Trump vows to unleash American energy and “drill, baby, drill”

Pennsylvania: In two rallies on Wednesday, October 10, in pivotal battleground Pennsylvania, presidential candidate Donald Trump pledged to unleash American energy and “drill, baby, drill” while distorting the country’s historic record on fossil fuel output.

And with less than four weeks before the suspenseful election results on November 5, Trump ruled out the possibility of a second debate with Democratic opponent Kamala Harris, declaring on social media that “there will be no rematch.”

Despite his now-familiar assaults on the US vice president, calling him “grossly incompetent” and “ill-equipped” to serve as commander in chief, he made no mention of his choice at either of the two rallies.
The Republican former president attacked Harris on US oil exploration and said she was responsible for causing the closure of several power plants in an attempt to win over blue-collar voters in Scranton, the old center of the coal mining industry where President Joe Biden was raised.

“On day one, I will tell Pennsylvania energy workers to frack, frack, frack, and drill, drill, drill, baby, drill,” Trump said.

Along with pushing his wide variety of complaints, disinformation, and lies, from his criminal prosecutions and polls to border security and the storms, Trump demonized migrants and leveled unfounded charges of Democratic electoral fraud.

He pledged to cut home energy rates by 50% and issued a warning, saying, “If Kamala is reelected, your costs will go up and your lights will go out.” However, his primary campaign theme was the economy.

Trump also takes a jab at Harris with his promise to expand fracking, the technique used to produce natural gas and oil from shale.

When she ran for president in 2019 for the first time, she backed a ban on the practice, which is a significant business in western Pennsylvania. Despite her current insistence that she won’t outlaw fracking, Trump has repeatedly pressed her on the matter.

Harris subsequently stated during an address in Reading, 100 kilometers northwest of Philadelphia, “Day one, there’s no fracking, and that’s the end of Pennsylvania,” should he be elected.

The United States was never really independent from foreign energy, with imports from Russia in particular rising, even though it exported more crude oil and petroleum products than it imported under the Trump administration.

Under Biden, US oil, natural gas, and renewable energy output have smashed records, according to statistics from the Energy Information Administration.

Trump and Harris are Polling Neck and Neck

In Keystone State—the once-thriving epicenter of the American industrial heartland and one of the largest prizes in the Electoral College system that determines US elections—Trump and Harris are polling neck and neck.

Despite coming from a Delawarean family, Biden was raised in Scranton and is still quite well-liked in the county where it is situated. In 2020, he won the county by nine points.

Since mid-August, Harris has maintained a two-to-three-point lead in national polls. Thanks to declining inflation and a strong employment report last week, Harris has been making ground on Trump in the economic arena.

However, Pennsylvania’s and the other six swing states’ polling has been far closer.

Regarding the economy, Trump leads Harris 54–45% according to a recent Gallup survey, highlighting his plans for a tariff-driven manufacturing “renaissance.”

Every contender has made several trips to Pennsylvania, which is seen as a stronghold for the working class.

The 78-year-old, who has been impeached twice, continued his xenophobic and anti-immigrant remarks on Wednesday, claiming that illegal immigrants were “ruining your cities and towns.”

The last time Trump visited Pennsylvania was four days ago, on a defiant return to the location of a rally in July during which he almost perished in an assassination attempt.

On Wednesday, Harris stayed primarily off the trail to keep an eye on the huge Hurricane Milton as it approached Florida.

After pleading with locals to follow evacuation instructions, she denounced Trump for spreading “unconscionable” false information about government hurricane relief operations.

Ex-President Barack Obama comes early for a rally on Friday, giving Harris more celebrity power as her campaign for the White House nears its finish. Harris travels to Pennsylvania the following week.

Harris will be in battleground Arizona on Friday after traveling to Nevada on Thursday for a campaign event in Las Vegas.