DONALD TRUMP: THE SALENA ZITO INTERVIEW. Trump on not letting anything get in the way of unfinished business.

Former President Donald Trump set the tone for the final stretch of the presidential race when he took to the stage here in Butler, turning away from the crowd for the briefest of seconds, just as he did 12 weeks ago, and said, “As I was saying.”

Starting where he left off on July 13 before he was shot.

Those four words told everyone, perhaps even more so than when he raised his fist toward the crowd shouting, “Fight, Fight, Fight,” that he was a man who was not going to be knocked down, and was willing to leave everything on the field to take care of unfinished business in the White House.

In an interview with the Washington Examiner before the rally, Trump was somber in explaining how important it was to him to honor the family of Corey Comperatore, the former volunteer fire chief who was killed during the shooting in July. . . .

Like East Palestine, Ohio, just 30 miles as the crow flies west, the people who live here in Butler are often anywhere from fourth to ninth-generation residents who would not care to live anywhere else. They are also often forgotten by the people in the national media, corporations, government, and academia, who view their sense of place as the “middle of nowhere.”

Trump says it is important to him to show up in places like Butler, but also in East Palestine, as he did a couple of weeks after a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed, causing an environmental disaster.

The former president showed up that day, walking through the entire village through pounding sleet and mud, bringing crates of water bottles and buying hamburgers from the local McDonalds for the workers.

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