Trump on not letting anything get in the way of unfinished business – Washington Examiner

Starting where he left off on July 13 before he was shot.

Those four words told everyone, perhaps even more so than when he raised his fist toward the crowd shouting, “Fight, Fight, Fight,” that he was a man who was not going to be knocked down, and was willing to leave everything on the field to take care of unfinished business in the White House.

In an interview with the Washington Examiner before the rally, Trump was somber in explaining how important it was to him to honor the family of Corey Comperatore, the former volunteer fire chief who was killed during the shooting in July.

Trump stressed that he really wanted to honor Corey and his family explaining in detail what would happen, “There will be a moment of silence, then one of the greatest opera singers in the world will sing Ave Maria.”

Trump looked somber for a moment talking about Corey, outside in the stands were Corey’s wife Helen and their daughters, a fallen comrade section where Corey was sitting that day stood as a sentinel to honor his life. I ask Trump if he felt emotional.   

“I do. I don’t want to think too much about it. Because it’s too tough. But I do,” he says, then returns to talking about Corey.

Before arriving on-site, Trump Force One, his private airplane, did a flyover of the Butler Farm Show Complex. He had already seen an aerial view of the massive crowd before landing. While he hoped for something big, he was a bit taken aback by the size of the crowd.

“Can you believe it and we’re in the middle of not a highly populated area,” he says, never saying the phrase ‘middle of nowhere’ a throwaway line often used in the media to describe regions of the country that are not in high-density centers of wealth, power, and higher education.

While Butler County is the fastest growing county in the commonwealth, it is still mostly rural, with remnants of its industrial past mixed in with over 100,000 square miles of farms, small towns, and a burgeoning suburban enclave sitting on the Butler/Allegheny county line.

Like East Palestine, Ohio, just 30 miles as the crow flies west, the people who live here in Butler are often anywhere from fourth to ninth-generation residents who would not care to live anywhere else. They are also often forgotten by the people in the national media, corporations, government, and academia, who view their sense of place as the “middle of nowhere.”

Trump says it is important to him to show up in places like Butler, but also in East Palestine, as he did a couple of weeks after a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed, causing an environmental disaster.

The former president showed up that day, walking through the entire village through pounding sleet and mud, bringing crates of water bottles and buying hamburgers from the local McDonalds for the workers.

By showing up that day in his galoshes and listening to people, he created an inflection point forward that lifted him up in the early primary polling. Trump shrugs, “The other ones never showed up,” he said, referring to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden took an entire year to visit the village. Harris never came.

You show up for people in need, said Trump, as we walked from the back of a farm structure, complete with a dirt floor, crates for chickens, stacks of hay — all part of the farm show facility that have been made into a makeshift holding area and green room.

Trump says he believed in showing up then, but also in the areas ravaged by Hurricane Helene in Appalachian North Carolina and Georgia.

He shakes his head, “I was in North Carolina; what a sight,” he says, adding that going there was never about getting votes, a question he was asked last week when he was there touring the regions.

“They’re asking me about the votes. I said, ‘I’m not talking about votes. I’m talking about lives.’ North Carolina’s been hit so hard, and the people tell me they don’t see anybody, even from the federal government,” he said.

In the holding area just before he goes onstage is his son Eric, daughter-in-law Lara, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH),  and Elon Musk. Trump and Musk clearly share a bond and are very fond of each other. It is a relationship not all that different from the connection you see Trump share with the working-class voters he has drawn to the party. A bond other Republican presidential candidates in recent cycles have failed to execute.

The morning trek to the Butler Farm Show Complex began with traffic at a standstill, starting miles from town at 6 am. Even by that early hour, four hours before the gates would even open, it was clear this was going to be a big event.

The attendees were a mixture of folks who were there just for that day, folks that live in the area who wanted to support the president, and a significant number who saw it as an historic moment, a pilgrimage if you will, to witness something significant.

By 10:20 a.m., the risers surrounding the stage were already filled, and, by noon, it was hard to see any grass in the fields. Nearly all dressed in patriotic gear, some chose to stand exactly where they were 12 weeks ago and see it from the same place they did that day.

Rose Arnold and Teresa Boyd were two of them. I saw them immediately after settling my computer at the press table behind the press riser. Twelve weeks earlier, the temperatures had hovered near the 100 degree mark. They were standing in the exact same place and I had passed them a case of water to share with themselves and the people behind them.

Boyd said one of the things that really stuck out for her that day was how orderly and calmly everyone left after the shooting, “It was surreal. I was really proud of how everyone comported themselves that day, and I knew a lot of us same people would be back today, and I wanted to be part of that,” she said.

Arnold said it was important for her to show her support for the president, “It was historic on July 13, him coming back for us, not himself, is just as historic.”

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Kyle Suggs came all the way up from Raleigh, North Carolina, to be part of the moment. He is part of the growing coalition of young black men who are inspired by Trump who he says understands the problems in the country and has the backbone to fix them.

“I like the fact that he speaks to the American people, which is why he’s doing so well with the middle class and the working class, and why he’s bringing a huge coalition of people together. That is why I like him.”