Trump bus makes campaign stop for Washington rally

The Trump 2020 campaign bus rolled into Washington for a local rally on Friday morning.

A throng of supporters packed the headquarters of the Washington County Republican Party to hear a handful of Trump surrogates promote the president's re-election bid.

A common thread among the speakers was how important the Nov. 3 election is.

'We've got to make sure we're ready to go on Election Day, because Democrats are going to do their best,” said Erin Perrine, the Trump campaign director of press communications.

Concerned Women for America President and co-Chair of Women for Trump Penny Nance quoted Ronald Reagan, saying, 'Freedom is never more than one generation from extinction.”

'Make sure you do everything you do to find your like-minded friends and family, make sure they are registered to vote,” Nance said.

American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp made it clear what he believed is at stake on Election Day.

'If we lose this election… it's not just this country we lose,” Schlapp said. 'I don't think we'll ever get it back. That's not hyperbole. I think we'll really slip to a place where we won't be able to get back.”

Matt Whittaker, an Iowa native who briefly served as Trump's acting attorney general, warned that the country 'hangs in the balance.”

'We have run out of ground to cede,” Whittaker said. 'We are on the edge of a cliff. This a chance… to decide whether we're going to keep this republic and whether we're going to hand it down to the next generation.”

Perrine warned supporters of what could happen if they do not get out and vote.

'If we don't do our best for President Trump, imagine waking up on Nov. 4, and Joe Biden is talking about what his cabinet would look like,” she said. 'The good news is that Hillary (Clinton) has offered to be part. That would mean your Department of Energy would probably be run by AOC (U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York). Do you want that?

'Do you want the intelligence community run by Adam Schiff? Do you want Jerry Nadler helping us pick our Supreme Court justices? Do you want Elizabeth Warren handling Native American affairs here in the United States?”

After each question, the crowd responded with an emphatic, 'No!”

Perrine told the crowd that they should not pay attention to polls showing that Trump is trailing Biden.

'I work with reporters every day talking about this president, because they purposely get it wrong,” she said. 'They do it to make you feel like we don't have a chance.

'The media is going to try to tell you that we're not winning. They're going to try to tell you that this is a lost cause, and it's not. The president is on the rise. The reason they do these polls so wrong across the country is so you think we're not doing well.”

Speakers praised Trump.

'We want America-first leadership, and we've got that with President Trump,” Perrine said.

Nance recalled a call from a New York Times reporter in 2016 when the reporter asked her how she, as an evangelical Christian woman, could support Donald Trump.

'We weren't looking for a pastor,” Nance said of her response. 'We weren't looking for a husband. We were looking for a body guard. We got one. He lived up to it.”

Friday was the third day of the bus tour across Iowa, which began in Sioux City on Wednesday.

The tour made stops in Fort Dodge, Mason City, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Grinnell, Newton, Des Moines, Pella and Ottumwa and planned to visit Coralville and Davenport after the Washington stop.