Donald Trump warned Saturday that the next election would be America's last
chance for salvation as he attempted to revive a faltering third run for the
White House in two US states that launched his winning 2016 presidential
campaign.
Buffeted by political and legal headwinds, the
76-year-old Republican addressed a few hundred supporters at an intimate
rally in South Carolina's capital Columbia after speaking to grassroots
activists in Salem, New Hampshire.
"The 2024 election is our one shot to save our country and we
need a leader who's ready to do that on day one," Trump said from a podium
beneath the Statehouse rotunda, flanked by American flags and some of his
most loyal political allies.
The events were seen as a chance to
revitalize a stuttering campaign amid criticism over Trump's failure to make
any public appearances since he announced his latest run in November.
But
there was no discernible shift in his messaging as he launched into his
debunked claims of a stolen 2020 election and reprised his litany of
disparaging nicknames for his political rivals.
He touched on favourite culture war talking points, railing
against critical race theory that he said was being taught in the military
as well as gender ideology and windmills that he said were mainly
Chinese-made bird killers.
"There's only one president who has
ever challenged the entire establishment in Washington, and with your vote
next year, we will do it again," he said seeking to revive his 2016 image as
an insurgent outsider.
His most divisive remarks were reserved
for the conservative critics he refers to as "RINOs" — Republicans in name
only — whom he criticized at both events, arguing in New Hampshire that they
were "even more dangerous than Democrats."
During his address to party activists in Salem he had touted
his record on law and order, immigration and "rebuilding" the US military as
he vowed to save the country from "being destroyed by a selfish, radical,
corrupt political establishment."
"I'm more angry now and more
committed now than I ever was," Trump said. "We need a president who's ready
to hit the ground running on day one."
Horrible, horrible people
New
Hampshire and South Carolina hold outsize influence as two of the first
states in every presidential election year to hold nominating contests.
They
cemented Trump's frontrunner status in 2016 after a lukewarm start in
Iowa.
But he has reportedly struggled to hold together a support
base in South Carolina amid simmering discontent over his endorsements of
candidates who lost swing state races in November's midterms.
The
nomination could wind up a two-horse race between Trump and Florida Governor
Ron DeSantis, who came out on top in a straw poll at the National Pro-Life
Summit in Washington just last weekend.
The biggest roadblock on Trump's path to the nomination may end
up being his mounting legal woes, with a quasi-independent "special counsel"
appointed to look into numerous allegations of misconduct.
"These
are radical left-wing prosecutors who are absolutely horrible, horrible
people," Trump said in New Hampshire, vowing to investigate the Justice
Department if he is reelected.
He is under the spotlight over his
handling of classified documents found in an FBI raid of his beachfront
mansion in Florida, his role in the 2021 insurrection and, in Georgia, his
attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
"We need a fighter who can stand up to the left, who can stand
up to the swamp, stand up to the media, stand up to the deep state... to
stand up to the globalists and China, and stand up for America," he said in
South Carolina.
"And that's what we do, we stand up for America."
