From a podium reading ‘Save America’, the former president held the first rally of 2022, promising a year of reclaiming ‘the House and the Senate’, before “taking over the White House in 2024”.
Washington Correspondent
Trump is on the campaign trail again. The former president held the first rally of 2022 in Arizona, promising it would be the yearwe are going reconquer the Chamber and the Senate,” before “in 2024, to take over the White House”.
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In front of the crowd of his supporters gathered in the desert in Florence, Arizona, Trump denounced “the incompetence of Joe Biden », but also spoke a lot about the year 2020, and the election which he says was stolen from him.
From a podium bearing the inscription “save america“, the former president immediately explained to have the”evidence“that the 2020 election had been”faked“. “Fake news and mainstream media refuse to talk about it”, said Trump, “They say it’s baseless and it’s a big lie. The big lie is a bunch of bullshit, that’s what it is. “If an election were held today, we would have beaten them soundly, like we did on November 3. We beat them. If we had an honest press, the election would have been very different,” launched Trump.
He also implied that the insurrection against the Capitol on January 6, 2021 was an undercover operation by the FBI “or other agencies”, and asserted that the “real insurrection”, had actually taken place on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020. Trump also criticized the House Select Committee’s investigation into the riot as yet another witch hunt, and Democrats’ attempts to make pass a federal election law “Election Fraud Bill”.
Settling scores
Arizona, which swung in favor of Joe Biden in November 2020, is also one of the states where the election was the most disputed. Challenges to the result went further there than elsewhere, even going so far as to recount the ballots again months later, in an audit requested by Republican senators in the state, but which ultimately confirmed the defeat of Trump.
Trump had regained the accent of his electoral campaigns. He attacked the media, causing crowds to boo TV crews, he criticized Biden, accusing him of transforming America “into a new Venezuela”. Trump denounced “open borders” and the entrance “millions of illegal immigrants”, rampant inflation, rising fuel prices, shortages in stores, and high crime rates “in Democratic cities”.
The rally was also an opportunity for him to settle scores with the Republicans who failed him, and support his candidates in the upcoming midterm elections next November. He supported Kari Lake, a former TV presenter who is running for governor, and he slammed current governor Doug Ducey for acknowledging Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. .
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The rally was the first in a campaign that is expected to have about two a month until the November ballot, with the next scheduled in Texas at the end of January.