Trump rally: Ex-president slams New York prosecutors days after company indicted for fraud
Rambling remarks revive election fraud conspiracy theories and culture war grievances
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During his second campaign-style rally after his presidency ended in January, Donald Trump raged against New York prosecutors targeting his Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, who pleaded not guilty this week to a range of criminal charges related to a years-long tax fraud probe.
After his company’s longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg pleaded not guilty in Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday, the former president dismissed the case as “prosecutorial misconduct” but appeared to acknowledge the charges against him and his company.
“You didn’t pay tax on the car or a company apartment ... you didn’t pay tax, or education for your grandchildren,” he said at his rally in Sarasota, Florida on 3 July. “Does anybody know the answer to that stuff?”
The president held his rally across the state from emergency crews still searching for survivors in the wake of a building collapse north of Miami.
Governor Ron DeSantis – a staunch ally of Mr Trump – did not attend the rally, and the governor’s aides allegedly asked the former president to postpone the event as the tragedy unfolds.
At least 24 people are dead and crews are searching for at least 121 people at the site of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside.
Following a brief moment of silence for the victims, Mr Trump – echoing his dark American vision from his July 4 remarks at Mount Rushmore in 2020 – listed a series of baseless claims suggesting his supporters are under attack in his apocalyptic vision of the state of the US: “religious liberty is being crushed,” “dissenters are being persecuted,” and “bloodthirsty criminals” are taking over American cities.
In rambling remarks over more than 90 minutes, the former president revived his voter fraud lies and a “stolen” election narrative that suggested Joe Biden is not the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election.
He condemned the president’s immigration policies and a rise in migrants to the US-Mexico border following a crisis point in Mr Trump’s own administration, and he lambasted “critical race theory” as “pure, plain racism”.
Mr Trump also said the president’s infrastructure plan would “annihilate America’s suburbs” – reviving his racist fear mongering over plans to eliminate barriers to racial segregation in suburban housing.
He also claimed, without any apparent self-awareness, that Republicans have been targeted by “disinformation” which he described without a trace of irony as “if you say it enough and keep saying it ... they’ll start to believe you.”
Read live updates from The Independent as they happened
Trump’s July 4 message invokes his American carnage vision of the nation
As he began his remarks ahead of the Fourth of July holiday, Trump listed a series of baseless claims suggesting right-wing Americans are under attack in his apocalyptic vision of the state of the US – “religious liberty is being crushed,” “dissenters are being persecuted,” and “bloodthirsty criminals” are taking over American cities.
He also said that “men are allowed to play in women’s sports – so unfair, and so crazy,” a transphobic attack as Republican legislation across the US has sought to ban transgender women from school sports.
Marjorie Taylor Greene says Joe Biden can’t keep his sentences ‘strait'
Trump explains disinformation to his crowd
Trump claims Democrats are using “disinformation” to claim that Republicans have pushed for “defunding the police” – which Republicans have claimed that Democrats are doing – after congressional Republicans rejected Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which contained billions of dollars to state and local governments for police budgets.
Without any sense of irony or self-awareness, he said: “If you say it enough and keep saying it they’ll start to believe you.”
Trump rages against prosecutors targeting his company and CFO
Trump is arguing that New York prosecutors have targeted his Trump Organization and its chief financial officer because he is defending his MAGA faithful, he told his rally crowd.
Prosecutors are going after “hard working people who didn’t pay taxes on a company car” but “for murder and selling drugs ... that’s OK.”
Trump asks ‘does anybody know the answer to that stuff?’... about paying taxes
Anti-Trump PAC sends plane above Trump rally with banner reading ‘LOSER PALOOZA’
Trump revives fear mongering over America’s suburbs
Trump claimed that Biden’s infrastructure plan would “annihilate America’s suburbs” – re-litigating his debunked, racist fear mongering over plans to eliminate barriers to racial segregation in suburban housing.
It was a frequent target during his 2020 campaign speeches, including a tweet that claimed that “people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream” will “no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood.”
Trump says ‘they’ want to replace Jefferson Memorial with... Al Sharpton and Biden
One year after promising to end a “merciless campaign” to tear down Confederates monuments, Trump claims “they” now want to remove a memorial to Thomas Jefferson and replace it with Al Sharpton and Joe Biden.
His dark July 4 speech in 2020, his last as president, included his remarks claiming that “far-left fascism” is “designed to overthrow the American revolution” and “end America.”
Trump asks ‘who shot Ashli Babbitt?’ during rally remarks
Trump asked “Who shot Ashli Babbitt?” – a pro-Trump QAnon proponent who was fatally shot by a US Capitol Police officer after she tried to jump into a window into the House chamber during the Capitol riot on 6 January.
Right-wing member of Congress, seeking to distance themselves from the election fraud narrative that propelled the riot, have repeatedly asked the question. US Rep Paul Gosar has accused the officer of “lying in wait” to kill her, and has suggested that the FBI conspired to start the assault on Congress.
“If that were on the other side, the person who did that would be strung up and hung,” Trump said.
We’re closing out live coverage of Trump’s Florida rally. Stay tuned with The Independent.
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