Surrogates stump for Trump: Bus tour featuring Noem, Ernst makes stop in Erie County

A whirlwind bus tour of Pennsylvania, featuring some of Donald Trump's staunchest supporters, rolled into the parking lot of Waldameer Park & Water World Wednesday as the presidential race hit the homestretch.

About 100 people came out to hear the likes of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida and Corey Lewandowski, a political operative who managed Trump's first campaign in 2016.

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The nearly hourlong rally was a get-out-the-vote recipe made of one part praise of Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, and another part rage toward the Democratic ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Former California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado Jr. said he had a 24-year front-row seat to Harris, the state's former attorney general, and called her a "liberal's liberal."

Trump's 2016 deputy campaign manager David Bossie, who runs the group Citizens United, which is best known for the U.S. Supreme Court case that opened the floodgates on corporate political spending, asked the raucous crowd if they were better off today than they were four years ago.

"Is the economy better off today than it was four years ago?" he asked. "Is our border more secure? Is our immigration policy better? Is our foreign and national security better off?"

The crowd responded in a chorus of "no" with each question.

"We have to fire Kamala Harris," Bossie replied.

Off his back

There was no mention of the Heritage Foundation's 900-page Project 2025 that Trump and Vance have tried to distance themselves from, but the bus tour did include Monica Crowley, a contributor to the government reform playbook. Among other things it calls for a national abortion ban, would require states to report women's miscarriages, calls for the elimination of the Department of Education and cutting Social Security and Medicare.

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"There were 13 days left to save the Republic," said Crowley, a former Fox News personality who served as U.S. assistant secretary of the treasury for public affairs under Trump.

"And the one man who is going to be able to do it is the twice impeached, arrested, indicted, shot, McDonald's fry cook," said Crowley, calling herself "a day-one girl" who backed Trump the day in 2015 he came down an escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy.

Crowley recalled working for President Richard Nixon, then noted there was a man in the crowd wearing a Nixon-Agnew shirt.

"I love that T-shirt and I want one," she said.

So 69-year-old Keith DuMond stripped the shirt from his back and tossed it toward Crowley. The crowd cheered and then broke into a chant of "Put it on!" She did as others grabbed a red jacket to cover the bare-skinned DuMond.

On their shoulders

Ernst talked about her military service and noted that her daughter and son-in-law are active duty members of the U.S. Army. She said the country is less secure than it had been under Trump.

"We're counting on you," she said. "I hate to put all this on your shoulders, Pennsylvania, but I'm going to throw it on your shoulders. We need you."

She wasn't the only one to say the election comes down to the Keystone State. Every speaker did.

Maldonado, for example, said his vote in deep blue California "really doesn't count."

"The only way it's going to count is if you vote for President Donald Trump and he gets elected, then my vote will count," he said.

Donalds pulled a first-time voter from the crowd and gave him the microphone.

"I'm voting for America," the young man, who identified himself as Jameson, yelled as he raised a "Trump-Vance" sign above his head.

'Get over it'

Noem, who earlier this year was considered a potential Trump running mate until publishing a story about killing her "untrainable" puppy in her autobiography, asked supporters to do three things before Election Day.

She told the crowd to stop being offended and to "get over it."

"Right now, in your brain, you're thinking of somebody that you work with or a neighbor or maybe even somebody in your family that is not voting for President Trump right now," Noem said. "I need you to get over it and go have a conversation with them. Start by listening to them, because nobody in this country listens to each other anymore."

She also said people need to get out of their comfort zones and make phone calls or knock on doors for Trump. And lastly, she said, they need to be happy when they do it.

"Nobody wants to talk to somebody who's angry and yelling at them all the time," she said.

But the moment of happy talk was fleeting. Lewandowski, the last to speak, called Harris and Walz "the most radical leftist people ever nominated from a major party in the history of our country." One woman repeatedly yelled "evil" at the mention of the Democratic ticket.

"It's not just about Kamala, or Kamala, or however the hell you wanna say her name," Lewandowski said, botching one pronunciation of the vice president's name. "I don't care. We don't care."

Before the Team Trump bus sped off, the group of surrogates posed for a photo with the audience and Ernst, who said she watches videos of Trump dancing when she's having a bad day, asked everyone to mimic the 45th president.

And then the Village People's "YMCA" began playing. The crowd began swaying. They made fists with both hands, raised up their arms and began moving them back and forth.

Just like Trump.

Matthew Rink can be reached at [email protected] or on X at @ETNRink. 

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Team Trump surrogates to Erie PA voters: 'We're counting on you'