'Unrepentant fascist': Trump says he’s 'cognitively very strong' in 'dark, twisted' rally

With just six weeks until Election Day and early voting already underway, Donald Trump delivered what could be his final speech in Pennsylvania on Monday, throwing out to his most-ardent supporters a mix of promises, falsehoods, and threats in a bid to rally Keystone State voters to the polls.

Vice President Kamala Harris is narrowly beating Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, by just over one percentage point according to FiveThirtyEight‘s current polling average. The Commonwealth is a “must-win” state for both Harris and Trump.

“There are really only three states that will decide the presidential election: Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia,” Politico declared last week. “If Vice President Kamala Harris can’t carry Pennsylvania, her only hope is on a Southern strategy. Harris must win either Georgia or North Carolina. She has no other path to the White House. The election could well be determined when polls close in the eastern time zone.”

Calling his remarks Monday an “often unfocused pitch,” The Washington Post reports Trump “swerved repeatedly in remarks he used to try to shore up his political weaknesses, lash out his detractors and delve into digressions.”

The ex-president, a convicted felon who still faces numerous charges, continued to focus his anger on immigrants, extending his attack on legal immigrants from Haiti into its third week, although this time did not promote his “pet-eating” lies.

Claiming that immigrants are inundating small towns and communities, and have “destroyed” them, Trump lamented: “They will never be the same.”

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“The fact is, and I’ll say it now,” he declared angrily, “you have to get them the hell out.”

The crowd cheered, and chanted, “send them back.”

“This is some dark, twisted bullshit,” wrote podcaster and former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, denouncing Trump’s attack. “Again: the immigrants in Springfield are there legally. They’ve made the city more prosperous. Most residents don’t want them to leave. They don’t want to send these families back to their possible death.”

“What most residents want is more affordable housing. Schools and hospitals and city services that aren’t stretched thin. Safe roads and neighborhoods. That’s what the city’s Republican leadership wants, too,” he added. “Trump doesn’t even pretend to have a plan to do anything about any of this. He doesn’t want to help Springfield, he wants to use Springfield to help himself. And he doesn’t give a shit who gets hurt.”

Adding to the list of Americans he wants to imprison, Trump – ignoring the First Amendment – said people who criticize the U.S. Supreme Court Justices who voted to strip away the constitutional right to abortion “should be put in jail.” The Harris campaign quickly posted Trump’s remarks:

“You know,” responded journalist and author David Simon, “I’m going to lean forward a bit on my skis and just suggest, hear me out on this, that this Trump fellow is an obvious, unrepentant fascist without the slightest understanding of what the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution demands and requires of every citizen, let alone the president.”

But it was Trump’s remarks about women that appeared to draw the greatest condemnation.

“I always thought women liked me. I never thought I had a problem,” said Trump, who has been accused by dozens of women of varying degrees of sexual misconduct, and was found liable by a jury for what a judge later described as rape.

“But the fake news keeps saying women don’t like me. I don’t believe it. I think, I think you know why they like they like to have strong borders, they like to have safety. Nothing personal. I think they like me, but I make this statement – thank you, I love you too. I love you too. Thank you.”

“But I think they like me because I represent something that’s very important. I make this statement to the great women of our country. Sadly, women are poorer than they were four years ago, much poorer. Are less healthy than they were four years ago, are less safe on the streets than they were four years ago, are paying much higher prices for groceries and everything else than they were four years ago. Are more stressed and depressed and unhappy than they were four years ago, and are less optimistic and confident in the future than they were four years ago. I believe that. I will fix all of that and fast and at long last, this nation and national nightmare will end. We’ve got to end this national nightmare. Because I am your protector. I want to be your protector. As President, I have to be your protector. I hope you don’t make too much of it. I hope the fake news doesn’t go, ‘Oh, he wants to be their protector.’ Well, I am. As President, I have to be your protector.”

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Trump did not stop there.

“I will make you safe at the border, on the sidewalks of your now-violent cities, in the suburbs where you are under migrant criminal siege, and with our military protecting you from foreign enemies, of which we have many today because of the incompetent leadership that we have. You will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared. You will no longer be in danger. You’re not going to be in danger any longer. You will no longer have anxiety from all of the problems our country has today. You will be protected, and I will be your protector.”

“Women. Women will be happy, healthy, confident and free. You will no longer be thinking about abortion. That’s all they talk about: abortion because we’ve done something that nobody else could have done. It is now where it always had to be with the states, and the vote of the people.”

From her personal account, Neera Tanden, Director of the Biden White House’s Domestic Policy Council responded: “When the perpetrator tells you he’s your protector. The gaslighting is next level.”

“No woman wants protection from the likes of you, you raping lying felon,” decried award-winning actress and author Bette Midler. “Sure we’re stressed; we’re bummed bc you’re still here! Repeating that same old boring shit from last time! Go away, you fucking INCOMPETENT. Why are you still here?! You’re the #KingKong of assholes!!”

Salon’s Heather Digby Parton responded, “The rapist pussy grabber is the protector. Right.”

Florida Politics publisher Peter Schorsch remarked, “The ‘you will no longer be thinking about abortion’ line is 1000% creepy on the Gilead scale.”

“There have never been bigger lies told in all our history than what Trump is saying here,” observed top Democratic political strategist Simon Rosenberg. “It’s shocking, desperate, outrageous and insulting. The dude is an incredible orange pig and deserves to get his ass kicked, bigly.”

“Sexism aside,” remarked The Atlantic’s James Surowiecki, “no candidate for president should talk to any American citizens like this. The president is our representative. He’s not our king. He’s not our savior. This is how a cult leader talks to his followers, not the way a president talks to free and equal citizens.”

Trump also praised himself for correctly calling Pennsylvania a “Commonwealth,” saying, “I almost said ‘the State of Pennsylvania,’ but I said, I meant, ‘the Commonwealth.’ I never said, ‘the State’ – I was able to catch it because I’m cognitively very strong.”

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