Donald Trump tells Mobile rally to ‘pretend I’m on the ballot’

MOBILE — President Donald Trump told a crowd of roughly 8,000 supporters Friday night to vote like he is on the ballot in November.

“Can everybody just close your eyes and pretend I’m on the ballot?” Trump asked the crowd.

Mobile was the president’s second stop in a month-long campaign for Republican congressional candidates across the country. Supporters lined up at the Mitchell Center on the University of South Alabama’s campus hours before doors opened. The building was roughly 75 percent full by the time Trump took the stage.

Alabama is a Republican state, and Alabama’s 1st Congressional District – which Mobile falls in under a new map – is rated solidly Republican by Cook Political Report. The neighboring 2nd Congressional District, where incumbent U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Mobile faces state Rep. Rhett Marques, R-Enterprise, the GOP nominee, is considered more competitive. 

Trump said Friday he came to Alabama, and plans to go to other Republican states, to pay his respects to the people who love him. 

“Oklahoma and Alabama, I’m here to say hello,” he said. “I’m here because sometimes even though you don’t have to come here, you’ve got to pay respect to the people that have loved me every year.”

Trump’s approval rating has fallen across the country – and in Alabama – since the beginning of the Iran war in February and the subsequent increase in gas prices. He told attendees the war will end sometime after the midterms. 

“They’re never going to have a nuclear weapon,” he said. “As soon as it does end, oil prices will come tumbling down.” 

Trump-endorsed Alabama Republican nominees opened for Trump, including gubernatorial nominee and U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who walked on stage to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” 

Tuberville pledged to invest in workforce development as governor. 

“We’re going to use our hands. We’re going to teach people and our kids. We’re going to teach them education, and we’re going to teach them how to live a life, to do things with their hands and make decisions,” Tuberville said. 

Trump touted the Senate’s bipartisan passage of the Protect College Sports Act, and urged Alabamians to elect Tuberville as governor. The senator coached football at Auburn University from 1999 to 2008. 

“We’re going to pass something that brings sanity to college football. The Senate passed it, and we had a lot of help, bipartisan help. Can you believe it? Shocking,” Trump said. 

The president also reiterated his endorsements of U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, R-Enterprise, the nominee to replace Tuberville; Jerry Carl, the nominee for the 1st Congressional District; state Rep. Rhett Marques, R-Enterprise, the nominee for the 2nd Congressional District; John Wahl, the nominee for lieutenant governor and Florida gubernatorial nominee Byron Donalds. 

He also endorsed Katherine Robertson, the party’s nominee for Alabama Attorney General. He mentioned Republican U.S. Reps. Robert Aderholt of Haleyville, Dale Strong of Madison and Gary Palmer of Hoover, but said he did not need to “waste time” on them because they are “so far ahead.” He did not mention Republican nominee for the 7th Congressional District Ammie Akin, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Selma, or U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Saks. 

At the party’s midterm convention in Dallas, Texas, last month, Trump promised to give every U.S. adult citizen $5,000 if Republicans held the House and Senate. He doubled down Friday evening with a caveat: the money must be spent in the U.S.

“The Trump dividend is approximately $1 trillion, but we have a record-setting $21 trillion that’s being invested in our country in just 15 months,” he said. “When you spend it and recirculate it in our country, it costs us far less than it sounds.”

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget warned last month that Trump’s plan would cost about $1.2 trillion, and “explode” the nation’s deficit.

He criticized Democrats throughout his 90-minute speech, often referring to them as “dumocrats.” He also touted policies on economic development, immigration and lowering taxes.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Doug Jones, who held a counter-event in Mobile Friday evening, accused Trump of coming to Mobile to soothe his ego.

“We were going to Mobile anyway, but then all of a sudden Trump started trolling me,” Jones said at a town hall. “I don’t think it’s about Tommy Tuberville. I think he is campaigning, not for a candidate, I think he’s campaigning to get the Mobile Bay bridge named after him.” 

Attendees were not allowed to bring their own signs, but signs were provided to them in the lower level of the area echoing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Signs read “No Tax on Overtime,” “No Tax On Tips,” “No Tax on Social Security” and “Lower Prices.” 

Trump also criticized the “fake news media” which led to boos from the crowd directed at the press pool. 

“Our nation is doing better now than ever before. But the fake news media right back there … refuses to talk about our ranks and the numbers, so I have to do it myself,” Trump said. 

Each opening speaker urged attendees to vote Republican in November, and to spread the word. 

“We need each and everybody in this room to go out and vote, and get their neighbors, their family, and their friends to go vote,” Marques said. “We win if everybody in this state votes because we are a Republican state.”

Trump is expected to travel to Ohio over the weekend and Nebraska on Monday. He said he will attend the football game between the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia in Tuscaloosa on Oct. 10.