poor African American child in this country to be able to attend the public, private, magnet, or religious school of their choice. It’s the great civil rights issue of our time.