Donald Trump: Developer, property mogul, billionaire, former president, defendant, Republican frontrunner and now ‘dissident.’
He gave himself the new title on Saturday as he set out his nightmare vision of what a second Biden term would look like.
It is part of what aides say is a pivot to attacking President Joe Biden while Nikki Haley, his last remaining rival in the Republican nomination race, is heading to certain defeat in her home state of South Carolina, later on Saturday.
‘A vote for Trump is your ticket back to freedom. It’s your passport out of tyranny, and it’s your only escape from Joe Biden and his gang’s fast track to hell,’ he told a crowd of adoring fans at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held just outside Washington D.C.
‘I stand before you today not only as your past and hopefully future president as a proud political dissident. I am a dissident.’
Former President Donald Trump described himself as a ‘dissident’ as he set out his nightmare vision of what a second Biden term would look like on Saturday at a gathering of conservatives
Trump supporters recited the pledge of allegiance before the former president took the stage
Trump, who faces four criminal trials, last week compared himself with Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in a Siberian penal colony.
It may sound outlandish, but the idea has gained traction with supporters who refer people imprisoned for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as ‘political hostages,’ and who believe Trump is being victimized by a ‘weaponized’ Department of Justice.
Attendees could even play on a Jan. 6 themed pinball machine, which promotes various rightwing conspiracy theories about the day.
On Saturday, Trump riffed on the theme that he was the victim of a witch hunt.
‘I would rather lose my freedom than surrender to this group of thugs and tyrants and fascist scoundrels,’ he said.
And he added that a Biden win in November would usher in millions more migrants and send street crime rocketing.
‘Four years ago I told you that if crooked Joe Biden got to the White House our borders would be abolished,’ he said. ‘Our middle class would be decimated, our communities would be plagued by bloodshed chaos and violent crime.
‘We were right about everything.
‘So believe me when I offer you another warning …. If crooked Joe Biden and his thugs win in 2024. The worst is yet to come. Our country will go and sink to levels that were unimaginable.’
‘So believe me when I offer you another warning …. If crooked Joe Biden and his thugs win in 2024. The worst is yet to come. Our country will go and sink to levels that were unimaginable’
Trump spelled out the nightmare he sees if Joe Biden wins another four-year term
There was standing room only at the back of the hall as Trump addressed a capacity crowd
On Saturday, Trump is expected to easily beat Nikki Haley in the South Carolina primary. Aides say it will be the last time he focuses on her, instead pivoting to the contest with Biden
Polls suggest South Carolina’s electorate will give a huge boost to Trump on Saturday. An average maintained by the FiveThirtyEight website suggests the former president could win by a margin of 30 points in the state where Haley served as governor.
She has promised to fight on in the race whatever happens and has kept up her attacks on the frontrunner.
Trump, 77, has already scored convincing wins in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, is plotting a different course. He is not even planning to travel to Michigan on Tuesday when it holds its primary.
His aides joke that if Haley wants attention she will have to get a job on The View or with liberal broadcaster MSNBC.
They say Trump will now focus only on the match-up with Biden and ramp up attacks on the president ahead of next month’s State of the Union address.
On Saturday, he will tell conservatives that it is up to them to make their feelings clear and finish the job begun with his election in 2016
‘Eight years later, the Swamp has rejected your righteous pleas for reform—and at the ballot box this November, it is you the people who will deliver their reckoning,’ he is expected to say.
People write on a Trump themed bus at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2024, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, Maryland
‘The more the corrupt establishment tries to stop us, the more you know the day is near at hand when we will break free from their grip forever.’
Specifically he will ask CPAC attendees to imagine inflation after another four years of Biden. And he will ask them to imagine Biden’s fitness for office when the 81-year-old is another four years older.
‘These are the stakes of this election,’ he will say. Our country is being destroyed, and the only think standing between you and its obliteration is me.’
With your vote, he will tell supporters, ‘We will throw out Bidenomics, and we will reinstate Maganomics.’
Trump was in South Carolina on Friday night, making his eve of election pitch to voters there.
‘We’re not very worried about tomorrow,’ he said. ‘We want to aim for November 5.’
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