Thread by @ddale8

Trump's Billings, Montana campaign rally is scheduled for 9 PM Eastern. I'll tweet tweets in this thread.

Trump does an especially slow walk to the microphone, soaking in the adulation.

Trump recites a list of claimed accomplishments: a strong economy, low unemployment, "crushing" terrorists, "America is being respected again."

Trump says the opposition to Brett Kavanaugh is "sick."

In "most states," Trump says, he is more popular now than he was on election day. That is not true.

Trump says Jon Tester's opponent Matt Rosendale is "now leading in the polls." That is not true, at least in the couple of public polls. realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2018/se…

Rosendale to Trump: "This crowd is all here for you. And what a crowd it is. Thank you for fighting for us and for always putting America first." He says Montana will send reinforcements "that you need to continue your good work," and he promises to "stick with President Trump."

Rosendale says he'll help Trump "build that wall." There is a loud "build that wall" chant.

Trump warns that Jon Tester will vote with Maxine Waters. There are boos.

Trump with a curious new line about Democrats: "They're going to hurt your Social Security so badly. And they're killing you on Medicare. I'm going to protect your Social Security." "...they're going to end up taking it away from you."

Trump says he feels slightly guilty bashing Tester because Tester ran a "beautiful" ad praising him, but he says Tester doesn't vote with him even though Tester says nice things.

Trump says the good books about him are at the top of the bestseller list. He promotes Jeanine Pirro's book and Dan Bongino's book. "The media doesn't talk about those books," he complains, only the ones with "lies."

Trump says that books praising him are #1, #2 and #3 on the bestseller list. Here's the current NYT online list: McCain #1, pro-Trump book #2, Omarosa's anti-Trump book #5, Pirro's pro-Trump book #6.

The president: "Do we love Sean Hannity?"

Trump: If I've "lost it" like they say, how can I give a rally speech for an hour without notes?

Trump challenging allegations that he's lost his mind: "I beat 17 great people," including Ben Carson. "Ben Carson was tough." Also, he says, "I beat the Bush dynasty."

Trump: The Electoral College is harder to win than the popular vote. Hillary Clinton should've gone to Wisconsin. Bill Clinton knew but she didn't listen. "Bernie should have won." "They stole it." "Superdelegates." "Bernie should be angry. Why isn't he angry? Crazy Bernie."

Trump on Bernie Sanders: "Bomp bomp bomp the hair's flying. He's going crazy. He's going CRAZY." He says he told Melania, "You gotta hand it to him."

Trump: I beat all these candidates and the Bush dynasty and Clinton, and then people say, "Is he competent?"

"I think I'm pretty competent," he says. "Don't you think so?"

The crowd cheers.

Trump on his trade war with China: "We're in a little bit of a skirmish, but doing really well with China. You see what's going on. Really well."

Trump boasts he was just told, coming on stage, that Kim Jong Un said "terrific things about me." (He...tweeted about that this morning.) "Just said it. Just said it."

Trump boasts that there have been no recent missile or nuclear tests by Kim Jong Un. He adds that he has a good feeling: "He likes me. I like him. Who knows what's going to happen?"

Trump repeats his usual NATO lie: "For years, NATO spending was going like this," making a downward motion. It rose in 2015 and in 2016, before he took office.

Sir Alert: Trump tells a story about an unnamed NATO leader calling him "sir." He adds that it's nice when a president or prime minister calls him "sir," since it shows respect. He says some more "sir"s.

For the ninth time, Trump claims that NATO Sec-Gen Jens Stoltenberg told the media that NATO members spent $44 billion more last year. Stoltenberg said it was $41 billion.

Trump says his Helsinki meeting with Putin was one of his best meetings "ever." He complains that the media said it was "terrible." He also complains about how the media has covered his efforts with NATO and with Kim Jong Un.

You can't win with the media, Trump says, but "we're winning. I'm president. You're president."

Trump is extremely loose. It's the angry-loose, not the happy-loose.

Since McCain's death, Trump has stopped ranting about his Obamacare vote.

Trump repeated his usual inaccurate description of the pre-Trump NATO situation, saying he told other leaders: "YOU'RE DELINQUENT. I'm in real estate. We say YOU'RE DELINQUENT." Nobody was "delinquent"; many of the countries simply weren't meeting a non-binding spending target.

