Trump’s reelection stump speeches run from toilets and lightbulbs to your dishwasher and his hair. President Donald Trump’s stump speech has not changed a lot since he first launched his presidential bid in 2015; since then his racist bread-and-butter campaign promises have pretty much remained the same.
The Southern border wall? “It’s being built and Mexico will pay for it!” (That’s debatable, and also Mexico is definitely not paying for it.) But as the 2020 election gets nearer amid a catastrophic pandemic, the president has remixed his stump speech and included new, strange ways to justify why he should be reelected come November.
For example, Trump has taken a special interest in household appliances, promising to make your lightbulbs and dishwashers great again. (It’s a natural evolution for the president, given his complicated relationship with science.) How would it work? We’re not really sure! Guess you need to reelect him to find out.
As a matter of public service, GEN reviewed transcripts of Trump’s 2020 rallies going back all the way to June 2019, when he officially launched his reelection campaign. Ahead, four of the most bonkers campaign promises he has made so far.
Trump turned a White House event meant to spotlight his record deregulations into a campaign event in mid-July. In his speech, he promised to get rid of a fierce opponent who’s making life hard for Americans: showerheads with low water pressure. “I don’t know about you — but my hair has to be perfect,” he said.
He made a similar promise at a rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in January. “You go into a shower, and I have this beautiful head of hair, I need a lot of water. I need water. You go into the shower, right? You turn on the water, drip, drip, drip. I called the guy, ‘Something wrong with this?’ ‘No, sir. It’s just the restrictor,’” he said.“So you’re in there five times longer than you’re supposed to be. You use probably more water and it’s a very unpleasant experience, right? So we’re getting rid of the restrictors. You’re going to have full shower flow. Full sink.”
It’s been reported that Trump’s curious skin color is achieved through the use of Switzerland’s Bronx Colors-brand face makeup, but the president blames modern lightbulbs for the tint. At a rally in Battle Creek, Michigan, the night he was impeached, Trump railed against them.
“We’re even bringing back the old lightbulb. You heard about that, right? The old lightbulb, which is better. I say, ‘Why do I always look so orange?’ You know why? Because of the new light, they’re terrible,” he said. “You look terrible. They cost you many, many times more, like four or five times more. And you know they’re considered hazardous waste.”
A few days later, his administration announced it was blocking a rule that would allow for older incandescent bulbs to be phased out for the sake of the planet and instead require people to use energy-efficient lightbulbs.
In July, he explained why he fought for the rule change. “[Older incandescent bulbs] look better, they make you look so much better,” he said at a White House event. “That’s important to all of us.”
Trump has taken issue with how dishwashers currently work, saying they don’t use enough water to clean dishes. (By the way he described them, it does not sound like he has ever loaded a dishwasher.) The president then promised to “approve” new dishwashers that will allow your dishes to be “beautiful.” It remains unclear how he would pull this off.
“I’m also approving new dishwashers that give you more water so you can actually wash and rinse your dishes without having to do it 10 times or five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Anybody have a new dishwasher? I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry for that. It’s worthless. They give you so little water. Do you ever see it? Air comes out? So little water,” he said at the December rally in Milwaukee.
He went on: “So what happens? You end up using it 10 times, and the plates, then you take them out and doing the old fashioned way, right? But what do you do? You’re spending 10 times for the electricity, right? So I’m putting the water back. Most places have so much water, they don’t know what the hell to do with it. A lot of people don’t realize that. So dishwashers now, you’re going to have just as much as you’ve ever had, and you’re going to use now one shot. Your dishes are going to be beautiful.”
Just like Don Quixote attacked windmills because he thought them to be giants, Trump has gone after windmills because he doesn’t really understand how they work. His hatred for this type of technology dates back to the years he spent battling the construction of windmills near his Scotland golf course. The Trump Organization lost a multiyear lawsuit and ended paying the Scottish government $290,000. “You want to see a lot of birds that are dead? Go under a windmill sometime,” he said at a campaign event in Tulsa, Oklahoma in June.
As part of his reelection pitch, Trump has argued that windmills would be widespread if he had not defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. “They’d be knocking out those birds left and right,” he said at a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, in December. Those windmills. Wah, wah, wah.”
He then engaged in some role-playing, making fun of both windmills and climate change. “‘Darling, I want to watch television tonight and there’s no damn wind. What do I do? I want to watch the election results. Darling, there’s no wind,” he said. “The damn wind just isn’t blowing like it used to because of global warming, I think. I think it’s global warming. Global warming. No more wind, no more life. The ocean is going to rise 1/8 of an inch within the next 250 years. We’re going to be wiped out!’”
That’s not at all how wind energy works.