KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) – President Donald Trump used a Western election campaign Wednesday to portray Republicans as vigilant supporters of gun rights and to defend its acceptance of a luxury plane from Qatar for use as Air Force One.
At an evening rally in Montana, Trump moved closer to the kind of attack lines his party wants to hear as it travels across the country, and he warned that the Second Amendment would be “under siege” if Democrats win. November midterm elections.
But his message was more off-script earlier in the day as he visited an economically challenged corner of rural Arizona. Trump opened his speech by describing that the new jet parked behind him was a gift from the Qatari royal family.
“When you are given gifts, you accept them, right? “” Trump told the crowd in Bullhead City. “When they give you a 747, you say two words: ‘Thank you’.”
Trump’s comments came on the second and final day of a swing to the West, part of a midterm tour designed to rally the Republican Party ahead of the Nov. 3 election that will determine control of Congress. His first stop was Alaska on Tuesday, where he announced that Taiwan would buy gas from a gas megaproject there and pardoned two Alaskans who had pleaded guilty in 2022 to Clean Air Act violations.
The president continued to do favors in Montana, where he announced a new military testing range sought by the state’s Republicans.
“Montana will help ensure that the United States military always reigns supreme,” he said.
As Americans grapple with lingering concerns about the cost of living, Trump often returns to some of his personal priorities, including renovation projects in Washington or the trappings of the presidency, including the luxury plane.
Trump agreed to the new plane last year despite heavy criticism, including from some of his staunchest Republican supporters.
Trump focuses on guns during Montana campaign
Trump’s visit to western Montana’s 1st District was aimed at boosting House candidate Aaron Flint, a former aide to incumbent Republican Ryan Zinke, who was Interior secretary in Trump’s first term.
Flint’s opponent is Sam Forstag, a Democratic union leader and Forest Service smoke bomber, a specialized firefighter who goes to fires by plane and parachute.
Forstag said he supports voluntary expansion of safe gun storage for people in mental health crises, but he describes himself as a champion of gun rights and he says guns are used in Montana to hunt and stay safe.
Trump, speaking to a crowd of his supporters at a horse show arena in Kalispell, near Glacier National Park, called Forstag “extreme” and said Democrats “will take away your guns if we don’t continue.”
He noted that Republican candidates Kurt Alme, running for Senate, and Aaron Flint, running for House, received top marks from the National Rifle Association.
Meanwhile, Democratic Senate candidate Alani Bankhead got an F, and Forstag received a question mark from the NRA because he “refused to fill out a form,” Trump said.
He didn’t mention Seth Bodnar, the independent in Montana’s Senate race. which is supported by the best Democrats in the state.
Luxury Air Force One serves as backdrop and fodder for speeches
In Arizona, upbeat music blared as the ancient Qatari plane flew over the local airport where supporters waited for Trump in the heat. The president, wearing his signature red baseball cap, emerged with a wave and a fist bump and walked slowly down the stairs as loudspeakers played Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” the song that marks Trump’s entrance to campaign events.
Air Force One, now sporting Trump’s new red, white, blue and gold paint scheme, and mountains filled the background as he began recounting how he learned the Qataris had “the best of all 747s.” He described to the crowd, who stood in the sun at a rural desert airport to hear him speak, how he called the emir of Qatar and asked him to borrow the plane before the leader gave it as a gift.
Mohave County, where Bullhead City is located, has higher poverty and unemployment rates than the state and nation, with lower per capita income, according to state census and unemployment data.
Trump also spoke at length about his aesthetic flourishes around Washington: the White House Ballroom under construction and a just-completed helipad on the South Lawn, as well as a triumphal arch he has planned for the capital.
“The fake media is not talking about how successful our country is,” Trump said. Journalists instead ask him about “affordability,” he says, pronouncing the word in a dismissive tone.
Trump traveled to Arizona to rally support for Rep. Andy Biggs, who is seeking to defeat Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. Republicans running in the state’s two competitive congressional districts, Jay Feely and Rep. Juan Ciscomani, did not attend the event.
GOP strategy shifts as Election Day nears
With less than three weeks until the end of the campaign, the shift to the West comes as Trump’s party has made it. started to retreat from a handful of U.S. House of Representatives races and Democrats are aiming to raise money for candidates who appeared to be distant earlier this year.
The transfer of money in the final weeks of the midterm campaigns reflects an increasingly defensive posture by Republicans, who have already lowers their expectations in the U.S. Senate elections and renewed aggression from Democrats, who are trying to capitalize on Trump’s weak public support.
Trump has maintained a brisk pace of hour-plus rallies — new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia called it a “midterm blitz” — in his efforts to stem expected Republican losses and combat a historic trend in which the president’s party typically loses seats in White House midterm elections.
Trump won Arizona twice, in 2016 and 2024, but lost the state in 2020. Montana’s 1st District is slightly less Republican overall than the state, which voted for Trump by double digits in each of his three presidential campaigns.
Arizona is the only swing state in recent shutdowns
His other visits so far in October have taken him to traditionally strong Republican territory — Alabama, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas — amid bad weather. approval ratings, rising costs and the Iranian War.
Arizona stands out as the only swing state among the president’s recent stops, even though the airport rally took place in a county won by Trump with 78% of the 2024 vote.
Biggs has been a staunch ally of the president and helped Trump attempt to block the House certification of Trump’s 2020 election defeat. A former leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, he has represented a safe seat for the GOP since winning the 2016 election.
He faces Hobbs, who narrowly beat Republican Kari Lake in the governor’s race four years ago. Arizona has long been a stronghold of the Republican Party, and registered Republicans still vastly outnumber Democrats and independents, but voters have repeatedly rejected Trump allies and handed the state’s highest offices to Democrats.
Trump said Biggs “will always stand with law enforcement” and took aim at Hobbs, who he said is “doing the bidding of the cartels” at the U.S.-Mexico border. Hobbs counters that she has reinforced the border by sending National Guard troops there and increased funding for local law enforcement.
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Catalini reported from Morrisville, Pa., Cooper from Phoenix and Price from Washington. Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report.
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