Former President of the United States and Republican candidate for the November 2024 election, Donald Trump, speaks during a campaign event in the state of Iowa for the Republican primary on January 6, 2024 (GETTY NORTH AMERICA IMAGES / SCOTT OLSON)
During the campaign, Donald Trump asserted on Saturday that he would “save America” by winning the November presidential election against the “corrupt” Joe Biden in a “failing” country and on the brink of a “third world war.”
Exactly three years to the day after the attack on the Capitol, the former Republican president held a series of meetings in the small Midwestern state of Iowa, which is organizing its caucuses on January 15th, ringing the bell for the 2024 Republican primaries. This gave him outsized weight in presidential campaigns for half a century.
The billionaire, who despite his four criminal charges dreams of being re-elected in November and returning to the White House on January 20, 2025, will face voters again for the first time since his acrimonious departure from the presidency on January 20, eight days from now 2021 .
Three years after his supporters' unprecedented attack on the headquarters of Congress in Washington on January 6, 2021, Donald Trump reiterated in two rambling speeches, each lasting more than two hours, in the small towns of Newton and Clinton that he would do so “to “Winning the presidential election for the third time” in November.
– “Joe the Scoundrel” –
Elected in November 2016 and defeated four years later, the Tribune believes that victory in this election was “stolen” from him by 81-year-old Democrat Joe Biden, whom he again called “Joe-the-Scum” and whose age he said made fun of.
A man wears an anti-Biden cap during a meeting with former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump in the state of Iowa on January 6, 2024 (AFP / Christian Monterrosa)
The 77-year-old Donald Trump, who overthrew American democracy in a decade, called him “incompetent,” “corrupt” and the “worst” president in the history of the United States and judged that the world's leading power was “in decline.” .
With a view to the wars in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip and the tensions with Iran and China, he warned his hundreds of enthusiastic MAGA supporters (“Make America Great Again”) in Newton: If Mr. Biden is re-elected, the country risks “ Third World War”. “ and “Depression” like in the 1930s.
“We are a failing nation” and “we will bring them back from hell,” he said that evening at a Clinton school, boasting that he was “the only candidate who can save America from any Biden disaster.”
– “I am a dictator” –
Ironic about the warnings from Democrats and the media about the danger of Trump's “dictatorship” if he were to run for a second term, the businessman announced to laughter and applause: “I am a dictator.”
The day before, Joe Biden compared his rival's rhetoric to that of “Nazi Germany” in a speech in Pennsylvania about the threat to democracy.
Despite his legal setbacks and the threat of prison time for his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, polls show Donald Trump with 60% of the Republican vote against his primary opponents Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, whom he did not hold back from making fun.
In Iowa and a number of conservative states, the septuagenarian has a very loyal base that brushes aside his escapades and legal troubles.
The attack on the Capitol, the temple of American democracy, remains a subject of deep division in the United States: a quarter of Americans and 44% of Trump voters believe, without evidence, that the Federal Police (FBI) was involved in the attack . originally according to a Washington Post and University of Maryland poll.
– 1,200 arrests –
Near the US Capitol, January 6, 2021 in Washington (AFP / Olivier DOULIERY)
The same FBI announced Saturday the arrest of three people in Florida for their involvement in the Jan. 6 incident. In 35 months of a massive investigation that is still ongoing, authorities have charged more than 1,200 people in nearly all 50 U.S. states. More than half were convicted.
For Mr. Trump, they are “hostages.”
He has denied for three years that he incited his supporters to incite the insurrection – new violent images of which were broadcast on television on Saturday – and the attack on Congress, where Joe Biden's victory was confirmed on January 6, 2021.
A Federal Police poster celebrating the arrest of Jonathan Pollock, who is accused of participating in the attack on the Capitol (FBI / Handout)
To assess the pressure he would have exerted to try to overturn the results, a criminal trial must begin March 4 in Washington.
It will take place on the eve of one of the most important deadlines of the Republican primaries: “Super Tuesday” in around fifteen states: Texas, California … but also Colorado and Maine.
The latter two states declared him ineligible for the presidency in December due to his actions on January 6, 2021. The Supreme Court considered the matter on Friday, although Trump's name remains on the list until the February decision.