Former President Donald Trump surprised 15,000 supporters in Wisconsin on Saturday by arriving on his private jet for a rally, before vowing to restore free speech, saying “free speech is being taken away in America.”
“They take away your freedom of speech and fake news is a threat to this country,” the Republican presidential candidate said during a speech at the Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee, Wisconsin.
While Trump did not name any journalists or media outlets, his comments came two days after New York Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger wrote a scathing Washington Post op-ed warning that “Mr. Trump stands out for his aggressive and sustained efforts to undermine press freedom.”
Sulzberger also said Americans should prepare for an anti-media “game plan” from Trump if he wins the election in November.
“If you're a politician, and you happen to be a Republican or somewhat conservative, they write the exact opposite of the facts. If you're a taxi driver or an accountant or a lawyer or anything else, you don't get the details,” Trump said as he arrived at the airport in a Boeing 757 nicknamed “Trump Force One.”
“When we know the facts and they write articles that are completely opposite to the facts, you start to lose faith in the media.”
If re-elected, Trump promised to sign an executive order “to prohibit federal officials from conspiring to censor speech” and to “fire any federal official engaged in domestic censorship under a Harris administration.”
It was Trump's fourth visit to Wisconsin during the election cycle but his first time in the largely rural state, which is strongly Republican among key battleground states.
He also sharply criticized Harris, who will face off in a key presidential debate on Tuesday, for lax border policies that have created a national immigration crisis, skyrocketing crime rates and strained taxpayer wallets across the country.
Like Trump, Harris has been a frequent visitor this year to Wisconsin, where four of the last six presidential elections have been decided by less than 1 percentage point.
Polls of Wisconsin voters taken since Biden withdrew his reelection bid in July have shown Harris and Trump in a deadlock.
Democrats consider Wisconsin a “blue wall” state that they must win.
Biden, who visited Wisconsin on Thursday, won the state by just under 21,000 votes in 2020, but Trump won the state by nearly 23,000 votes in 2016.
