Dunleavy claims 'the left' suppresses good news about Dunleavy and Trump

“Trust me, I’m not going to compare myself to Donald Trump. He’s shorter,” said Gov. Mike Dunleavy. “He’s got more money too, by the way.”

But he did compare his situation to Trump’s. Read the press in Alaska, he said, and you get the idea that things are falling apart. Read the national press and you get the idea that things are falling apart.

He said Trump told him on a stop in Alaska, “Mike, I really like you and I really like Dan Sullivan. I like Alaska and every time I come here, if I have the opportunity, I want to come and talk to you.”

Describing his encounters with Trump to an appreciative Republican audience at Pike’s Waterfront Lodge Friday, Dunleavy complained about news coverage, newspapers, ‘the left’ and Democrats, while heaping praise on Trump and Republicans.

He said he met Ivanka Trump and found her to be “the nicest lady you’ll ever meet.” Dunleavy said Trump is the same in person as he is on TV and the press has made caricatures of the Trumps that don’t show that they are “down-to-earth people.”

Dunleavy said he asked Trump for help in opening the Tongass National Forest to more timber cutting. He also asked for a federal change on the proposed Pebble Mine.

“Mr. President, I know a lot of people don’t care for a thing called Pebble Mine, but under Obama they put a preemptive veto on it which has sent a chill down the spine of our mining sector because if they can do that to that mine with no studies, they can do it to others. He lifts the preemptive veto,” said Dunleavy.

“He doesn’t see himself as president, he sees himself as an American, even though he is a billionaire,” said Dunleavy.

In a rambling address that went on for nearly 40 minutes, Dunleavy said it really important for Republican activists to stick together and fight “the left.”

“Seriously, I hope you say to yourself, ‘it makes a lot of sense to be a Republican,’ especially during these times,” he said.

“Have you guys ever read about me in the newspaper, by the way?” Big laugh from the audience. The Republican blog claimed 100 people attended. A video of the meeting was posted on Facebook.

“No matter what you read in the paper, there’s a heck of a lot more happening in Alaska that’s positive. It really is, a lot more that’s positive,” he said.

“So no matter what the left does, no matter how they try to shame you or protest against you or try and control you or try to get you to change your mind about what you believe in, don’t buy it,” he said.

“People have asked me how I’m doing. I just want to tell you, a lot of this stuff, I’m being honest with you, it does not bother me. I understand it for what it is. Alright. This is politics. I don’t go home, and I don’t mope or anything. It’s politics. And I’m going to talk to you here in a minute here about another guy who goes through the same thing down in D.C. and my conversations with him one-on-one in Air Force One, in his vehicle,” he said.

To read the newspapers or mistakenly land on CNN or MSNBC while searching for Fox News, he said, “you’d think the entire world is falling apart. It’s just the opposite.”

Dunleavy said that on the night Trump won in 2016, people on “the other side” were moaning and groaning.

“You would have thought it was the end of the world when he won,” he said. “Remember when Barack Obama won? This is the difference between us and them. When Barack Obama won the race, conservatives looked at the TV screen, and went ugh, and then we went back to work. These guys, they go out and protest. They burn, they wreck restaurants, they attack people on the streets. They throw themselves on the ground, they start doing temper tantrums. They can’t accept the fact that in this country, people may not want to be like them, so they go wild, is what happens.”’

There may have been a handful of incidents like that across the country, but nothing as widespread as he claims. And certainly not in Alaska.

Dunleavy then began reading from the “Trump Administration Accomplishments list,” which the White House created in 2018 about jobs, economic growth, the low unemployment rate and more.

(Some of the claims on that site are disputed. Trump has a habit of lying and exaggerating.)

Dunleavy ran through some of the items on the list and said: “This is under President Trump the guy that they all make fun of and they try and impeach and they have lawsuits against because he’s doing something good.”

“Hispanic-American unemployment is at the lowest rate ever recorded. Remember, Trump’s a racist correct? Right? In the eyes of the folks on the left, he’s a racist. But African-American unemployment rate, record low. Hispanic unemployment rate, record low. One more. Asian-American unemployment recently achieved the lowest rate every recorded.”

“These are groups that are not supposed to be succeeding under somebody like Donald Trump, but they are succeeding beyond anyone’s wildest dreams,” he said.

