Trump rallies supporters in Erie, Pa., with two weeks to go before Election Day

Air Force One landed at Erie International Airport under darkened, cloudy skies Tuesday night and then taxied toward the thousands of supporters waiting on the tarmac.

With the plane as his backdrop, President Donald Trump stepped onto the airstairs to thunderous applause, pumping his fist three times before making his way to the stage.

His supporters, jam-packed into the makeshift venue just outside of an airplane hangar, chanted "four more years."

More:Supporters optimistic, loyal as President Donald Trump returns to Erie for campaign rally

With two weeks to go in the 2020 presidential race, Trump delivered an hourlong speech in which he promised to cut taxes, support law enforcement and protect the Second Amendment. 

"Fourteen days from now we're going to win the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," he said. "With your vote, we will continue to cut your taxes, cut regulations, support our great police, protect the Second Amendment and keep jobs and wealth in America where it belongs. We will deliver epic prosperity and record growth."

Trump said that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which he also referred to as the "China virus," he wouldn't have needed to campaign for reelection. But COVID-19 has led to more than 220,000 American deaths and counting and the economy remains down 11 million jobs from before the pandemic began. 

"Before the plague came I had it made," he said. "I wasn't coming to Erie. I have to be honest, there was no way I was coming. I didn't have to. I would have called you and said, 'Hey, Erie, if you have a chance get out and vote.' We had this thing won. We were so far up. We had the greatest economy ever, greatest jobs, greatest everything. And then we got hit with the plague and we had to go back to work. Hello, Erie, may I please have your vote? Right? I love Erie.”

Now Trump finds himself hoping for a repeat of 2016, when polls showed him down nationally and trailing in key battleground states like Pennsylvania only for him to shock the world with an upset victory. 

Recent polls of the state show former Vice President Joe Biden with a lead over Trump in a tightening race as Election Day nears.

Trump on Tuesday pointed to a different poll — one in which 56% of respondents said they are better off now than they were four years ago at the end of an eight-year tenure of the Obama-Biden administration.

"Fifty-six percent of the people want to be here. they want to be with us," he said.

Trump's speech Tuesday was a recitation of accomplishments on the economy and national security and an airing of grievances against the news media and "radical Democrats." He oscillated from campaign talking points that he read from a teleprompter to ad-libbed jabs at his rivals and the speculative consequences of a Biden victory. 

"He will massively raise your taxes, bury you in regulations, dismantle your police departments, dissolve our borders, confiscate your guns — Second Amendment — eliminate private health care, terminate religious liberty, destroy the suburbs — I'm saving the suburbs, I knocked out the regulations," he said.

And he repeated familiar claims that Biden would ban fracking if elected, playing a video reel of Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, making statements during the primary in which Biden said he wanted to phase out fossil fuels and "get rid of" the method of oil and gas drilling and in which Harris, then a presidential candidate, said she would ban it. He joked that the clip was an "original Donald Trump Broadway play."

In recent months, Biden has been explicit that he would not ban fracking, which is short for hydraulic fracturing, including during a campaign stop in Erie on Oct. 10.

More:Trump keeps talking about fracking in Pa.: Here's what we know about this hot campaign issue

Biden has also said that he will not raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000 a year, despite pledging to roll back Trump's 2017 tax cuts.

At another point, Trump asserted that under Biden, "the United States would be owned by China" and he criticized the former vice president for supporting trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement and the TransPacific Partnership.

Trump referred to Biden as "corrupt" and painted him as a career politician who has done little to help Americans.

"I've done more in 47 months than he's done in 47 years," Trump said.

And on his handling of the pandemic, Trump said he has not been given enough credit for restricting travel from China early on or for the work that his administration did in the early stages to control the virus's spread. 

Trump, who was diagnosed with COVID-19 in late September following a ceremony at which he announced Amy Coney Barret as his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, also said that he would make the anti-viral antibody cocktail and other therapeutics he received available to all Americans for free. He said a vaccine could be ready by the end of the year "if not sooner."

But Tuesday's rally itself garnered criticism for having the potential of being another super-spreader event. Some attendees wore masks, others didn't, and some kept their masks pulled below their chins or just below their noses. One group, Rural America 2020, canceled a plan for a plane towing an aerial banner to fly over the lakefront and downtown warning of another "super spreader event."

More:Small groups of Biden supporters protest Trump rally outside Erie International Airport

Biden issued a statement on Trump's Erie visit early Tuesday, saying it was a "desperate attempt to distract from the fact" that Trump broke a 2016 campaign promise to Erie to bring back jobs and failed to keep the country safe amid the pandemic.

"He failed Pennsylvania families by intentionally misleading them about the severity of COVID-19, resulting in the loss of life for nearly 8,500 Pennsylvanians and the loss of livelihood for hundreds of thousands in the state," Biden said in his statement. "And now he’s trying to strip away health care protections for millions when they need them most," a reference to Trump's attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. 

While Trump boasted of his handling of the pandemic, he also chastised the likes of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, for keeping strict rules in place for businesses and others. 

"By the way, Pennsylvania's been shut down long enough," he said. "Tell your governor to open it back up."

Trump was supposed to be accompanied Tuesday by first lady Melania Trump, who also was diagnosed with COVID-19 in September. The first lady, who has not made a campaign appearance since 2019 when Trump launched his reelection campaign, called off her visit to Erie due to a "lingering cough.'

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th Dist., addressed the crowd before Trump's arrival and again at Trump's request while the president was on stage.

"In our lifetimes, we will never see another president like Donald J. Trump again," Kelly told the crowd. "I want every one of you to make a commitment to get out and vote November 3 and absolutely refuse to lose."

Contact Matthew Rink at mrink@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ETNrink.