SANFORD, Florida — It was a rare moment of parallel messaging for Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence here Tuesday afternoon.
The Republican nominee urged the party in this key battleground state to “get smart and come together” in 14 days to vote for the GOP ticket. The message mirrored what his running mate has been repeatedly pitching to voters on the trail: “come home.”
Related: Mike Pence Tells GOP 'It's Time to Come Home'
But Trump’s off-handed pleas for party unity came after he mocked some Republican hopefuls with aspirations for 2020. “All these characters that want to run in four years, they can forget it,” Trump said, not naming names. “They’re wasting their time.”
Trump gathered with thousands on a sunny tarmac here, his third straight day of campaigning in the Sunshine State while days left in the campaign dwindle and Trump’s path to win 270 electoral votes continues to shrink.
Turning his attention to Hillary Clinton, Trump talked about Wikileaks, this time implicating President Obama as in on the scandal. “He’s as bad as she is,” Trump said touting “breaking news” from Wikileaks. He went on to explain that emails show Obama knew about Clinton’s server and that Clinton aides wrote they had to “clean this up.”
“He’s caught up,” Trump declared, once again reiterating the need to “investigate the investigation."
The businessman once also again lashed out at the press as “phony,” “phony low lifes,” and “the biggest part of the crooked establishment.” He stated “these people are the worst.” By the end of the rally, the press shared “the worst” label with Clinton, who Trump said people would be “crazy” to vote for because “she’s the worst.”
Off to the side of the press pen, one man repeatedly shouted at the media. Among his requests was one for the press to leave the country. He added that he hated the media and no longer watched media programming.
