SDonald Trump has not held a rally since October 2021, and he spontaneously canceled a planned press conference on the anniversary of the storming of the Capitol. On Saturday evening (local time), the ex-president in Arizona then appeared in front of his fans. We analyze Trump’s performance.
Surroundings: Trump speaks for a good hour and a half, as he once did as President, in the open air in front of supporters in Florence, Arizona. It’s windy, Trump is wearing a red Make America Great Again cap with the number “45” on it (he was the 45th President). Also a long dark coat, white shirt, the top two buttons undone. Before beginning his speech, he throws red MAGA caps into the audience.
Central message: “We have achieved a gigantic victory,” Trump says right at the beginning. During his usual meandering speech, Trump keeps talking about the 2020 presidential election he lost. It is by far the most important topic. Trump continues to spread his myth that the election was “taken” from him, “stolen” and that there is “evidence”. He attacks “fake news” and “lamestream” media. “I ran twice, we won twice,” Trump says, referring to the 2016 and 2020 elections. He won even more in the 2020 election. And: He is “hungry for the truth”.
Trump speaks again of the “China virus” – and attacks Fauci
Attacks on Biden: His successor Joe Biden is making things easy for Donald Trump. The US is experiencing seven percent inflation. Biden does not get his social and climate package through the Senate. The abolition of the filibuster demanded by him fails because of party friends.
Biden’s popularity is in the basement. But Trump doesn’t stop at describing his successor’s massive problems. He speaks of “radical left democrats who are destroying our country”. He calls Biden a “disaster for the country,” laments the inflation, and claims that the grocery store shelves are empty, you couldn’t buy Christmas presents, and the military is weak. The chaotic departure from Afghanistan is the “most embarrassing moment in American history”. He criticized the planned abolition of the filibuster, which he had demanded (unsuccessfully) as president himself.
Wrong world: During his own presidency, Trump downplayed the coronavirus. Now he is complaining – correctly – of a record number of hospitalizations and a poor test infrastructure. He attacks his former health advisor Anthony Fauci and his influence. He didn’t listen to them, but Biden listened to him.
“Fauci is the king,” Trump said. As President, Trump had spoken almost affectionately of “Tony”, now he only calls him “Fauci”. The crowd cheers. “Lock him up!” they yell, as they once did when he mentioned Hillary Clinton’s name. So now Fauci is replacing Clinton. Trump uses the term “China virus,” which he avoided at times. You should leave the children with Covid protective measures alone, they have an excellent immune system. That was shown by his son Barron’s Covid infection.
mockery: Trump mocks Biden, who sometimes confuses states, talking about Idaho when he means Iowa. He mocks Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, as “Crazy Nancy”. Pelosi wants to move to Florida, he claims. But he doesn’t want her there.
Internal party pressure: Trump calls incumbent Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey ‘terrible’ He supports Kari Lake as a candidate for governor, lets her praise him on stage. “The American Founding Fathers would be Trump Republicans,” says Lake.
Background: In Arizona, Biden won the 2020 election, by a good 10,000 votes, as several recounts showed. Arizona’s government obeyed the law. Meanwhile, gubernatorial candidate Lake threatens to jail Arizona’s election commissioner. Your candidate to succeed that election chief is a man who demonstrated in front of the Capitol on January 6th. Trump also railed against his internal party critic Liz Cheney and said of the Senate minority leader: “We have to get rid of McConnell!” Mitch McConnell recently warned his party not only to talk about the election lost by Trump, but to look ahead.
Viewer number: The Trump-loving TV station Newsmax spoke of “thousands” of viewers and shows various rows of empty folding chairs. Trump calls on the television stations CNN and Fox, which do not broadcast the rally, to show the audience. He speaks of 55,000 spectators and that the line of cars to the rally stretched 40 kilometers long. But: The media are “very dishonest people”.
Trump and his January 6th conspiracy theory
Communism Warning: “The left-wing Democrats want to turn the United States into a communist country,” Trump said, as he did during the election campaign. He warns against “fascism” from the left. On the subject of abortion, he says, the Democrats want children to be allowed to be killed after birth.
January 6, 2021: Trump is not distancing himself from the pro-Trump mob’s storming of the Capitol just over a year ago. He avoids self-criticism, instead spreading relativism and a conspiracy theory.
Undercover FBI agents were in the crowd, including among those who led the storming of the Capitol, Trump claims.
Trump in front of his supporters in Florence, Arizona
Source: AFP / ROBYN BECK
With a view to the convicts, he speaks of “political prisoners”. He asks: “What happens to these people in prison?” These people lived there “in hell”. The Democrats celebrated their “indefinite detention”. The prisons are in a miserable condition and dirty, Trump complains – a new topic for him. If these people are innocent, “we should support them”. Democrats didn’t jail “Antifa” and “Black Lives Matter” activists. The investigative committee on January 6 was “malicious”, a “witch hunt”, a “Stalinist show trial”: “It’s like in a communist country.” After the midterm elections in November, the Republican majority in Congress will then clarify “what really happened “. She will then devote herself to the “stolen election”. The massive evidence of fraud will soon become apparent. Finally: “If I had lost, I wouldn’t have such a crowd.”
Nod to Merkel: Among his guests, Trump welcomes Richard Grenell, who once held the post of US ambassador to Berlin: “When I brought him back, Angela Merkel was the happiest woman in the world.”
Looking to 2024: In the future, only soldiers serving abroad and the seriously ill should be allowed to vote by mail, Trump (postal voters) demanded. America must now be made great again. “America is not great at the moment.” Rather, it is a “laughing stock”. In the congressional elections in November, the “Marxists” will be shown, and there will then be a big Republican “wave”. America will be brought back in 2022 and the White House in 2024. Trump doesn’t say a word about who should run for the Republicans. He, then 78 years old? Trump remains unusually taciturn. There has to be a bit of tension. He wants to hold the next rally in two weeks, then in Texas.
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