Trump’s unscripted portions of national security speech in Youngstown roused the crowd

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump isn’t a fan of Teleprompters, but he used one during his foreign policy speech at Youngstown State University.

However, Trump strayed – quite a bit at times – from his prepared remarks for superlatives and some of the more memorable lines in his 49-minute speech.

About 33 minutes into the speech, Trump said: “The time is overdue to develop a new screening test for the threats we face today.”

That was part of his prepared remarks. But what followed was an ad lib that attracted a lot of attention.

“I call it extreme vetting,” he said as he began to raise his voice. “I call it extreme, extreme vetting. Our country has enough problems. We don’t need more, and these are problems like you never have seen.”

The remarks received loud and enthusiastic applause from the 350 invited guests to Trump’s Monday speech in YSU’s Kilcawley Center.

Trump’s prepared remarks – emailed to me and other journalists by his campaign moments after his speech concluded – originally had only one “extreme” mention.

That came just moments before the triple “extreme.”

The prepared “extreme” reference was about a poll showing that “in many of the countries from which we draw large numbers of immigrants, extreme views about religion for those who [he ad libbed the next part] are involved. The death penalty is very, very common [if] you don’t have the faith that they demand you have.”

Criticism of Obama, Clinton

Several of Trump’s ad libs were critical of President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. It was interesting that the unprepared remarks were more critical of Obama than Clinton, his Democratic opponent.

Trump certainly criticized the Democratic president and Clinton, Obama’s first secretary of state, in the prepared remarks, too.

But the statements not in the prepared speech were more direct.

Toward the end of the speech, Trump said, “Renewing this spirit of Americanism will help heal the divisions in our country” [the following was not part of the prepared remarks] “of which there are so many. We have a divider as president. They call him the ‘Great Divider.’ It’s the thing he does best.”

Going off script when criticizing Obama for making public the timetable to get American soldiers out of Iraq, Trump said, “We said, ‘We’re moving out. Here’s our time, here’s our date.’ Who would do this but an incompetent president?”

Discussing the need to acknowledge “radical Islamic terrorism,” Trump said, “We have to explain [what it is]. We have to have a leader who can do that. We don’t have that now.”

When talking about Clinton’s “careless handling of sensitive information,” Trump went off script, saying, “What happened with her 33,000 emails is an absolute disgrace to the United States.”

That one not only received applause but a loud “Trump, Trump, Trump” chant from those in attendance.

He also strayed from prepared remarks about the father of the gunman who killed 49 people at a gay club in Orlando attending a Clinton rally last month.

“It’s called weakness, weakness. It’s called stupidity and weakness,” Trump said to applause.

While Trump’s campaign theme is “Make America Great Again,” he went off script to praise the country now.

“We have an exceptional country and an exceptional way of life,” Trump said. “But it’s being tread on by sick, sick people.”

Trump said Russia has problems with Islamic terrorism. While true, he spent the early part of his speech discussing and listing numerous terrorist attacks domestically and abroad yet didn’t mention a single incident of it in Russia.

Later, Trump went off script to say Russia’s problem with “Islamic terrorism, just as bad as ours. They have a big, big problem in Russia with ISIS.”

One of the most interesting aspects of Trump’s speech as prepared was it contained footnotes at the bottom of the pages.

‘Dishonest’ press?

Many of the footnotes referred to articles from The New York Times, The Washington Post and Politico. Trump has publicly criticized these news agencies on numerous occasions and banned reporters from the latter two – among others – from his events, claiming they’re “dishonest.”

To Trump, they’re credible enough when it suits his purposes and dishonest when it doesn’t.

And then there was ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who opened the YSU event.

During his 12-minute speech, in which he looked down at a tablet that likely had talking points, Giuliani spoke about 9/11 only to incorrectly say, “Under those eight years before Obama came along, we didn’t have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attacks in the United States.”

He apparently forgot that 9/11 happened on Sept. 11, 2001, when President George W. Bush, a Republican, was in office.

He also forgot where he was during his introduction of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Trump’s vice presidential running mate.

“You know better than I do what a great governor he is of your state, what he’s done for your state,” Giuliani said to stunned silence.

He stumbled and laughed realizing he wasn’t in Indiana. “We’re going there next,” Giuliani said of Indiana.

He paused and said, “Youngstown, Ohio,” to laughs and cheers. “I love Youngstown, Ohio.”

He apparently loves Youngs-town even when he doesn’t know he’s there.