Eight things we learned from Trump's Minnesota speech

Donald Trump took to the stage in front of thousands of cheering supporters in Duluth, Minnesota, at a rally in support of Congressional candidate Pete Stauber, just hours after signing an executive order to put an end to the policy of separating children from their parents at the US border.

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Here are eight things we learned from his nearly hour-long speech:

It’s all about Clinton really
Trump argued the controversy over family separations was meant to distract from Hillary Clinton. Trump tied the issue to the inspector general’s report about the FBI’s handling of its investigation of Clinton during the 2016 elections. “Crooked Hillary – have you been watching what’s been going on? ... How guilty is she?” Trump said, prompting “Lock her up!” chants.

Right now they are building up immigration, they are building up immigration. They don’t want to show what’s happening in Congress where this scam has been revealed.”

More generally, Trump blamed the problems with immigration policy on what he called the Democrats’ “open border policy”.

So the Democrats want open borders, let everybody come in, let everybody pour in... Democrats don’t care about the impact of uncontrolled migration on your communities your schools, your hospitals, your jobs or your safety. Democrats put illegal immigrants before they put American citizens, what the hell is going on?

Wall is already built
Trump repeated false claims at the rally about the progress of the construction of his proposed wall on the US-Mexico border:

Trump still feels Mexico is exporting rapists

Trump repeated threats he made earlier in the week that the US would cut aid to countries whose people crossed the border. He referred to the speech he gave when he launched his campaign for the presidency back in 2015, when he called those coming over the border from Mexico as “rapists”.

These countries, we’re sending them back, we’re putting in legislation, we’re not giving them any more aid.

They send people up, remember the original speech, my original speech, they are sending, remember my words, they are sending and they’re not sending their finest, I can tell you and we’re sending them the hell back.

Crowd size matters
The practice of insulting the media at rallies continues. During his speech, Trump called the media at the rally “very dishonest people”, sparking loud chants of “CNN sucks! CNN sucks!”

In particuar, Trump criticised the media for their coverage of his rallies, asking for the cameras to get a shot of the size of the crowd, because they “never show” the crowd, only his face. Trump later tweeted his take on the number of people at the rally.

President likes to go one-on-one
Two protesters were singled out by Trump, who asked for them to be removed from the arena, as the crowd booed and jeered. Of one protester who sported long hair, Trump said: “Is that a man or a woman? I couldn’t tell. He needs a haircut more than I do.” Of the other protester, Trump said:

We have a single protester, there you go, goodbye darling, goodbye darling, we have a single protester, he’s going home to his mum, say hi to mummy.

War dead are on their way
Trump claimed the repatriation of the bodies of soldiers from North Korea, which he announced in the aftermath of last week’s summit in Singapore, had already begun, saying: “We got back our great fallen heroes, the remains sent back today, already 200 got sent back.”

Following Trump’s summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last week, US officials confirmed that North Korea would hand over a “sizeable number” of remains. The White House has not confirmed that any bodies have been returned so far, or what agency was handling the repatriation.

We need a space force
Trump has reiterated his plans for a “space force”, to patrol the heavens. “We’re reopening Nasa,” he told supporters, prompting chants of “space force”.

We have the air force, but now we’re going to have the space force. We need it! We need it!

Trump too elite to be elite
Lastly, some stand-out quotes from Trump. We don’t learn a huge amount from these, except, perhaps, about the president himself. At one point, Trump turned to the crowd and said: “By the way, is there anything more fun than a Trump rally?” And at another point, he bragged about his wealth and intelligence:

They always call the other side ‘the elite’. Why are they elite? I have a much better apartment than they do. I’m smarter than they are. I’m richer than they are. I became president and they didn’t. And I’m representing the greatest, smartest most loyal best people on Earth – the deplorables, remember that?