Donald Trump attacked his rivals for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, particularly Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in front of a loyal audience in Anaheim on Friday during the Republican Party convention in California.
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“It was I who repainted Florida red (the Republican color), not him (De Santis),” the former president said.
Trump recalled the support he gave him in his 2018 campaign for governor of Florida and asserted: “Without me he would be dead.”
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According to a recent NBC News poll, Donald Trump has an overwhelming lead in the Republican primary: 59% of voters voted in favor, while DeSantis, his closest rival, received 16%.
In Anaheim, he also called Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey and one of the few candidates to sharply criticize him, a “loser.”
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On Wednesday, the former president did not attend the second Republican candidates’ debate in California, preferring to campaign with auto workers in northeastern Michigan.
His rivals, including DeSantis and his former vice president Mike Pence, were all scheduled to speak separately at the convention in California.
Donald Trump, 77, once again mocked the physical appearance of Joe Biden, whom he hopes to replace in the White House, telling an enthusiastic audience that the 80-year-old Democratic president “can’t even get out of a scene.” .
Trump has been criminally charged on four counts ranging from his handling of classified documents after leaving the presidency to his alleged attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. He has once again portrayed himself as a victim of a justice system that he believes is himself in the pay of the Democrats.
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When he returns to power, he promised, he would order an overhaul of the Justice Department “to investigate every radical prosecutor in America.”
The former president also spoke about immigration, saying he wanted to “close the border” with Mexico and “launch the largest deportation operation in the country’s history.”
He did not forget to address more specific issues for California: water wars related to drought, dealing with the homeless, resuming oil production that was abandoned because of the priority given to renewable energy.
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In the room, dozens of his supporters waving the American flag waved signs bearing his name for the 2024 election.
Among them, some appeared defiant toward their own party in a California that is considered too liberal and regularly votes Democratic.
“I’m afraid that a lot of Republicans here are just on the surface,” denounced 73-year-old Sharon Lyn Stein.
“It is unfortunate that the mainstream Republican Party organizing this convention is not doing more to support President Trump,” said Karen Anthoupoulos. “In reality, they are doing more to sabotage it.”