Former US president Donald Trump claims he can declassify top secret documents just ‘by thinking about it’
Donald Trump heads to Michigan, a state that spurned him in 2020 after he saw a surprise victory there four years earlier, on Saturday.
He’s in the state for a rally in Warren where he hopes to bump the candidacy of Tudor Dixon, his chosen acolyte in the race to unseat incumbent Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The president is eager to have a supporter of his bogus conspiracies about his 2020 defeat in the governor’s mansion should he make another bid for the White House in 2024.
Polls show Ms Dixon badly trailing the governor, who was the intended victim of a shocking kidnapping plot foiled by the FBI in 2020. The most recent poll of the race, from the GOP-aligned Trafalgar Group, showed Ms Dixon down by six points.
In Mr Trump’s other legal news, it was just revealed that he hoarded some 200,000 pages of federal documents at his Palm Beach home. The new court filing was to argue that an early October deadline for scanning and reviewing the documents is unrealistic because they cannot be processed quickly enough. There are reports that Mr Trump is ignoring some of the legal advice he is receiving over the matter.
Trump winds down rally vowing to take back White House in 2024
Donald Trump winded down his rally with a vow that the GOP would retake the White House in 2024, while being careful to not say that it would be he himself that would run.
And he once again lashed out at his supporters’ Democratic political opponents, blasting them for creating a “failing nation”.
“This nation does not belong to them. It belongs to you,” he told his cheering supporters.
Trump calls for death penalty for all drug dealers
Claiming that “we don’t have a choice”, Donald Trump spoke at length at his rally on Saturday about the supposed need for the US to implement a draconian policy of punishing convicted drug dealers with the death penalty.
Mr Trump spoke about his conversations with China’s Xi Jinping and called for “quick trials” for accused drug dealers, which he quipped had a “100 per cent conviction rate”. And he then spoke about how any American who sells a controlled substance of any kind should be put to death, which he said would be necessary to scare off other criminals.
It’s hard to imagine most natonal Republicans signing on to that idea, which would likely be unconstitutional given the requirements for proportionate punishments in the US justice system.
Trump attacks Maggie Haberman book as ‘disgusting’ and denies he nearly fired Ivanka via tweet
During a rally in Michigan on Saturday, Donald Trump continued his attacks on a forthcoming book about him from New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.
“I had a story the other day that I wanted to fire my daughter Ivanka, that didn’t happen,” he told the crowd, calling the story “disgusting.”
“No, but how do you how do you call your daughter and explain this?” he added, as the audience laughed.
Read more from Josh Marcus:
Former president has repeatedly attacked New York Times reporter’s forthcoming book on White House
Trump thanks Ginni Thomas for sticking to stolen election lies
Former president Donald Trump on Saturday offered a shout-out to the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for continuing to parrot his lies about the 2020 election in an interview with the House January 6 select committee.
Mr Trump praised Ms Thomas during remarks at his most recent political rally in Michigan, calling her “a great woman” who is the wife of “a great man”.
Read more from Andrew Feinberg:
Trump plays video attacking NY AG Letitia James
The ex-president played a video attacking the credibility of New York Attorney General Letitia James’s civil lawsuit against him, his family and company during his rally Saturday evening.
His video came after a diatribe attacking Ms James as “racist” and describing her as “one of the worst” AG’s in the country.
The devastation in Fort Myers and other cities in Florida has been evident for days, but elicited nothing until now from the West Palm Beach complex of Mar-a-Lago where Mr Trump has taken up residence.
Read more from Andrew Feinberg:
Former president Donald Trump opened a political rally in Michigan by breaking his week-long silence on Hurricane Ian, the category five storm that has devastated his home state of Florida.
Marjorie Taylor Greene gets a shout-out
Donald Trump’s first significant shout-out of the night went to Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right congresswoman from Georgia and rising star on the Maga right.
Mr Trump spoke to his rallygoers about Ms Greene’s visit with January 6 defendants in the Washington DC jail, where he said that accused rioters were being treated horribly in “filthy” conditions.
Calling the accused rioters “political prisoners”, he noted: “Somebody who did go there [to see them] was Marjorie Taylor Greene. She went there, she went there”.
Trump attacks Biden over using Strategic Oil Reserve
Donald Trump’s first attack aimed at Joe Biden on Saturday was perplexingly over his use of the Strategic Oil Reserve to alleviate soaring energy prices, which are resulting from the war in Ukraine and other factors.
The ex-president fumed that the oil reserves were “not supposed” to be used to alleviate surging demand amid low supply — it should only be used for “wartime”, or other emergencies, he insisted.
Donald Trump takes the stage
As Proud to be an American blared on the speakers, the former president took the stage just about 15 minutes late.
He opened up his rally offering his “profound sympathy” to victims of Hurricane Ian.
“Not a good hurricane,” Mr Trump quipped. “This was a bad one.”
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is in attendance
One of the very few people still pursuing Donald Trump’s false campaign to overturn the 2020 election is Mike Lindell — the pillow-vendor-turned-activist who is one of Mr Trump’s most vocal supporters.
Mr Lindell was a part of Right Side Broadcasting’s pre-rally coverage, and discussed those conspiracies while alluding to how important the Michigan governor’s election would be for future efforts to contest election results that do not turn out in favour of the GOP.
The MyPillow CEO has attended most of Mr Trump’s recent rallies around the country, including his recent appearance in Youngstown, Ohio.
