Trump advocates death penalty for drug dealers at campaign rally

MOON TOWNSHIP, Pa. — President Donald Trump on Saturday again called for enacting the death penalty for drug dealers during a rally meant to bolster a struggling GOP candidate for a U.S. House seat here.

During the campaign event in this conservative western Pennsylvania district, the president also veered off into other topics, including North Korea, his distaste for the news media, MS-13 gang violence on Long Island and his own election victory 16 months ago. He revived many of his favorite 2016 riffs and even touted his planned 2020 slogan, “Keep America Great!”

Trump said that allowing prosecutors to seek the death penalty for drug dealers — an idea he said he got from Chinese President Xi Jinping — is “a discussion we have to start thinking about. I don’t know if this country’s ready for it.”

“Do you think the drug dealers who kill thousands of people during their lifetime, do you think they care who’s on a blue-ribbon committee?” Trump asked. “The only way to solve the drug problem is through toughness. When you catch a drug dealer, you’ve got to put him away for a long time.”

It was not the first time Trump had suggested executing drug dealers. Earlier this month, he described it as a way to fight the opioid epidemic. And on Friday, The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration was considering policy changes to allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

Trump went to the district to inject political capital behind Republican Rick Saccone, whose race against Democrat Conor Lamb could be a harbinger of the Republican Party’s fate in the midterms.

Polls suggest Marine veteran and former prosecutor Lamb, 33, and state lawmaker Saccone, 60, are headed for a tight finish in Tuesday’s election in a district where Trump prevailed by nearly 20 percentage points in 2016. National GOP forces could exceed $10 million in spending on the race, and Saturday was the president’s second recent visit to the area.

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He touted his decision to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and boasted that it was something his predecessors couldn’t do.

Trump also delivered a profane attack on the news media, calling NBC News anchor Chuck Todd a “sleeping son of a [expletive]” and deeming CNN “fake as hell,” as the enthusiastic crowd booed at the mention of journalists and chanted “CNN sucks!”

Trump talked up his decision in the past week to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports — a move deeply opposed by congressional Republicans and the business wing of the GOP yet popular in this Pittsburgh suburb, the heart of steel country. Both candidates in the special election to fill the seat vacated by Republican Tim Murphy back the president’s decision on the import duties.

Murphy resigned last year amid revelations of an extramarital affair in which the anti-abortion lawmaker urged his mistress to get an abortion when he thought she was pregnant.

“A lot of steel mills are now opening up because what I did,” the president told the crowd. “Steel is back, and aluminum is back.”

Trump rarely mentioned Saccone during the first portion of the rally, saying he believed the candidate was “handsome” and deriding the Democrat as “Lamb the sham.” But Trump also acknowledged that Saccone was in a “tough race” and urged his supporters to come out and vote.

“We need our congressman, Saccone. We have to have him,” Trump said. Referring to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the president added: “The only chance she’s got to become speaker is electing Democrats.”

Trump also urged a crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities and vowed to toughen enforcement at U.S. borders and to root out MS-13 gang members, specifically mentioning Long Island throughout his speech.

“We have to build a wall,” Trump said. “For people, for gangs, for drugs. The drugs have never been a problem like we have right now.”

He recalled his testy telephone conversation last month with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, which ended in an impasse over Trump’s promised border wall and an agreement to scrap Pena Nieto’s planned trip to Washington.

Trump said Peña Nieto asked him to affirm Mexico’s position that it would not pay for the wall.

“He said, ‘Is it a dealbreaker?’ ” Trump recalled. “I said, ‘Bye, bye. We’re not making a deal.’ ”

The rally in Moon Township had originally been scheduled for mid-February but was postponed after the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

This was Trump’s first campaign rally in more than three months, breaking his pattern of gathering with his strongest supporters as often as twice in a month. His last two rallies were aimed at helping Republican candidates in the U.S. Senate race in Alabama, although the president did not make those men the centerpiece of his comments.

On Sept. 22, Trump held a rally in Huntsville, Alabama, to encourage his supporters to vote in the GOP primary for Luther Strange, who had been appointed to fill the Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions a Republican. While on stage, Trump acknowledged he “might have made a mistake” in endorsing Strange, who went on to lose the primary to Roy Moore, whom many of the president’s supporters had endorsed.

Trump then backed Moore, continuing to support the former Alabama Supreme Court judge even as he was accused of sexual misconduct involving teenage girls when he was in his 30s.

On Dec. 8, the president held a campaign rally in Pensacola, Florida — not far from the Alabama state line. Although those close to Trump had said the president would not mention Moore during the event, Trump did just that, telling his supporters: “So get out and vote for Roy Moore. Do it. Do it. Do it.”

Moore’s Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, went on to win the race, becoming the first Alabama Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate in more than two decades.

Since then, Trump has not held any official campaign rallies, although he did name his new campaign manager last month, Brad Parscale.

Last month, Trump showed up at the Conservative Political Action Conference and gave an unscripted 75-minute address in which he attacked Democrats, mocked Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and encouraged campaign-style chants about locking up his political opponent.

With AP