Althea Legaspi
Sat, December 2, 2023
Donald Trump was in Iowa on Saturday for two campaign stops, the first in Ankeny, followed by a stop in Cedar Rapids. And his obsession with the 2020 election continues to be a subject he seems to think is crucial as he campaigns to win the Republican presidential nomination, despite his position being unsubstantiated time and again. His fixation appeared to be a strategy to sow doubt should the 2024 election not go his way.
During his “Commit to Caucus” speech in Ankeny, he went over similar tropes he’s been touting throughout his campaign, calling media “fake news” and reiterating his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen when President Biden was rightfully declared president. “The one thing they don’t want to talk about is the [2020] election. They are guilty as hell, they cheated like hell,” Trump claimed, presumably of everyone who correctly recognized and validated the actual election results. “They know it, and you’ll never find out all the ways. But we don’t need all the ways because, you know, it was, I think 22,000 votes separated it, and we have millions and millions of votes. It’s a very sad thing.”
He then appeared to encourage the crowd to pursue voter intimidation and election interference while comparing the United States to a third world country: “So the most important part of what’s coming up is to guard the vote. And you should go into Detroit and you should go into Philadelphia and you should go into some of these places, Atlanta — and you should go into some of these places, and we got to watch those votes when they come in, when they’re being, you know, shoved around in wheelbarrows and dumped on the floor and everyone’s saying what’s going on? We’re like a third world nation, a third world nation. And we can’t let it happen.”
At his Cedar Rapids event dubbed his “Save America” rally that followed, Trump homed in on attacking “crooked” President Biden while continuing to harp on his unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 election was rigged and even further, that Jesus and God would declare him a winner now. “I think if you had a real election and Jesus came down and God came down and said, ‘I’m gonna be the scorekeeper here,’ I think we’d win there, I think would win in Illinois, and I think it we’d win in New York.”
“I got indicted four times because I’m questioning a crooked election,” Trump later added per his own assessment of his alleged crimes. “But we’re not questioning it. We know the results, we know. And when we go through courts — if we ever even have to do it because you have presidential privilege. And also, if we ever, we should never have to do that, but if we do, we want to redo the election — only from the standpoint we want that election, we want to look at it very carefully. We have so much information. There was so much corruption in that election.”
He also claimed that he invented the word “caravan” again, for some reason, and also inexplicably claimed that he saved Obamacare. He concluded by saying that his was “one of the great presidencies,” and claiming that even his opponents have said so.
In the ultimate irony, Trump early on accused his opponents of “waging an all-out war on American democracy.”
“You look at what they’ve been doing, and becoming more and more extreme and repressive. They have just waged an all-out war with each passing day,” the man who has torn the country apart claimed.
While Trump stumped in Iowa, so did Ron DeSantis, where he appeared in Sioux City. DeSantis, once thought to be Trump’s biggest challenger continues to lag in the polls with a widening gap between him and poll-leading Trump in the last few weeks before the caucuses. DeSantis has been endorsed by Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats.
No comments:
Post a Comment