DALLAS — President Donald Trump walked a tightrope this week, awkwardly balancing the political with the solemn. By the end, it all seemed too much, even for America's ultimate political scrapper. Trump spent two days here in full campaigner-in-chief mode in front of an adoring audience inside the American Airlines Center in Dallas, headlining both nights of the first-ever Republican midterms convention. He bashed Democrats as communists, begged Texas voters to make state Attorney General Ken Paxton a U.S. senator and even made his loyalists pledge an oath to him that they would vote in November. But his role as chief executive seeped into what Trump and his team had planned as a week focused heavily on November’s midterm elections and Republicans' efforts to retain their House and Senate majorities. The morning after a highly partisan Wednesday speech of nearly two hours before a sometimes-raucous crowd, Trump’s motorcade sped along Interstate 30 to nearby Arlington for a few hours at the National Medal of Honor Museum. He met with medal recipients and toured the somber facility, delivering remarks that included a salute to the honorees. “Those honored in this museum did more than answer the call. They stormed into hellfire and crushed America's enemies. They had bravery like few people could even think of having,” Trump said, glancing at a binder on his lectern as he appeared to read from a prepared text. “They carried the wounded out of battle and, their own backs, they carried them, back and forth.” Yet, as is often the case with the reality television star-turned-president, Trump opted to use the museum visit to jab at a Democrat, in this case, Texas' Democratic Senate nominee, state Rep. James Talarico, who's in a surprisingly tight race with Paxton. “I brought your state back. But all that can disappear very quickly. You put a 'Talafreako' in, or you put any one of these people in, these people that don't know what the hell they're doing,” he said of the ultraprogressive Democrats who've won congressional primaries in recent months. “Some are very smart. They're radical left. They have crazy policies. Some are not smart at all,” he said. “But [Talarico] would be a disaster for this country.” About an hour before Trump’s private tour of the museum began, the theme song of former professional wrestler The Undertaker played as the president's traveling press pool stood at a hold location across from a Bell UH-1H Iroquois Army utility helicopter, also known as the “Huey.” And before Trump's remarks downstairs in the museum’s amphitheater, Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” welcomed the medal recipients the president had greeted upstairs. That was juxtaposed with “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by The Beach Boys, which played moments later. Another contrast came Thursday night after conventiongoers stood in silence as 9/11 families took the stage, with two spotlights shining toward the rafters representing Manhattan's fallen World Trade Center towers and those who died inside them. Moments later, a video stirred up the partisan crowd by explaining all the reasons why “God made Trump.” Trump listens Thursday night as opera singer Christopher Macchio sings at the conclusion of the Republican midterm convention in Dallas. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) About 18 minutes into his closing remarks Thursday, Trump delivered more surrealism by asking the faithful to raise their right hands and repeat after him. “I pledge, to the greatest president in the history of the United States, that loves us so much he can't even breathe, that I will go out with my family, my friends. I'll do it anyway. I don't care if I'm registered or not. I'm gonna try and cheat like hell like they do,” he said of Democrats. “There's never been bigger cheaters. They don't care. I am gonna go out, and I'm gonna get my friends, my family, and we are going to vote on Nov. 3 or we are going to vote before that.” He ended the pledge with a warning for the crowd: “You know what happens if you don't vote? You go to hell. You know that.” A woman seated near the White House traveling press pool, which included this CQ Roll Call reporter, screamed out, “Yeah” after the damnation threat. But some Trump critics on social media referred to the pledge as a "cult ritual." During a Pentagon ceremony Friday morning to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Trump mostly stuck to his prepared remarks, telling personal stories of the victims and their families. "We cannot forget that moment of immense and horrible evil that took place in this world, bent on the destruction of all that is good," he said. "But this morning, we also remember how America responded to that wickedness." ‘I’m not kidding’ A day earlier, however, at a museum built around solemnness for the country’s military heroes, Trump could not resist testing some traditions, a hallmark of his second term. “I want for myself a Congressional Medal of Honor. And I've studied it. And I will give it to myself, I have no problem, but I'm not allowed to. Can you believe it?” Trump said to tepid laughter from invited guests. He then said the media wouldn't report that he was only kidding. Trump poses Thursday with Medal of Honor recipients at the National Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas, along with Charlotte Jones, the museum's board chair. (John T. Bennett/CQ Roll Call) But was he? “I'm only kidding,” he said before a blue curtain affixed with a large model of the Medal of Honor, the U.S. government’s highest military decoration. “Actually, I'm not kidding. I would like to have it.” During the Vietnam War, Trump received four student deferments, then was deemed medically unable to serve. Later at the convention, Speaker Mike Johnson suggested Trump could run for the House after his presidential term ends in January 2029 — something done by only one former president: John Quincy Adams. “Maybe our current president would do that?" Johnson said Thursday to a loud cheer from the GOP loyalists. The speaker clearly was having a little fun. But a Rep. Donald J. Trump, R-Fla., likely would be a thorn in the side of Johnson and other GOP leaders. But would he even be interested? “We're gonna get a little music. I'm gonna stand on the stage at the end with our great opera star, Christopher Macchio, and he's going to sing ‘America the Beautiful,’ 'Nessun Dorma' and 'All I Ask of You' from 'The Phantom of the Opera,'” Trump previewed for the crowd near the start of his closing remarks. “And we're gonna have a good time listening to music because I'm getting a little bit tired of politics now.” Macchio's stirring rendition of "America the Beautiful" could have been replaced by The Undertaker's theme. Trump had tapped out on his own pep rally.
