Trump rallies in Republican stronghold Tennessee, urges supporters to vote Republican; mentions Korea Zinc's investment of more than $6 billion in the state

US President Donald Trump leaves after a midterm election campaign rally at F&M Bank Arena in Clarksville, Tennessee, on Saturday. [AP]
US President Donald Trump leaves after a midterm election campaign rally at F&M Bank Arena in Clarksville, Tennessee, on Saturday. [AP]

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US President Donald Trump on Saturday urged his supporters to turn out at the polls, warning that a Democratic Party victory in November's midterm elections would plunge the American economy into a depression.

Speaking at a campaign rally in Clarksville, Tennessee, Trump said "If the Democrats win, you're going to have a Great Depression like 1929," adding, "All you have to do is vote Republican."

Tennessee is considered a Republican stronghold. Trump carried the state by roughly 30 percentage points over Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. While Republicans face an uphill battle nationally in the midterms, both the US Senate seat and the governorship in Tennessee are expected to remain safely in Republican hands.

Trump's decision to campaign there nonetheless is seen as a strategy to energize his core "MAGA" base across the country.

From the opening of his speech, Trump implored the crowd to "vote like I'm running," warning that "communist, socialist Democrats" would attempt to steal the election and that supporters must show up. He added that Republicans needed to win by a margin too large to manipulate, and urged Tennesseans to take advantage of early voting, which begins Wednesday in the state.

Throughout the rally, Trump repeatedly returned to the same refrain — that supporters must go out and vote, and that they must vote Republican.

On high oil prices stemming from the war with Iran, Trump insisted that "we've brought all prices down, and oil prices are lower than they were under Joe Biden." He also said his administration had resolved the Iran nuclear issue, predicting that oil prices would drop sharply once the war ended and that it would be over "very soon."

Trump also cited his tariff policy as a driver of major foreign investment in the United States, singling out Korean company Korea Zinc's investment in Tennessee as an example.

"Because of my tariff policy, Korea Zinc is investing more than $6 billion to create 740 jobs right here in Montgomery County and Smith County," he said, adding that the project would bring "the first new mineral smelter built in America since 1979."

Trump also revisited his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and Lake Ontario to Lake America, then floated the idea of renaming an ocean. "We need an ocean," he said. "So I was thinking about the Atlantic or the Pacific — maybe we call it the 'Trump Ocean' or the 'America Ocean.'"


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