Calling the 2024 presidential race the “final battle,” former President Donald Trump pledged to “expel the war mongers” and “demolish the Deep State” during a campaign rally Friday afternoon in western Iowa.
Campaigning in the shadow of a federal indictment and mounting legal troubles, the Republican Party frontrunner sounded as defiant as he takes on the political fight of his life.
Trump spoke to a packed crowd at Council Bluffs’ Mid-America Center, reminding conservative voters in the kickoff caucus state that they play a critical role in what he sees as the battle to save America.
While he accused the Democratic Party and its liberal allies of “cheating every chance they get,” he said Republicans “must compete using every lawful means to win.”
“That starts by getting everybody to participate in the Iowa caucuses,” the former president said to ear-ringing cheers. Given the fact he was appearing in a border state, Trump quickly added, “And I’m not forgetting Nebraska! We want you Nebraska!”
He promised to campaign in the Cornhusker State “soon.” But Iowa, the first-in-the-nation presidential nominating state (at least for the GOP), is where the action is. That’s why Trump and his many rivals for the Republican Party nomination have and will spend so much time in the Hawkeye State.
As he is nationally, Trump is dominating the crowded field in Iowa, according to the latest American Greatness poll. The former president leads his closest competitor, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis by 23 percentage points — 44 percent to 21 percent. The next closest rival, U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), is polling at 7 percent, followed by Ohio businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie all at 3 percent.
Trump, who has been widely criticized by the Left and so-called mainstream media news outlets for claiming the hotly contested 2020 election was stolen, asked western Iowa voters how a candidate could get elected on policies that drive open borders, high inflation, and a woke policies that turn everything into “April Fool’s Day.” His answer: They cheat.
Rally-goers seemed to agree.
If elected president, Trump said his goal is to return to same-day ballots and voter IDs “like the old days.”
“Any time you send mail-in-ballots through the mail there’s going to be a lot of bad things going to happen,” the former president said, reiterating his oft-repeated criticism of the wide-spread use of absentee and mail-in ballots amid the COVID-19 scare in the 2020 election.
Trump pointed to former President Jimmy Carter’s concerns about mail-in voting. A report issued in 2005 by the Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by the Democrat former president and former Secretary of State James Baker III, concluded, “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”
As the commission noted, “Citizens who vote at home, at nursing homes, at the workplace, or in church are more susceptible to pressure, overt and subtle, or to intimidation. Vote buying schemes are far more difficult to detect when citizens vote by mail.”
Carter did change his tune in time for the 2020 election, issuing a statement in September of that year saying, “I approve of the use of absentee ballots and have been using them for more than five years.”
Trump blasted the man he insists won the 2020 election thanks to election integrity failures, calling President Joe Biden worse than the worst five presidents.
“2024 is our final battle,” the former president said. “With you at may side, we will demolish the Deep State we will expel the war mongers from our government.”’
In a nod to former President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex, Trump said the “war mongers” want to go to war with everybody because of the wealth generated from the sale of their tools of war.
“They don’t care how many people die,” he said.
His comments follow his former running mate’s assertions in Iowa this week that Trump and DeSantis have failed to understand the importance of U.S. support for Ukraine in the war with Russia. Former Vice President Mike Pence, also in the western part of the state, told The Iowa Star that pushing back against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression is vital to U.S. interests.
“I have to tell you, as the son of a combat veteran, as the father of a United States Marine, I have no doubt that if Vladimir Putin overruns Ukraine, it’s not going to be too long before he crosses the border where we have to send our American men and women to fight. I think we are right to support them and see it through,” Pence said.
Trump said he likes “peace through strength,” putting America in a position where it does not have to use its strength.
“I will drive out the globalists, cast out the communists, marxists and fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media,” he said, pointing in the direction of the news pool at the back of the room. “We will beat Joe Biden and we will drain the swamp once and for all.”
“The great silent majority is rising like never before, and under our leadership the forgotten man and woman will be forgotten no longer,” Trump added. “With your help, your love and your vote, we will win Iowa, we will win Nebraska and we will make America great again.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Donald Trump Iowa Rally” by Rightside Broadcasting Network.
