LAURA INGRAHAM: What I saw in Butler

Watch host Laura Ingraham's exclusive interview with former President Trump, Monday night at 7:00pm ET on "The Ingraham Angle" on Fox News Channel.

There are four weeks left until Election Day and in many states, voting has already started.  According to every analyst, the race is going to be extremely close.  And over the weekend, President Trump returned to Butler, Pennsylvania – where he survived an assassination attempt in July.  The event – one of the most powerful he has ever done – created a unique opportunity to assess the status of the race, and President Trump’s place in American history.  Here are some observations: 

First, the Musk Factor. His appearance for Trump and his urgent appeal to voters is monumental.  He speaks for a new bloc of highly educated voters who were not traditionally Republicans yet who recognize that President Trump must win in order to preserve our constitutional freedoms.  For months now, an array of former Democrats – including Robert Kennedy, Jr., former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and RFK’s former running mate Nicole Shanahan – have been warning us that the people supporting Vice President Kamala Harris have built a political machine so powerful that it threatens our whole political system.  

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Consider what Harris’s supporters have done in recent years:

• They have opened America’s borders and done everything possible to make it as easy as possible for non-Americans to enter this country, take government benefits, and eventually vote in our elections.
• They have turned the Democratic Party into their own private fiefdom.  The Democrats no longer have contested primaries or even serious debates over what positions they should take on the issues, or who they should nominate for major offices.  Harris’s supporters are so powerful that they ended President Biden’s career in a matter of weeks.  They are so strong that they gave the Democratic nomination to Harris with no real debate, even though she has a woeful political record.  In the states where they rule, such as California, state governments have become one-party oligarchies where elected officials like Govs. Gavin Newsom and J.B. Pritzker feel free to ignore the desires of their people.  Harris’ supporters now want to bring this system to the whole country.
• They have made clear that they intend to crack down on anyone who speaks out against them, by banning them from the Internet where possible and by destroying companies like X who won’t go along with their agenda.
• They have put many of their political opponents in jail and have done everything possible to put President Trump himself in jail.

Elon Musk understands that if these people win again – if they can take a non-qualified puppet like Harris and put her in the White House – then none of us is safe.

Second, J.D. Vance continues to out-perform and impress. This should not be surprising to anyone who has followed him over the past few years (including his frequent appearances on "The Ingraham Angle").  His rise has been one of the greatest developments of this year.  

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When the year began, many in Washington hoped that if they could beat President Trump one more time, then the America First movement he leads would be broken.  They were openly rooting for people like former Rep. Liz Cheney to resume her seat in the GOP.  They expected that after these elections, the Republican Party would go back to its role of serving as the establishment’s junior partner.  But now – after his crushing the vice-presidential debate – the establishment is learning that the 40-year-old Vance is a compelling politician who will likely be a national figure for the next 30 years.  

Yet Vance is not an anomaly. Under President Trump’s leadership, the GOP has developed a deep bench of talented leaders – such as Sens. Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, Govs. Ron DeSantis, and Glenn Youngkin – who are ready to put their own stamp on this agenda.  This crop of leaders will continue to grow the GOP into a multi-ethnic, multi-racial force for working-class people.

TRUMP HOLDS CAMPAIGN RALLY IN BUTLER, PENNSYLVANIA, MONTHS AFTER JULY ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

Third, is Trump himself. The sheer size of the crowd in Butler spoke volumes. The atmosphere was electric. This time, the security was tight, sharpshooters on every visible roof. 

President Trump’s success has rested on his ability to convince tens of millions of voters that he fights for their interests. Love, gratitude, defiance and patriotism were on full display on the Butler fairgrounds.  They are not a threat to democracy – they are simply smart enough to understand how the Washington D.C. Cabal has torn apart America. 

Patrick Henry would recognize this type of patriot, as would Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Most importantly, they are not mindless drones who do what they are told – if you’re looking for mindless drones, check out the Network Hacks who take whatever position the Democrats’ donors tell them to take.  These are good, decent patriots who are trying to save a country they love.

Finally, I saw President Trump. For anyone who has covered politics over the last 30 years, it is obvious that President Trump is really the only person we have covered who truly deserves a place in the history books.  Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were talented and clever politicians, but they were never willing to say or do anything that really challenged the rich and powerful.  The only other GOP administrations, besides Trump, since 1988 – the two Bush administrations – will not be remembered as transformative. 

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But President Trump has changed America.  He has beaten the establishment so badly on economic issues that they have mostly given up trying to talk about them. His foreign policy was so much more successful than theirs that they don’t want Harris talking about those issues either.  

He has been vilified, impeached, indicted by the most powerful people in the world – he has faced unlimited opposition funding from some of the richest people in the world – and he just keeps fighting.  

He is in a stronger position today than he was at this same point in both 2016 and 2020. By promoting Vance and other young Republicans, he has built a movement that will survive him whatever happens in November. And he has shown incredible physical courage by pressing forward in a situation where we have troubling evidence of sheer incompetence on behalf of the Secret Service.  

Fifty years from now, one hundred years from now – two hundred years from now – no one will care about Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or Tim Walz. They will be regarded as mouthpieces for a failed establishment.  But historians will still be trying to understand President Trump and his movement. 

What I hope they will see is what I saw in Butler: Even after two impeachments, endless lawfare, and an assassin’s bullet, Trump was a man who refused to give up in his battle for the forgotten working people of America. 

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