Trump says ‘We are going to fire Kamala’ at Reading campaign rally

In one of two stops in the Keystone State on Monday, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump brought his campaign to Reading, where he promised to create an “economic boom” in the U.S. and crack down on illegal immigration if he returns to the White House following Tuesday’s general election.

In remarks that spanned nearly 80 minutes and began almost an hour and a half after he was scheduled to begin, Trump framed the election as a referendum on President Joe Biden’s administration. “I’d like to begin by asking you a very easy, simple question: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Trump asked the crowd at Reading’s Santander Arena. “With your vote tomorrow, I will end inflation, I will stop the invasion of criminals coming into our country and I will bring back the American Dream.

“After four years of economic suffering, we will create the greatest economic boom the world has ever seen,” he added.

Much of Trump’s speech focused on immigration levels, with the former president baselessly claiming the U.S. is an “occupied country,” adding that “it will soon be an occupied country no longer.” Without providing evidence, Trump blamed his general election opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, as the reason for the country’s high immigration levels, as Harris was assigned to find solutions to stem migration from Central American countries, per Reuters. 

Trump outlined a tough stance on immigration at the Reading rally, vowing to dismantle migrant criminal networks on American soil, implement automatic 10-year prison sentences for those who come back into the country and calling for the death penalty for migrants who kill American citizens and law enforcement officers. He also said he would “immediately ban all sanctuary cities” in the U.S.

The former president also took time to praise billionaire Elon Musk, who has poured tens of millions of dollars into a super PAC – known as America PAC – in an effort to send Trump back to the White House. “He gave me the nicest endorsement,” Trump said of Musk’s imprimatur. “He said, ‘If you don’t win, if Trump doesn’t win, this whole country is going to be no good. It’s going to be no good.’ And it won’t, because of their policies, we will be Venezuela on steroids. That’s what’s going to happen to us.”

Notably, outside of his standard comments on immigration, the candidate did not spend time reaching out to Hispanic voters in this battleground state – some 65,000 of who live in Reading – in an attempt to mitigate the widely reported damage done to this key demographic by a right-wing comedian’s comments at a Trump rally in New York City last week. The event did include remarks in English and Spanish from U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants. 

Trump’s wide-ranging speech touched on a number of topics, some related to the election, some not. He recalled telling members of Penn State University’s wrestling team who attended an October rally that they could take on migrants: “I said, ‘You know, fellas, you may be the only ones in this room, in this country, that could take the migrants in a fight. You may be the only ones,’” he said. He also commented on former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s appearance – “He lost all that weight. You look so handsome. Stand up, Mike Pompeo, stand up. He looks so handsome.”

Trump later returned to his plan for the economy. “My plan will massively cut taxes for workers and small businesses, and we will have no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security benefits for our seniors,” he said.

Dave McCormick, the state’s Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, took the stage during Trump’s speech to stress the importance of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race. “We have a choice between strength – that guy who said, ‘Fight. Fight. Fight.’ – and weakness. We have a choice between commonsense policies and a radical liberal agenda. You have a choice between a senator that’s gonna fight with this guy for change, or the status quo,” McCormick said. “We’ve gotta win this election. It’s the most important one of your lifetime.”

In addition to Pompeo and McCormick, other high-profile Republican and conservative figures were in attendance for Trump’s Reading campaign stop, including members of the state’s GOP congressional delegation; U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton, Bill Hagerty and Rubio; and the Brexit architect Nigel Farage, who serves in the United Kingdom’s House of Commons. Three of Trump’s children – Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Tiffany Trump – were also present. 

Trump, in his closing pitch to Reading voters before he left for a subsequent rally in Pittsburgh, harkened back to his catchphrase on “The Apprentice.”

“With your vote tomorrow, we are going to fire Kamala, and we’re going to save America,” he said, later adding: “We stand on the verge of the four greatest years in American history. With your help, we will restore America’s promise and we will take back the nation that we all love so much.”