In a characteristically combative speech to more than 15,000 die-hard supporters in Florence, former President Donald Trump resumed his attacks on President Joe Biden, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and the news media to resounding support.
The visit, Trump's first rally of 2022 and his second trip to Arizona since leaving office, gave the former president a chance to renew his grievances and cast his four years in office as a period of unprecedented prosperity and security.
Early in his remarks, Trump cast Biden's administration as an unfolding disaster and continued his baseless claims of widespread election fraud in 2020.
"I love Arizona. We had a tremendous victory in Arizona that was taken away. ... We had a rigged election. ... (The media) refuse to talk about it. The Big Lie is a lot of bull----. That's what it is.
"Biden has utterly humiliated our nation," Trump said, saying that Russia and China's leaders no longer respect or fear America.
Trump, who may run for president again in 2024, said the past year under Biden has been a "disaster," but said there would be a good political end to the "catastrophe" at the outset of the new year.
"A great red wave is going to begin right here in Arizona, and it's going to sweep across this country," Trump said near the end of his 93-minute speech. After Trump ended his remarks, the speakers blared Sam and Dave's 1966 hit "Hold On, I'm Comin'."
His message was an updated version of Trumpβs usual America-first rhetoric, long on...
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