Former President Donald Trump was in Iowa on Friday, along with some of the other Republican candidates for president in 2024, at the Iowa GOP Lincoln Day Dinner event. Trump wrapped up the night, and several other candidates spoke before him.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke out against Bidenomics and cracked a joke about the cocaine in the White House, indicating that it never would have happened, had he been in the White House.
As we reported earlier, things didn’t go well for former Texas congressman and now almost unknown candidate, Will Hurd. He took a jab at Trump, saying Trump wasn’t running to make America Great Again, but to stay out of prison. Hurd treated the Iowa voters like they couldn’t deal with reality (as he saw it). Needless to say, that didn’t go over well. He was booed and called a “loser,” as he left the stage.
Before the Lincoln Day Dinner, Trump arrived at his Iowa headquarters to chants of “USA” and cheers. He was dancing and clearly in a fired-up mood, behaving like a guy who knows he has a good lead on the rest of the field.
Then at the Lincoln Dinner, the reception for Hurd versus that for Trump was like night and day. Trump got a standing ovation.
Trump listed reasons why folks in Iowa should vote for him, joking he’d try to make it quick but had a lot to list. He said that he supported farmers by reworking the North American trade deal. Iowa had no better friend in the White House than him, he declared.
He also detailed how he helped to rebuild the military, created the Space Force, kept the country out of new wars, and helped to defeat ISIS.
Trump attacked Biden on his bad policies and issues of substance, such as the horrible pullout from Afghanistan, which Trump said “was the incentive for Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.” He called the pullout one of the most embarrassing moments in the history of the country because of the way that Biden handled it. It showed Biden’s weakness.
Trump also noted his successes at the border, contrasting them with Biden’s failures. How he constructed 500 miles of walls, yet Biden came in and then refused to complete it–leaving material that was ready to use uncompleted. Now, the situation at the border under Biden is a total mess.
Trump also laid out how much he had done to help change the Supreme Court with three important appointments, and hundreds of appointments to the federal judiciary to get back on a constitutional track.
Trump also wasn’t shy about citing polls that showed him having leads over the Republican primary field and beating Joe Biden in the general election.
Trump was also very clear on some cultural issues important to the base, speaking against critical race theory and gender mutilation. He ended by condemning the weaponization of the federal government that has happened under Joe Biden, and which he has faced personally. He said they were coming after him because he is running and he is leading.
“Say no on 87,000 IRS agents,” he said, railing against using them against the people. “They want to weaponize the IRS just like they’ve weaponized DOJ and the FBI.”