Trump lays out agenda if Republicans win midterm elections

“In four or five years, when this country is rocketing, remember I’m the one that got it started,” he declared. “I’m asking you to pretend that I’m on the ballot. I’m on the ballot. I’m on the ballot, just one more time.”

The president previewed a heavy diet of campaign travel over the next two months, stating his plans to stump in some 35 races, including Texas’s own contest for the U.S. Senate.

“We have to elect him. And if I have to, I’ll come back twice or three times. You’ll say, ‘Get this guy out of here! Get him out!’ You’re going to be saying, “Get him the hell out of here! He’s here too much,” he joked. “No, I’ll come once or twice or three. I’ll come whatever we have to to elect Ken Paxton together.”

Much of Trump’s speech stuck to familiar territory: touting the trillions in foreign investments his tariffs have funneled into the American economy, taking credit for closing the southern border, hammering on the “99 to 1” issue of transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, and railing against communists and “Dumocrats,” the president’s preferred nickname for the other side of the aisle.

“I just came up with it a couple of months ago, and I said, you know, you take out the ‘E,’ and you replace it with a ‘U’ — and nobody knows that ‘dumb’ has a ‘B’ at the end of it,” he riffed. “Most people think it’s ‘D-U-M,’ and that’s fine. So we take out the ‘E,’ we replace it with the ‘U,’ and they’re Democrats because their policy is so bad.”

Still, the president did dangle one new carrot in front of voters, vowing to send every American adult a $5,000 dividend “if the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them.”

“The only caveat I have is that the dividend that we’re making must be spent in the United States of America. We don’t want you going to Canada to spend the money. We don’t want you going to China, to Germany. You got to spend the money in the United States of America,” he added. “So if the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get $5,000. It will be called the Trump dividend. We’ll call it the Trump dividend. Congratulations. Now all we have to do is win.”

Later in his remarks, Trump proceeded to tick off a number of additional promises he’d deliver if the GOP wins in November, including making the Trump Tax Cuts permanent, issue, cutting “out-of-control credit card swipe fees,” passing the SAVE America Act, continuing his administration’s “war on fraud,” and instituting the death penalty for “large scale drug dealers, human traffickers, and murderers of law enforcement.”

Although the convention was intended to present a united front, hints of discontent with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) were on display, particularly as Trump complained about the upper chamber not passing his SAVE America Act.

At the same time, there was a sense of levity to Trump’s address before a crowd that was dancing to the interlude music and singing along with the president’s opening act, Lee Greenwood.

During one verbal detour, the president abruptly broke from his remarks to note how the Dallas Mavericks, who play home games at Wednesday’s venue, perpetrated the second-worst trade of all time by shipping perennial all-star Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for pennies on the dollar a season-and-a-half ago. Trump noted that the worst trade of all time still belongs to the Boston Red Sox, who famously sent the legendary Babe Ruth to their arch-rivals, the New York Yankees.

Trump again earned laughs, and some groans, from the crowd while peppering in some innuendos into his attacks on James Talarico, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s opponent.

“He was also somebody that hated eating meat, but he ran a campaign to beat meat. He called it beat meat. I don’t know what the hell he meant by that,” the president joked. “It was bad for his image, so he started eating meat, and he recently — it’s getting worse. I’m getting myself in trouble. Getting worse. But he was recently seen having a barbecue and eating a lot of meat.”

Despite Trump’s draw, the 20,000-person American Airlines Center was not at full capacity for most of the evening before the president took the stage, an event he first proposed last year.

The attendance issue punctuated Trump’s point that he underpins the Republican Party’s electoral success in recent years, driving turnout regardless of his net negative approval ratings.

To that end, the likes of Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) decided not only to attend the convention but to address it on Thursday, even as he seeks reelection in a majority Democratic district, while other Republicans running in competitive races, including Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), declined.

“He’s president of the United States, and whether people want to say yay or nay, the fact is he’s the president,” Lawler told the Washington Examiner. “This is an opportunity to talk about what we’ve actually done, and my speech is going to focus on what I’ve delivered for my district, and in fact, standing up to the president to do it.”

And Trump was everywhere, depicted in photographs lining the upper levels of the center as they do in the White House’s West Wing and represented in the merchandise being sold in concession stands around the premises.

But despite the positive reception to Trump’s address in the room, there appears to be work to do between now and November, at least according to Daniel Garza, president and founder of the Libre Initiative, a right-leaning Latino advocacy organization.

TRUMP PROMISES $5,000 DIVIDEND FOR EVERY AMERICAN ADULT IF GOP WINS MIDTERM ELECTIONS

“I will admit that I don’t sense that this administration during these two years has quite met expectations that the Latino community had as far as GDP growth and bringing down inflation to you know 2% or less,” Garza told the Washington Examiner.