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Nov. 5, 2018 / 7:59 PM GMT / Updated Nov. 5, 2018 / 11:57 PM GMT
By Lauren Egan and Dartunorro Clark
President Donald Trump dialed up the temperature on his core 2018 campaign themes Monday, launching into his final rallies of the midterm elections with a dark vision of the future following a GOP loss.
“The Democrat platform is a 2018 socialism, open borders edict,” Trump told a crowd in Cleveland on Monday afternoon, repeating his false claim that “Democrats are inviting caravan after caravan” into the country.
“Have you seen the pictures? They try and play it down like its not that many people,” Trump said of Democrats to rallygoers, sparking a chant of “Build the wall!”
And before leaving Washington on Monday, Trump continued to warn, without evidence, about the prospect of “illegal voting.”
“All you’ve got to do is go around, take a look what’s happened over the years and you’ll see,” Trump told reporters before departing Joint Base Andrews for Ohio. “There are a lot of people … that try and get in illegally and actually vote illegally, so we just want to let them know that there will be prosecution at the highest level.”
Experts have repeatedly concluded that voter fraud is extremely rare. Even the president’s own defunct voter fraud commission uncovered no evidence to back up his claim that millions voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election, according to an analysis of commission documents released in August by a former member.
At the rally, Trump again engaged in electoral expectations-setting, telling the crowd Tuesday could be a difficult day for Republicans.
“We’re at a disadvantage,” Trump said pointing to history as an indication that presidents have often lost power in Congress during their first midterm election. “But let’s see what happens.”
On his way to his second campaign stop of the day in Indiana, Trump brushed off questions about potential political and legal perils of a Democratic Congress.
“No, I don’t care,” Trump told reporters when asked if he was at all worried about a Democratic House going after his tax returns, which he has yet to release. “They can do whatever they want, and I can do whatever I want.”
After the Indiana rally, the president plans to make his last official stop of the 2018 campaign season in Rush Limbaugh’s hometown of Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
