PANAMA CITY, FLA. — In liberation, Donald Trump turns out to be much the same.
Hours after tweeting that the shackles had come off of his candidacy, Trump made hay out of the latest WikiLeaks dump on his opponent’s campaign but otherwise stuck to his usual script on Tuesday night, relying on his teleprompter and declining to open new fronts in his campaign against the Republican leaders who have abandoned him.
In a campaign season that is growing more vitriolic by the day, Trump’s morning tweet — “It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to” — raised expectations that the evening rally here would be a barn-burner. But if there are attacks he has not yet made or political taboos he has yet to shatter, Trump is still figuring out what those are.
Instead, he used the news of the day -- a fresh batch of hacked emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta -- to continue hammering upon the nationalist, anti-elite message instilled by aides Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon that has received renewed focus since Trump's disappointing showing in the first debate.
“These WikiLeaks emails confirm what those of us here today have known all along: Hillary Clinton is the vessel for a corrupt global establishment that is raiding our country and surrendering our sovereignty,” Trump said.
Citing an email showing a Hillary Clinton campaign aide referring to contact with the FBI about her handling of work-related emails, Trump accused his opponent and the bureau of “collusion and corruption of the highest order,” renewing his vow to appoint a special prosecutor to go after Clinton. Citing leaked excerpts of Clinton’s paid speeches in which she advocates a hemispheric open market, Trump charged, “This criminal government cartel doesn’t recognize borders.” And he called an email in which a Clinton aide derided a religious group as “the latest evidence of the hatred the Clinton campaign has for everyday Americans.”
Trump cited an email showing top Democratic official Donna Brazile feeding the campaign a question from CNN ahead of an interview as further evidence that Clinton is in cahoots with “the rigged media” and that Bernie Sanders had the Democratic nomination stolen from him. “Aren’t we starting to feel sorry for Bernie Sanders?” Trump asked. Both charges have long been part of his repertoire.
Trump also bragged that his rally drew a bigger crowd than Clinton’s appearance with former vice president Al Gore in the state earlier on Tuesday, and maligned Gore’s climate change advocacy. “Al Gore wants to eliminate the combustion engine essentially and he flies around on jets,” he said.
Trump also noted the case of Rick Lazio, who lost the 2000 New York Senate race to Clinton after striding over to her podium mid-debate and appearing to invade her space. Hoping that the same fate does not befall him, Trump rejected the idea that he had invaded Clinton’s space during Sunday night’s debate.
“Crooked Hillary walks across the stage right in front of me,” he recounted. “She’s standing right in front of me. I didn’t care and she’s answering the question and then she walks right back.”
Trump said media reports mischaracterized the moment, in which he hovered close behind Clinton as she answered a question, by saying he invaded her space. “I said, ‘I’m not getting near this woman. No, I’m not getting near this woman at all. I have no interest at all,’” Trump said.
As usual, Trump made verbal missteps and delivered head-scratchers. He urged his supporters to vote on “November 28” and said of Clinton at one point, “She’s crooked as a three-dollar bill. I used to say two-dollar bill but now they make two-dollar bills.”
And Trump’s warm-up acts continued to push the envelope. Speaking ahead of Trump, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani called Clinton a “pathological liar,” adding, “She could possibly pass a polygraph test while she was lying. It’s possible.” Before him, an evangelical pastor took the stage and implied that a woman was not fit for the presidency, saying, “Our nation needs a father.”
But as Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer rescinded her condemnation of Trump, and Republican leaders began to wonder if they had abandoned their nominee too hastily, Trump restrained himself from widening his rift with party leaders. (He did, however, attack House Speaker Paul Ryan in an interview with Fox News.)
Sprawled out on picnic blankets and standing in line at a barbecue stand for “world famous butt fries,” Trump’s supporters said they were unfazed by two weeks of devastating headlines for Trump and his consequent nose-dive in the polls, in part because they have tuned out mainstream sources of information.
“I don’t pay attention to the media. I pay attention to this man,” said Jennifer Marko, 54, ahead of the rally, pointing to the stage where Trump was set to speak, expressing confidence that he would become the next president of the United States.
For those who hadn’t gotten the memo, former Florida Rep. Steve Southerland advised the crowd to distrust what they read in news reports and see on television. “Don’t listen to the media,” he said, speaking onstage ahead of Trump. “Don’t listen to the liberal left. Do not fall for their tricks and their gimmicks.”
Expressing varying levels of disdain for Republican leaders who have abandoned Trump in response to the publication on Friday of a 2005 tape in which the GOP nominee brags about sexual assault, his supporters said the defections did nothing to shake their faith.
Brandon Benefield, a 39-year-old field engineer from Alabama, called Republican leaders who have ditched Trump “sellouts.”
“Trump is causing the Republican establishment to show their true colors,” he said. “They’re going to pay a price.” Benefield’s congresswoman, Martha Roby, was among the first to disavow Trump in the hours after the tape leaked. “She’s done for now in our district,” he said.
The party’s schism is bursting wide at a volatile moment, with Clinton’s campaign weathering a series of email dumps linked to Russian government hackers and the tone of the campaign growing increasingly rancorous. Earlier on Tuesday, Trump’s running mate Mike Pence rejected a supporter’s call to overthrow the government in a “revolution” if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency.
Though undaunted by the chaos erupting in the world of politics in recent days, rally attendees said one development went too far. They rejected Maine Gov. Paul LePage’s call earlier on Tuesday for Trump to “show some authoritarian power in our country.”
“By its definition that means dictatorship, and you don’t want that in a republic,” Benefield said.
“This is America,” said Sam Palmer, an 18-year-old police academy trainee in a “Blue Lives Matter” shirt with a “Deplorable” button pinned on it. “And the only reason we have been able to survive so long is that we have a system of checks and balances that prevents a dictator from coming to power.”