Donald Trump's stump speech has evolved in style recently, but the content sticks to a consistent theme.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: Presidential candidates deliver hundreds of stump speeches over the course of their campaigns, and this week we're listening closely to the messages that the two major party candidates deliver in city after city. Yesterday we heard Hillary Clinton. Today it's Donald Trump.</s>KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: NPR's Sarah McCammon has heard many, many of his speeches as she follows his campaign, and she's with us now. Hi there.</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Hey, Kelly.</s>KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: Donald Trump tends to deliver his stump speeches at these big rallies in these big arenas. Just tell us what that's like.</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: You know, Kelly, they're all pretty similar. I mean early in the campaign, he used to be really free form and never speak from a script. He's been more scripted lately, but you know, just about every stump speech hits some of the same major themes. We're going to listen now to parts of a speech that Trump gave late last week in Pensacola, Fla.</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Now, there's always a rotating playlist of very loud music at these rallies. This one opened up with the country song "God Bless The USA."</s>LEE GREENWOOD: (Singing) And defend her still today...</s>DONALD TRUMP: Now this is a crowd. There are thousands of people outside that can't get in - fantastic. Way to go. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: So Kelly, that was true in this case. There was a big, long line of people who couldn't get in. But Trump tends to say this regardless of the size of the crowd. He pumps them up by telling them that they're part of a movement, and there's a consistent way in which he tries to demonstrate that.</s>DONALD TRUMP: Polls came out today. We're up in Ohio. We're up in Florida. We're up in North Carolina - up. We're up nationwide. CNN two days ago - up nationwide.</s>KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: OK, so Donald Trump just cited a CNN poll there, but we also often hear him spending a lot of time during his stump speeches actually attacking the media, right?</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Right. At just about every rally, he points back to the reporters gathered at the back of the room and calls them dishonest. And you know, again, he's working with the people in the crowd here who almost always turn around and boo.</s>DONALD TRUMP: And with thousands of people outside, I challenge those cameras to show this arena packed. They never do.</s>DONALD TRUMP: They never do. They never, ever do.</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Now, the truth is a lot of crowd photos are taken by the media at Trump rallies...</s>KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: Yeah.</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: ...Because the crowd is just such a huge part of the story.</s>KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: OK, so whipping up the crowd - that's clearly a thing that he does at these stump speeches. When he does start talking about substance, what is his message?</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: So his attacks on the media are kicking off an indictment of something bigger, what he calls the rigged system. He says the establishment, the government, the mainstream media have created rules and institutions that are hurting average Americans.</s>DONALD TRUMP: All the people who've rigged this system - and we have had a rigged system - for their own personal benefit are trying to stop our change campaign because they know that their gravy train has reached its last stop.</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: And it doesn't take long before Trump lands this message right on his opponent.</s>DONALD TRUMP: It's been happening long enough. And the reason they don't do anything about it is because the special interests and the donors control our politicians, and they control Hillary Clinton.</s>KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: Does Trump lay out how exactly he thinks the special interests and the donors have controlled politicians?</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: He doesn't say quite how, but he walks through all the things he says have gone wrong because of people, he says, like Hillary Clinton - you know, her handling of the attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and the private email system she kept while secretary of state.</s>DONALD TRUMP: Hillary Clinton has presided over the greatest series of foreign - and you know this - I mean the greatest series that I've ever seen of foreign policy failures and mistakes and blunders that anyone has ever seen. Everything she touches has turned bad. Now she wants to be president.</s>DONALD TRUMP: I mean the only thing she's done well and she'll go down in history for, I have to admit, is getting out of trouble with the emails. That's the single greatest achievement of Hillary Clinton.</s>DONALD TRUMP: True.</s>UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Lock her up. Lock her up.</s>KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: And you can hear the crowd chanting lock her up there. So that is Donald Trump's case against Hillary Clinton. How does he lay out his own agenda?</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: So there are a couple of key issues he always mentions in really every stump speech. Let's hear that.</s>DONALD TRUMP: We're going to pursue new trade policies that put American workers first, and we're going to keep our jobs in our country.</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: So he's promised to cut better trade deals, even renegotiate existing deals like NAFTA. And then of course there's the issue that's been the core of his campaign.</s>DONALD TRUMP: We will also have a very, very strong border...</s>DONALD TRUMP: ...That stops people and drugs - and those drugs are poisoning our youth and poisoning our people - from illegally pouring into our country. And we will build the wall, and Mexico will pay for the wall.</s>KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: Building this wall of course has been Trump's biggest, most consistent promise of this campaign. Is it also - you know, during these speeches, is it the biggest moment?</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Yeah, I mean there are a lot of big moments. It's not just the wall. It's his promise to build up the military, to be tough on our adversaries. And all these lines in Trump's speech feed into the iconic idea of his campaign.</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: We will be strong. We will be safe. We will win again. Ladies and gentlemen, we will make America great again. Thank you very much. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody.</s>THE ROLLING STONES: (Singing) A glass of wine in her hand...</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: And often Trump closes his rallies with this Rolling Stones song "You Can't Always Get What You Want," which matches the kind of defiant tone of his speeches.</s>KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: That's NPR's Sarah McCammon Thank you.</s>SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Thank you.</s>THE ROLLING STONES: (Singing) You can't always get what you want. You can't always get...