The president made violent crime the central issue in his first large-scale outdoor rally this year and cites the GOP’s 1988 “Willie Horton” attack ad on Democratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis.
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President Donald Trump invoked the infamous “Willie Horton” attack ad from 1988 and emphasized violent crime in gruesome detail while campaigning in North Carolina for U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley (R) against former governor Roy Cooper (D).
Wednesday’s rally, on an airport tarmac in Gastonia, just west of Charlotte, featured clips of assaults, mug shots of accused criminals and graphic descriptions of crimes, even as he touted historically low offense rates during the president’s second term.
Trump said he was borrowing from the playbook that Republicans used in the 1988 presidential campaign to portray the Democratic nominee, Michael S. Dukakis, as soft on crime. Historians have widely viewed the Willie Horton ad, which featured a man who absconded while on a furlough from prison and went on to commit other crimes, as having played on racist tropes.
“Same exact thing,” Trump said. He added about the Horton ad: “They put it on, just like we’re putting this on, because we have to make sure that Michael Whatley gets into office.”
Crime has dominated recent advertising in the North Carolina race. The main GOP Senate super PAC, which said it reserved $71 million in advertising to help Whatley, has been hammering Cooper with spots highlighting criminals released early during the coronavirus pandemic who went on to re-offend. The releases resulted from a court order won by the American Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit that Cooper’s administration resisted.
One of the ads goes after Cooper based on a murder that occurred in South Carolina. On Wednesday, Trump falsely accused Cooper of responsibility for releasing a man named DeCarlos Brown Jr. who allegedly stabbed 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a light rail train last year. State prison officials told local media that Brown left custody because he completed his sentence.
Whatley has trailed Cooper, a two-term governor who has won six statewide elections in North Carolina, in public polling throughout the race.
Cooper’s campaign pointed out that the first Trump administration also released inmates to reduce crowding during the pandemic.
“Independent fact-checkers have called these attacks false,” Cooper spokesman Jordan Monaghan said. “Michael Whatley is getting desperate and it’s shameful that he’s using heinous crimes to try to deceive North Carolinians.”
Even as Trump emphasized brutal crime, he also cheered current historically low crime rates. Violent crime began dropping nationwide during President Joe Biden’s tenure and has continued to go down during Trump’s, in contrast to 1988, when violent crime was nearing an all-time high.
Wednesday’s event was Trump’s first large-scale outdoor rally this year and his first foray into campaigning since last week’s Republican midterm convention, after spending the weekend at his Ireland golf course. Super PACs run by his advisers have rapidly booked more than $137 million of airtime since Labor Day, including in North Carolina and other key Senate battlegrounds.
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Republicans have anxiously waited for Trump to step up his traveling and spending in the midterms, while at the same time struggling with how they might establish some distance from the unpopular president.
“I didn’t have to be here tonight,” Trump said on Wednesday. “But I wanted to be here for Michael.”
While crime was his central message, Trump also acknowledged the economic concerns that polls consistently show are voters’ top priority. He conceded that Americans were paying higher gas prices because of his attack on Iran but argued the cost was justified.
“It’s a very inexpensive price to pay for what we’ve done,” he said.
Trump’s speech on Wednesday heavily reprised his keynote address from the midterm convention in Dallas, including attempting to tie Cooper to progressive and Democratic Socialist primary winners in other states and renewing a pledge to send citizens $5,000 “dividends” if Republicans keep control of Congress. The White House has not explained how the dividends would be structured or paid for. The idea has gotten a chilly reception from GOP lawmakers.
As part of the crime focus, Trump brought the nation’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General Todd Blanche, to the event. Justice Department policy in previous administrations advised officials against participating in campaign events to avoid perceptions of political interference in prosecutions. Blanche also spoke at the GOP convention last week.
Trump’s visit comes a day after first lady Melania Trump traveled to northwestern North Carolina, where she visited Mountain View Elementary School in Jefferson as part of an initiative promoting the use of artificial intelligence in education. She announced that students in Ashe County would receive 100 Nvidia Jetson Orin Nano developer kits and subscriptions to an AI learning platform for about 1,500 students.
The first lady’s visit also recognized the community’s recovery from Hurricane Helene, which devastated parts of western North Carolina two years ago.
On Wednesday, Trump falsely claimed he visited the storm-stricken state “the following day” after the hurricane; he visited more than three weeks later, on Oct. 21. The state’s Republican senators criticized the Trump administration last year for delaying approved relief and recovery funding.
“Roy Cooper led North Carolina through several major catastrophic storms, activating emergency resources, keeping families safe and securing significant state and federal funding for recovery,” Monaghan said. “Cooper will work with leaders in both parties to fast-track federal funding to ensure Western North Carolina gets every federal dollar it’s owed.”
Clara Ence Morse contributed to this report. Doyle reported from Gastonia, North Carolina.
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