Trump plans campaign push for crucial polls

NEW YORK: Donald Trump on Saturday plunged into a frenzied last 10 days of campaigning ahead of crucial midterm elections, seeking to regain the spotlight briefly seized by the arrest of a Florida fan of his charged with mailing bombs to more than a dozen of the US president’s leading critics. After initially denouncing the mailings as “terrorizing acts” and calling them “despicable,” Trump has resumed his attacks on the news media, saying they themselves shared the blame. The president was due to speak later Saturday at a rally in Illinois, after he on Friday accused the media of using the bombing suspect’s political inclinations to “score political points against me and the Republican Party.” At a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday he blamed the suspicious packages for slowing the Republicans’ push to hold control of both houses of Congress in the November 6 midterms. “The Republicans had tremendous momentum, and then, of course, this happened,” Trump said. Cesar Sayoc, 56, a registered Republican with a criminal history, was charged with mailing at least 13 bombs in a weeklong spree that inflamed the country ahead of the elections. The FBI said late Friday that a possible 14th bomb, similar to the others, had been recovered at the California home of Democratic donor Tom Steyer. Sayoc was arrested outside a Florida mall, and his van, covered in pro-Trump and anti-liberal stickers, was seized. Trump is planning an intensive schedule of big rallies — the platform from which he has launched some of his sharpest strikes on political foes — from now until the election. Along with attacks on his critics, he is expected to play up what he says is the “threat” of a caravan of mostly Honduran migrants moving slowly northward, mostly on foot, through Mexico. On Saturday after several people were reportedly killed at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Trump addressed the poisonous climate. “It’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country, frankly, and all over the world and something has to be done,” he told journalists before flying off to campaign. Top Democratic lawmakers Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have accused Trump of condoning “physical violence and dividing Americans.” Asked on Friday by a reporter whether, in light of the bombing attempts, he would pledge “to tone down” his rhetoric, Trump replied, “Well, I think I’ve been toned down, if you want to know the truth.—AFP