A former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania said Donald Trump’s speech at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Saturday was a “major gift” to Democrats.
Charlie Dent said the former president didn’t do the struggling GOP candidates he went there to support any favors with his two hour rant airing out his grievances.
“Most Republican candidates don’t want anything to do with Donald Trump in this general election. They want this to be about Joe Biden and the Democrats, but to the extent Trump inserts himself into this conversation, he’s giving the Democrats a major gift right now,” Dent, who served as a congressman from the Keystone State from 2005 until he retired in 2018, told CNN.
Trump rallied in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday night to support Republican Senate candidate, celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz and gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano. Both Oz and Mastriano are trailing their Democratic opponents, John Fetterman and Josh Shapiro respectively, in the polls.
It was Trump’s first rally since the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago to retrieve classified documents, and his speech quickly dissolved into airing his grievances about the search, attacking Biden, at one point he called the current president an “enemy of the state” and criticizing the FBI.
“I am not so sure that the former President Trump did anyone any good with that speech tonight. Just by showing up in Pennsylvania, he is making the election much more about himself,” Dent said.
“Mehmet Oz I don’t think wants to be anywhere near Donald Trump in this fall election. It doesn’t do him any good. He needs to win swing voters and independents and some Democrats, and it’s hard to do that when Trump is really just playing and pandering to the base,” Dent added.
