President Trump said Wednesday night that he held Democrat Joe Biden accountable in their acrimonious first debate because the liberal media won’t ask Mr. Biden tough questions.
“I did what the corrupt media has refused to do — I held Joe Biden accountable for his 47 years of failure,” the president told thousands of supporters at a campaign rally in Duluth, Minnesota. “The liberal media is upset that I took the fight to Biden and exposed his very dangerous agenda.”
The president criticized debate moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News for “protecting” Mr. Biden during the debate, in which Mr. Trump interrupted his rival more than 75 times.
“I was debating two people. Joe Biden is too weak to lead this country,” the president said. “The verdict is in and they say we, all of us, won big last night.”
He claimed that Mr. Biden is “canceling the rest of the debates.” Mr. Biden said Wednesday he will debate on Oct. 15 and 22 as scheduled.
The Commission on Presidential Debates plans to announce new rules for the last two debates, possibly allowing the moderator to cut off a candidate’s microphone if he’s talking during time reserved for his opponent.
Mr. Biden leads in polls in Minnesota by an average of 9.4 percentage points. A Republican presidential candidate hasn’t won the state since 1972.
The president reminded voters that he signed an executive order earlier in the day to expand the mining of rare-earth minerals in the state’s Iron Range. He cited national-security concerns that too much of the U.S. supply of the minerals comes from China.
The president said Mr. Biden’s son Hunter got rich on deals in Ukraine and with the wife of the former mayor of Moscow while his father was vice president. Meanwhile, he said, Mr. Biden’s trade policies were costing American workers their jobs.
“This is a matter of national security and economic security,” the president said. “The Bidens got rich while American workers got robbed.”
Mr. Trump also referred to former FBI Director James B. Comey’s testimony Wednesday to a Senate committee in which he said he couldn’t remember some key details about the origins of the spying on Mr. Trump’s campaign in 2016. The president suggested that Mr. Comey should be held accountable in an ongoing criminal probe of the FBI’s actions.
“We caught him cold,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s about time that something happens. It’s enough. We’ve got plenty of information on these crooks.”
The president again took aim at liberal Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, noting that she is involved in an alleged ballot-harvesting scandal in the state.
“She’s been crooked for a long time,” Mr. Trump said, adding that he hopes the local U.S. Attorney is investigating the allegations.
The Minneapolis Police Department announced Monday it was looking into a report by the activist group Project Veritas that supporters of Ms. Omar illegally harvested blank ballots this summer.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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