CLIVE, Iowa — Former President Donald Trump was back in the first caucus state Monday afternoon, still dominating in the polls and still spoiling for a fight.
“Crooked Joe Biden and his radical left Democrats … have weaponized law enforcement to arrest their leading political opponent, me,” Trump told hundreds of supporters at a rally in suburban Des Moines just 91 days before Iowa Republicans hold the first-in-the-nation 2024 presidential caucuses.
He blasted the gag order that federal District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan slapped him with on Monday, barring the former president from attacking — criticizing — witnesses, prosecutors and court staff involved in his Washington, D.C. criminal case.
“First Amendment protections yield to the administration of justice and to the protection of witnesses,”Chutkan said in issuing the gag order. “His presidential candidacy does not give him carte blanche to vilify … public servants who are simply doing their job.”
Chutkan, appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama, has been criticized by conservatives for hitting demonstrators and rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 with excessive punishments.
Trump called the gag order “totally unconstitutional.” Many in the crowd seemed to agree, based on the boos at the mention of the judge’s action.
“You know what a gag order is?” he asked rally-goers. “You can’t speak badly about your opponent.”
“But what they don’t understand is that I am willing to go to jail if that’s what it takes for our country to become a democracy again,” Trump said to a roar of applause.
The former president, who has for years been the left’s political public enemy No. 1, is facing four separate indictments and decades in prison if convicted of the scores of charges against him. None of which has hurt him in the polls.
Trump is crushing his GOP presidential rivals by 45 percentage points or more, according to RealClearPolitics average of national polls. And he’s leading Biden in several polls, including a Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll showing Trump ahead of the Democrat in five of six swing states.
Trump joked — truthfully — that he’s been indicted more times than Al Capone.
He reiterated his support for Israel in its war to hunt down and destroy terrorist network Hamas. Trump said his administration “stood up for Israel and we stood up for Judea-Christian values.” He noted the Abraham Accords, negotiated by his administration, aimed at building peace in the Middle East, and his administration’s commitment to moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, fulfilling a promise made by several of his predecessors.
He bashed Biden, the “incompetent fool” in the White House, for going soft on terrorist sponsor Iran. The administration has been sharply criticized by Republicans for a deal that unfroze $6 billion in Iranian oil money in exchange for the return of five U.S. prisoners. And now, Trump asserted, Iran is close to building a nuclear weapon because Biden pushed the U.S. back into the Iran nuclear deal.
“We are closer we have been to World War II than we’ve ever been,” Trump said, a warning line he has increasingly turned on the campaign trail.
The former president, as he routinely does, repeatedly departed from the teleprompter script over the course of his hour-plus speech. He stayed on task, however, in delivering a long line of popular promises — from blocking taxpayer funds to schools with vaccine and mask mandates to protecting the unborn to safeguarding the first and second amendments.
“Never forget my enemies want to take away my freedom because I won’t let them take away your freedoms. It’s very simple,” Trump said to applause. “They want to silence me because I will never let them silence you.”
Trump took the rally stage on Monday with a fresh endorsement — from Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, who has spent her first term in office suing the Biden administration.
Watch the full event here:
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