Trump scolds Tester for voting against Gorsuch, whom he says was "first in his class at Harvard." A Harvard spokesperson tells me Gorsuch wasn't even in the top 50 in his class. He graduated cum laude; dozens of people in his year were magna cum laude.

Trump is ranting about people who want to "IMPEAAACH HIM!" (His impression: "WEEE WILL IMPEEEACH HIM!") He asks how you can impeach someone who's "doing a great job."

Trump arguing against impeaching him: "We won by a lot. We won by a hell of a margin...that Electoral College, we won by a lot." (Obviously, he lost the popular vote.)

Trump: If you impeach me, America will "turn into a thrid-world country." He says it'll set a precedent that the opposing party will always try to impeach the president.

Trump to his supporters on impeachment: "If it does happen it's your fault, because you didn't go out to vote." He has not spoken this way before.

Trump: "Even liberals that hate me" say the anonymous NYT op-ed is "terrible."

Trump falsely claims the New York Times apologized post-election for its "bad coverage" of him. Its letter to subscribers was not an apology, it was a sales pitch. nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/…

Trump: "The White House is really working good."

Trump ranting about, I think, the Woodward book: "They had me stomping around screaming with anger up in my area of the White House where I live with my wife and son, Barron...shouting like a lunatic..." He says he was merely talking, about Canada trade, not ranting.

Trump tries twice to say the word "anonymous." He fails both times.

Trump, speaking about "the resistance," does a you're-the-puppet: "THEY'RE the ones, honestly, that have been driven crazy."

Trump says unelected members of the "deep state" are trying to undermine him. "At some point, this whole thing is going to be exposed. And it's really bad and it's really dangerous."

Trump says it'd be treated as "the biggest story in the history of our country" if Kim Jong Un said nice things about Obama, but with him it's just a minor thing.

Trump: "Look at where we were, and look at where we are."

Trump proudly says that other countries are doing very badly. He says the U.S. would be like those other bad places without him.

Trump says he can pull back on U.S. military deployments overseas: "We're so respected now, we can pull back a little bit."

Trump on NAFTA: We'll either terminate it or renegotiate it, like I promised; "so far, it looks like it could happen where we'll renegotiate it," but "I don't care."

Trump is tonight positioning himself as the saviour of the social safety net: "We're going to be defending your Medicare and protecting the safety net for truly needy Americans - people that need help, that ARE Americans, not for people that come into our country illegally."

Trump: "I think I won because of common sense."

Trump is in Montana ranting about California Democratic governor candidate Gavin Newsom, who has proposed to provide health insurance to illegal immigrants. Then Trump says: "I may even move to California to get free health care."

This seems to be a 2020 preview from Trump, who's now arguing against Dems' "Medicare-for-all" proposals: "Medicare-for-all, until they run out of money...in the third day...and then it'll be Medicare for them...one tenth Medicare you used to get."

Trump says a lot of people don't understand how much work he has already done on The Wall (which he has not started).

Trump says Florida will be "a disaster" if Democrat Andrew Gillum wins the governorship. "Ron for governor," he says in Montana.

Trump criticizes Nancy Pelosi for telling him not to call MS-13 "animals."

"Hate to tell you, Nancy. You're goin' up the wrong tree, Nancy."

Trump touting the African-American unemployment record: "We're going to have tremendous African-American support...they see."

Trump repeats his usual outdated claims about Asian-American and women's unemployment, which respectively hit a low and a 65-year low in May but have since bounced back up to non-records.

Trump: "We're replacing NAFTA with a beautiful new brand. It will be called the U.S.-Mexico trade deal...hopefully Canada will come into that deal, and if they don't that'll be fine and if they do that'll be fine...I think they will."

Trump: Canada has treated the U.S. badly on trade for decades. "Wasn't MY fault."

Trump again super-misleadingly describes estate tax reforms as a particular benefit to family farms. According to the Tax Policy Center, a mere 80 farms and small businesses were among the 5,460 estates likely to pay the estate tax in 2017, before Trump's tax law.

Trump lies again that he has eliminated the estate tax. His tax law merely raised the threshold at which it has to be paid.

Trump falsely claims that people had been trying to get a Veterans Choice program passed for 45 years, and "I got 'em both passed." Choice was passed under Obama in 2014. Trump's law makes changes to the existing program.