Former President Trump visited Ohio on Saturday, where he barnstormed for businessman Bernie Moreno, a Republican seeking to win his state’s primary to run against Democrat Sherrod Brown for U.S. Senate.
During his rally in the Dayton suburb of Vandalia, Trump repeatedly mentioned illegal migrants surging across the border, violent migrant crime, and the death of University of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.
“Not one more American life should be lost to migrant crime. We can’t have another Laken,” the 2024 Republican presumptive nominee said in his remarks, in which he also repeatedly blamed President Biden’s policies for allowing millions of migrants, including, “violent gang members and gangsters” into the U.S. “When I’m President of the United States, we will demand justice for Laken on day one. My administration will terminate every open border policy of the Biden administration.”
He added: “The fastest way to reverse every single Biden disaster is to very simply just put me back in office.”
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Former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks on Saturday during a Buckeye Values PAC Rally in Vandalia, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump’s trip comes three days before Tuesday’s GOP Senate primary, when Moreno will face state Sen. Matt Dolan, and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
On the Ohio Senate race, Trump called Moreno a “hero” and “a winner” and urged voters to elect him to replace the “radical left Democrat Sherrod Brown.”
“Ohio needs to defeat your horrendous radical left, Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who pretends he’s my best friend. He pretends he’s my best friend, then he goes radical left all the time,” Trump said before a large crowd. “If you listen to his commercials, he sounds like he’s running with Trump. He’s not. He’s not with me.”
Former President Donald Trump endorsed Bernie Moreno, Republican candidate for Senate, in December. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio (Maddie McGarvey/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The U.S.-Mexico border was a focus of Trump’s Ohio speech, as was Biden’s border policies which he criticized as allowing violent migrants to enter the U.S.
“We’re going to fix it again,” Trump said of the border. “Among my very first actions will be to stop the invasion of our country and send Joe Biden’s illegal aliens back home.”
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Trump also took issue with Biden apologizing last week for using the word “illegal” to describe Riley’s alleged killer during the State of the Union speech.
“They have a new term for people coming into our country,” the former president said of the Biden administration. “They call them ‘neighbors.’”
The line was an apparent reference to a recent White House handout that referred to illegal immigrants as “newcomers.”
“One week ago, I met with the family of a 22-year-old nursing student, Laken Riley, who was brutally murdered in Georgia last month while out on a morning run,” the former president said Saturday. “She was so badly beaten up, unrecognizable. Laken’s killer was set loose into the United States through Joe Biden’s program of releasing military-age males into our community after they’ve illegally crossed our southern border.”
Former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks Saturday during a Buckeye Values PAC Rally in Vandalia, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)
He added: “Laken Riley would be alive today if Biden had not unleashed his savage attack on America. And that’s what he’s done. But instead of apologizing to Laken’s family, Joe Biden apologized to the killer for calling him illegal. He shouldn’t have done that.”
“We believe that Laken’s killer is an illegal alien criminal. He is an illegal monster. He should never have been in our country,” Trump said.
He also specifically addressed members of the notoriously violent MS-13 Mexican gang, who have crossed into the U.S.
“If you can [even] call them people. I don’t know if you call them people. In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion, but I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say,” Trump chided.
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Trump’s speech also took repeated swipes at Biden, who the former president called “a great threat to our democracy.”
“Remember this, Joe Biden is a great threat to our democracy,” Trump told the thunderous Dayton crowd. “He’s a tremendous threat to our democracy. His incompetence is the number one reason. Also, he uses the Justice Department, the FBI, to go after his political opponent, which happens to be me.”
Supporters of former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump listen as he speaks Saturday in Vandalia, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)
“There’s never been a president so bad,” Trump said of Biden. “There’s never been anything like it. He’s incompetent, he’s crooked.”
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The former president urged people to go out and vote Tuesday, and again in November to elect him and other Republicans.
“But with your vote, we’re going to take back the Senate. We’re going to win Ohio in November. We’re going to win by a lot,” Trump said.
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives to speak Saturday at a Buckeye Values PAC Rally in Vandalia, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)
During the speech, Trump had a notable issue with the wind affecting his teleprompters. He used the moment to swipe Biden again.
“We can give a non-teleprompter speech,” he persisted. “Isn’t it nice to have a president that doesn’t need to use a teleprompter?”
Trump then summarized his 2024 campaign pitch with four priorities: Seal the border, stop inflation, drill for oil, and prevent World War III.
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Moreno, an immigrant who arrived in the U.S. legally from Colombia, and later became a successful Cleveland-based businessman and luxury auto dealership giant, was endorsed by Trump in December.
The winner of the GOP primary will face off in November against Brown, who is the only Democrat to win statewide in Ohio over the past decade. The seat is contested as Republicans seek to win a majority in the U.S. Senate.
Democrats control a slim 51-49 majority, but Republicans have a favorable Senate map in 2024, with Democrats defending 23 of the 34 seats up for grabs.
Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.