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Former President Donald Trump escalated an ongoing feud with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, covered his baseless election fraud allegations, criticized President Joe Biden over immigration, and officially endorsed the Senator Chuck Grassley, as he tested presidential waters in Iowa on Saturday night.
“Mitch McConnell should have challenged this election because even then we had a lot of material to challenge this election. He should have challenged the election. [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer would have done it. McConnell didn’t have the courage, ”Trump told supporters at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.
Organizing a rally in the early years of the presidential nominating state before 2024 is all about building rapport with voters and laying the groundwork for a potential campaign. It was his first visit to the state after losing to Biden last November.
For nearly two hours, Trump espoused his usual rhetoric without interruption, covering issues ranging from the border wall to Afghanistan and infrastructure to electoral fraud and his personal grudges, sparking chants of ‘Trump won’ and ‘ we love you ”from the crowd.
“Republicans have to stay strong. You have to fight back, bring our country back,” he said, calling the Democrat-led infrastructure and spending proposals a “socialist transformation bill, a bill on open borders and a US energy destruction bill. “
Scott Olson / Getty Images
Calling on supporters to run in droves for the midterms of 2022, Trump said: “We have to send the radical left a message that they will never forget.”
He then mistakenly called 2020 a “stolen” election, accusing Biden of cheating and orchestrating a plot to remove him from office. Trump and his allies have presented no real evidence of his allegations of widespread electoral fraud, but the Iowans have asked Grassley about it in town halls.
Trump endorsed Grassley after the Republican Senator from Iowa spoke alongside Governor Kim Reynolds before him. “I am delighted to announce this evening that Senator Chuck Grassley has my full and total support for his re-election,” he said. “Look at this, he’s young!”
Trump also teased a potential new slogan for 2024, without officially announcing a re-election bid. “It was supposed to be Keep America Great but America isn’t great right now. So we use the same Make America Great Again tagline and we can even add some,” he said. “Make America Great Again, Again. “
Trump is more popular in the state now than when he was in office. According to the latest Des Moines Register/ Medicom poll, about 53 percent of Iowan voters have a favorable opinion and 45 percent have an unfavorable opinion of the former Republican president.
He ended the rally with a campaign pledge: “Together we will make America powerful again.” We will make America rich again. We will make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And we will make America even better. “
News week contacted McConnell’s office for comment.
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