“The list goes on and on and on about President Trump. Now again, this is a guy that is a racist, is a sexist, that’s driving us off the cliff. He brings foreign nations that we wouldn’t even think that we could have a conversation with that are our enemies, Iran, North Korea, etc., He’s working with these foreign nations to get them in a place where America doesn’t have to worry about whether we need to go to war with these people or not,” he said.

But none of these achievements and superlatives are reported, Dunleavy claimed, because the news is controlled by those who don’t want Trump to succeed.

“You don’t see this stuff in the headlines,” he claimed.

“You know why? It’s not the narrative that the left wants you to believe. The left wants you to believe that everything is falling part. It’s just the opposite under this president, it’s not falling apart. America is great again under this president. Our economy is roaring, record stock market. The list goes on and on.”

“But as I said, what you see if President Trump is a racist, he’s a sexist, he’s this. So why are they saying these things? They’re saying these things for one reason—they lost the election,” he said.

Dunleavy claimed that the difference between conservatives and the rest of the country is “they’re not going to give our president a fair shake. That’s the difference between conservatives and non-conservatives.”

“Trump wins and they go wild because they will not accept the election,” he said.

Trump lost the popular vote to HIllary Clinton, which Dunleavy didn’t mention, but he said “they can’t win on their own arguments, they can’t win on the logic, they can’t win on the facts, they can’t win on the data, they can’t win, so what do they do? They resort to name-calling. They resort to frivolous lawsuits.”

Dunleavy said he thinks Trump will win re-election in 2020, “that’s a fact.”

“We all have a gift that keeps giving,” Dunleavy said. “And that is the Democrat Party. Eight years ago a Bernie Sanders would have been laughed off the entire stage by not just conservatives, but those in the Democrat Party. They’d would have said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’’

He said Sen. Bernie Sanders is the “mainstream” candidate for the Democrats, while former Vice President Joe Biden “is looked at as a conservative and a fossil.”

Dunleavy considers himself the victim of something similar to Trump’s problem—the belief that people who opposed Dunleavy during the 2018 election and “the left” are not being fair to him and ignored positive news about the economy.

“If you were to read the press, you would think that Alaska is falling apart.”

”I probably had more stories written about me in 9 months than any other governor in the history of the state,” he said. “And I’m glad I could help the economy especially since newspapers were almost going out of business before I was elected.”

Dunleavy said that Alaska’s economy is doing well, but he complained that all the press talks about are “Dunleavy draconian cuts that are killing older folks and children and women and puppies and plants and everything else.”

That’s not the sound of someone who understands the politics that led to the recall campaign, which remains the biggest threat to his political survival.

Dunleavy said economic activity is up, unemployment is down, oil and gas investments are up, tourism is up, Bristol Bay red salmon fishing is up and the private sector is growing.

“I know a lot of people want you to believe that there is no such thing, there is only a government sector and that’s all that matters. But the fact of the matter is, there is a private sector and it’s starting to grow. Isn’t that the whole idea? Isn’t that what Republicans want, is a private sector?

He said he has an “economic head-hunting team” that is supposed to go Outside and drum up new businesses for Alaska. This was an apparent reference to the project for which his administration gave a no-bid contract, worth up to $443,000, with Clark Penney, grandson of Bob Penney.

“This economic team goes, talks with investors and encourages and facilities investment in the state of Alaska,” he said.

Dunleavy says that other states and Canadian provinces in the West are creating new obstacles to resource development, which gives an opportunity to Alaska.

“The politics of resource development is changing rapidly and radically. We mentioned the Elizabeth Warrens and the AOC’s and those folks, that want to have us driving ox-carts with stone wheels. I don’t know how we’re going to fly because they say we’re all going renewable in 10 years and I’ve never been on a renewable airplane, I’m not sure if I want to get on one. But they’re offering an unrealistic vision of America.”

“Unfortunately, they’re making some headway,” he said. Dunleavy claimed “Democratic socialist” is the fastest growing movement in the U.S.

The Democratic Party today is “pretty scary because of what is happening in terms of energy and resources.”

He said Democrats of the past, like his parents, opposed abortion, went to church, honored the Constitution and believed in the value of making money.

“Become a millionaire, make a lot of money,” he said his parents told him and his three brothers. One is a doctor, one is a pilot and one is an investor who invested heavily in the 2018 campaign.

“I came out of retirement to be governor,” said Dunleavy, who had various government jobs during his career and qualified for a state pension.