Hours after suffering another health care setback on Capitol Hill, President Donald Trump will try to turn the page at a rally in Alabama.
Trump is heading to Huntsville with a specific task: Boost Sen. Luther Strange past controversial former judge Roy Moore in Tuesday’s Republican primary runoff for the seat once held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
But for Trump, rallies have also been an opportunity to blow off steam, settle political scores and revel in his adoring supporters’ cheers.
With 75 fiery minutes onstage at a rally in Phoenix in late July, Trump sought to move past the controversy surrounding his blame of “many sides” for white supremacists’ violence and protests in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Trump lambasted both of Arizona’s Republican senators — including John McCain, whose announcement Friday that he would vote against the latest GOP effort to roll back Obamacare could be the decisive blow to Trump’s biggest legislative priority since taking office. He also foreshadowed his pardoning of former sheriff Joe Arpaio, a base-pleasing move that infuriated Latinos and Democrats and risked undercutting his support in a state that had just seen Arpaio defeated for re-election in 2016.
In Alabama, health care could be the focus. Hours before McCain announced his position, Trump tweeted that Republicans who vote against the bill in future political campaigns “will forever … be known as ‘the Republican who saved ObamaCare.'”
One big question is whether Trump will directly criticize Moore, the twice-removed former state Supreme Court chief justice who mocked Strange’s claim of a “close, personal friendship” in a debate Thursday night by saying: “I can’t tell you what the President thinks. I can’t tell you every move he makes — when he goes to the bathroom, when he doesn’t.”
The trip south comes after Trump spent a stiff week in New York City meeting world leaders at the United Nations. And Trump appeared to be looking forward to the looser venue. Strange said in the debate that the two spent 30 minutes on the phone Wednesday night. And Trump tweeted Friday morning: “Will be in Alabama tonight. Luther Strange has gained mightily since my endorsement, but will be very close. He loves Alabama, and so do I!”
The race is also the first time Trump is directly confronting his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who is aggressively supporting Moore while framing the primary as a chance to reject Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Bannon has been rallying anti-establishment conservative donors and influencers and using the conservative news site Breitbart.com to attack Strange.
But Strange used Bannon’s support to poke at Moore on Thursday night.
“Many of the people who are supporting you look like the unemployment line at the White House,” he said. “They were fired.”