Trump revs up campaign on economy in key states

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump revved up his campaign pitch to voters in key Rust Belt states by touting the US economy, saying he’s working to stop jobs from moving to neighbouring countries, and mocking his Democratic opponents.
“We’re now the No. 1 economy anywhere in the world and it’s not even close,” Trump said at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He later told the cheering audience that returning for another term in office will make the US stronger: “At the end of six years, you’re going to be left with the strongest country you’ve ever had.”
The president said his renegotiation of trade agreements will make the economy stronger. Trump said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who visited the White House to discuss trade, agreed to put “$40 billion into the United States for new car factories.”
The event was the president’s first since his biggest Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, entered the 2020 race, saying in a campaign video that he’s running because Trump poses a threat to the nation “unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime.”
Trump scheduled the rally as counter-programming to the annual White House correspondents’ charity dinner in Washington. He has publicly fumed in recent weeks that reporters focussed too much on unflattering episodes from special counsel Robert Mueller’s report instead of the conclusion his campaign had not criminally colluded with Russian efforts to disrupt the 2016 campaign.

Russia Investigation
The president renewed those complaints before a receptive crowd, repeating his assertion that investigations into ties between his campaign and Russia amounted to a “witch hunt.”
“The radical liberal Democrats put all their hopes behind their collusion delusion, which has now been totally exposed to the world as a complete and total fraud,” he said.
Mueller’s report didn’t find an “underlying crime” by Trump related to Russian interference in the 2016 election. But the report provided an exhaustive account of Trump’s efforts to head off or undermine the probe, saying Congress could take action on at least 10 instances of potential obstruction of justice. Attorney General William Barr said he determined obstruction didn’t take place.
Wisconsin will be a crucial battleground for Trump, no matter who Democrats select as their nominee. It’s among a trio of Great Lake states  — along with Michigan and Pennsylvania — that were thought to be reliably Democratic before Trump’s 2016 victory. Despite dominant fundraising, an established campaign organisation and the power of incumbency, Trump risks losing all three states in 2020 after Republican failures in midterm elections showed his support in the region is fading. Any Democratic challenger will likely need to win all three to prevent Trump from securing a second term in the White House.
At the rally, Trump highlighted jobs being created in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and elsewhere, crediting the trend with his moves to rescind regulations and counter tariffs on American exports.
Trump said he’d saved “countless timber jobs,” including in Wisconsin, by imposing new tariffs.
He also invoked Commerce Department data reported showing faster-than-expected growth in the US economy,
and said manufacturing jobs are returning.