What to Know
- Joe Biden, Donald Trump and their surrogates are keeping a presence in Pennsylvania in the final days leading up to the 2020 presidential election.
- Biden appeared in Bucks and Luzerne counties Saturday as Trump planned to visit North Carolina and the midwest.
- Former ambassador Nikki Haley spoke to Trump supporters in Norristown on Saturday.
Rock star Jon Bon Jovi gave a small concert at a drive-in rally in eastern Pennsylvania for Joe Biden on Saturday, performing three songs and praising Biden's response to the coronavirus.
The rocker took the stage in Dallas, Pennsylvania, wearing a black face mask that he peeled off to play acoustic versions of “Who Says You Can’t Go Home?,” “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “Do What You Can,” which was recently released and dedicated to those on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
Bon Jovi also pulled out notes to praise Biden, saying, “I wrote my comments down because I’ve never played at a drive-in with all the horns honking, so it’s a little different.”
The rocker added that “Joe knows that masks are not a sign of weakness, they’re a sign of strength."
Delivering a speech a short time later as hundreds of cars honked their horns in approval, Biden said that Bon Jovi has “always gone wherever I’ve asked him” and called him a friend and “national treasure.”
Biden held two drive-in rallies in Pennsylvania on Saturday and has said for months he expects to win a state that could play a critical role in deciding next month’s election.
Dallas is in Luzerne County, where Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by more than 25,000 votes in 2016. Dallas isn't far from Scranton - where Biden lived as a child - in neighboring Lackawanna County, where Clinton eked out a victory of a few thousand votes in 2016.
Nikki Haley in Montco
Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, spoke for Trump at Montgomery County Community College in Norristown Saturday night.
Haley told NBC10's Steven Fisher: "all eyes are on Pennsylvania."
Biden in Bucks
Earlier Saturday, Biden held a drive-in rally in Bristol where Trump supporters could be heard making a ruckus from a short distance away.
Biden called them "chumps" but said he'd work hard for them if he wins next month's presidential election.
“I’ll work as hard for those who don’t support me as those who do, including those chumps out there with a microphone,” Biden said of the Trump supporters, who appeared to be using a megaphone.
Trump during his own rally in Lumberton, North Carolina, mocked Biden’s rally because most of his supporters listened while sitting in their cars. The president jokingly said the cars were “too close together, I think.”
“They weren’t socially distanced,” Trump added.
Biden told supporters in Pennsylvania that he misses up-close campaigning. “I don't like the idea of all this distance, but it’s necessary," he said.
He added, "We don’t want to become superspreaders.”
That's a barb seemingly aimed at President Donald Trump, who planned a trio of big rallies later Saturday at a time of rising coronavirus cases.
Trump's events in North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin come as the U.S. has hit a daily record of coronavirus cases with more than 83,000 reported infections. The U.S. death toll has grown to nearly 224,00, according to the tally published by Johns Hopkins University. The total U.S. caseload reported Friday was 83,757, topping the 77,362 cases reported on July 16.
Trump said in a tweet said the rise in positive cases is overblown.
A Rose Garden event in late September has been labeled a “superspreader” for the virus. More than two dozen people linked to the White House have contracted COVID-19 since the president’s Sept. 26 event announcing Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to the Supreme Court.
Also on Saturday, Trump voted in Florida, where he is registered.
