MANCHESTER, N.H. – Former U.S. President Donald Trump spoke to a crowd of supporters at the Manchester Doubletree by Hilton on Thursday, the latest stop on his 2024 presidential campaign tour.
Trump used the occasion to engage in his trademark brand of off-the-cuff rhetoric, focusing on a variety of foes standing in the path of his goal to avenge his 2020 loss.
Although Trump remains at the top of most polls for the Republican Presidential nomination, the field remains open, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis perceived to be his primary opponent. While DeSantis has not yet officially declared his presidential candidacy, it is widely expected that he will do so soon and Trump pulled no punches against this likely rival, alluding that DeSantis would have failed in his quest to become governor of Florida without his endorsement.
“He campaigned for a long time and he failed. Now he’s failing again because he’s getting a chance to campaign without Trump,” he said.
Other Republican targets included former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who Trump said had “a big mouth,” and New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu.
In recent months, Sununu has said that Trump has no chance of winning a General Election in 2024. In turn, Trump said that he does not like Sununu and said he made a mistake not running against Maggie Hassan for the U.S. Senate in 2022 and instead considering running for president, stating that Sununu becoming president would be the biggest upset in the history of world politics.
Trump added that Sununu should spend more time focusing on New Hampshire’s fentanyl epidemic.
“(Sununu) should stop being a nasty guy and stop telling people I won’t win in the general election,” said Trump, adding that others said that Trump could not win a general election in 2016.
Trump also provided invective against Democrats, most notably his 2020 Presidential General Election rival, U.S. President Joseph Biden.
Photos by Stacy Harrison
In a wide array of attacks, Trump attacked Biden on foreign policy, foreign trade, military spending, energy prices, and various other issues, reflecting Biden’s claims that Trump represents a threat to democracy.
“Biden represents a threat to Democracy because he’s grossly incompetent, he has no idea what he’s doing and in general doesn’t have a clue, and it’s a very bad position to put our country in,” he said.
Trump also reiterated the debunked claim that the 2020 election was stolen, stating that the election should only have paper ballots and that Biden would be unable to win in 2024 without impropriety.
In turn, New Hampshire Democrats have launched attacks on Trump and other Republicans already campaigning in the Granite State for the upcoming First in the Nation Primary.
“Donald Trump spent four years enacting a disastrous economic agenda that rigged the economy for the wealthy while hurting working Granite Staters,” said New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley. “Nothing he says can change the fact that he had the worst jobs record of any president since the Great Depression.”
Along with the attacks, Trump also took time to during his remarks on Thursday to tout accomplishments from his first term and promises for another term if elected.
Like his attacks, the promises he made to the assembled crowd were numerous, including keeping individuals born as men out of women’s sports, national concealed carry firearms permits, forcing states to build oil pipelines, direct elections of school principals, preventing World War III, ending the Ukraine/Russian War, lowering energy prices, improving border security, and supporting police officers, among other issues.
He also said that he would attack the “deep state” and individuals on the left seeking to “weaponize” the government against him and his supporters, stating that various court cases against him are politically based and ultimately targeted at the Make America Great Again movement. He added that the United States has become “a third world country,” and that if he did not win, the assembled crowd would not have a country anymore.
“In the end, they’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you and I’m just standing in their way,” he said.
A Twitter thread of the event can be found here.