Former President Donald J. Trump, in his final scheduled rally before taking the stage for the presidential debate, on Saturday mocked his opponent, President Biden, for his preparations and suggested his opponent might be using medical supplements.
“Right now Bad Joe's gone to the log cabin to 'study,'” Trump said at a rally in Philadelphia, pantomiming quotation marks with his hands. “He's asleep right now because they want to get him good and tough, so he's going to get shot in the ass a little while before the debate.”
Trump and his campaign have for months challenged Biden to a debate, taunting him with an empty podium and suggesting he was too afraid to take the stage. But at recent rallies, Trump has tried to revise the low expectations he set after the candidates agreed in May to two debates, on June 27 and Sept. 10.
Trump has consistently attacked Biden's intellectual ability at rallies and speeches, claiming the president cannot “string a sentence together.”
But Trump didn't make that remark at a rally before several thousand people at the Liacoras Center in North Philadelphia on Saturday. Instead, he appeared to prepare his supporters for the possibility that Biden could be a formidable opponent by accusing him of using chemical agents.
“I'm sure he'll be ready.”
“He's going to come out excited, right?” Trump said, referring to Biden. Moments later, Trump, who had previously called for Biden to take a drug test before the debate, appeared to accuse Biden of using illegal drugs.
“I'm sure he's prepared,” Trump said, pausing for a moment before adding with a grin, “What about the cocaine that disappeared from the White House a month ago?” (The Secret Service dropped the case after security camera footage offered no clues and no fingerprints were found on the bag.)
Trump has been building anticipation for the debate for months, claiming he was ready to challenge Biden “anytime, anywhere, in any place,” but on Saturday the former president criticized the debate rules agreed to by his campaign, including that there would be no network to host the debate or a live audience.
“It's like dying,” Trump said. “It could be the most boring thing to do, or it could be the most exciting thing to do. Who knows?”
The Biden campaign has spent much of this week preparing for a structured debate, but Trump has generally preferred free-flowing conversation over more formal guidance.
Targeting Philadelphians
Stopping at a South Philadelphia cheesesteak restaurant before the rally, Trump suggested Saturday's rally was all the preparation he needed – a rite of passage for any political candidate – and said his strategy for the debate was to “Make America Great Again.”
During the rally, Trump asked the crowd for strategy advice, asking whether he should be “harsh and mean” or “nice and gentle and let him talk.” The crowd overwhelmingly booed the latter option, and Trump laughed.
Saturday's rally was Trump's first in Philadelphia, the most populous city in a battleground state that was key to his 2016 presidential victory and equally important to his loss in 2020. The Liacoras Center on the Temple University campus is in the heart of a neighborhood where Trump received little support in the past two presidential elections.
Prior to the rally, dozens of protesters wearing Laborers International Union of North America shirts demonstrated across from the arena, chanting “Send him to jail” — a twist on an old Trump campaign slogan that reflected his recent criminal conviction in Manhattan.
But as the Trump campaign seeks to contrast itself with Biden, it is planning events in Democratic urban areas such as the Bronx and Detroit to highlight its efforts to reach out to black and Hispanic voters across the country.
“Maybe it's just a coin flip.”
Emmanuel Morales, a Puerto Rican resident who lives in Philadelphia, said he voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020 but is undecided about how he will vote in 2024. Morales came to the rally to hear Trump speak in person, not based on media reports.
“I just want to hear him,” said Morales, 54. “I might even flip a coin and vote.”
Shabazz Boone, 67, of North Philadelphia, has supported Trump since 2016 but acknowledged that in a neighborhood that typically votes Democratic, everyone in his neighborhood knew him as a local Trump supporter.
“Living in this city, I rarely see any Trump supporters in my neighborhood,” said Boone, who is black. “I'm the only one.”
Boone, who was wearing the gold high-top sneakers Trump showed off during his last visit to Philadelphia at a sneaker convention in February, said he was encouraged by Trump's visit to his neighborhood.
The crowd inside the arena was overwhelmingly white and did not reflect the demographics of the surrounding, largely black and Latino neighborhoods.
Exchange of views on immigration
In his speech, Trump largely stuck to the same themes that drove his campaign, saying Biden has done too little to curb inflation, criticizing his energy and environmental policies for contributing to higher prices and saying Biden has done too little on the border.
He again claimed, without providing evidence, that “Black and Hispanic Americans are the ones who have been hurt the most” by the influx of illegal immigrants.
As Trump finished his thought, a black man wearing a hat stood up and cheered him on, somewhat undermining his argument. “Have they taken your job yet?” Trump called out to the man.
“No, I'm not,” the man shouted back.
Trump often denounces immigrants as an aggressive, invading force in his speeches, and at Saturday's rally he again made baseless claims that other countries are deliberately sending criminals across the border, and for the second time in a day said immigrants coming to the US should form their own fighting league.
Philadelphia and its suburbs have been a key focus for both the Biden and Trump campaigns: Biden has campaigned frequently in the city and the metropolitan area was crucial to his victory in the 2020 Pennsylvania election by about 80,000 votes.
But black voters make up a key part of Biden's base in the state and Trump was eager to win their support as polls show their support for the Democratic Party is softening.
Democrats are fighting back: On Saturday, the Democratic National Committee erected both billboards and mobile billboards at great expense to denounce Trump as a “scourge” to black Americans.
