Former President Donald Trump spoke to an enthusiastic crowd on Saturday afternoon in South Carolina. The rally took place in Conway, which is near Myrtle Beach. As I wrote earlier, Republican primary opponent Nikki Haley's campaign paid for a digital billboard to trace the roads around the area on Saturday; the video playing on it showed both the former president and President Joe Biden making verbal gaffes over the past few months.
Trump's rally, and Hally's events across the state, mark the two remaining Republican presidential candidates' last-minute/final push before South Carolina's primary is held on Feb. 23.
In Trump's speech, he hit Haley for the connections to her donors, and her reputation as a war hawk:
He also brought up a conversation he said he had with Haley at his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, about whether or not she would run for POTUS in 2024. The closing of the story referenced her husband:
“Then she comes over to see me at Mar-a-Lago. ‘Sir, I will never run against you.’ She brought her husband. Where’s your husband? Oh, he’s away. He’s away. What happened to her husband? What happened to her husband? Where is he? He’s gone! He knew. He knew,” Trump said.
Trump talked about the controversy that surrounded the release of the Special Counsel's report on the mishandling and retaining of classified documents by Joe Biden stretching back, in some cases, 40 years.
He stated that "the real problem facing our country is not Joe Biden’s decline; the real problem is that Joe Biden is causing America's decline." Directly speaking about the report, he said that while Hur's report found that Biden "was a mental basket case," the president got off "scot-free."
Trump made a sharp contrast between himself and Biden,
even addressing the idea that he was only running for president again to get "revenge" on those who have brought legal cases against him, calling the suits “selective persecution, not prosecution, persecution.”
He continued by saying that if he is re-elected, he would restore the rule of law, and "[he would] have no higher priority than cleaning up this rot."
Turning to the southern border crisis, Trump also said that "[w]hat Crooked Joe is doing to our border is a crime against our nation." He went on, “As your president, I put America first every single time and every single night!"
He also mocked the video of the progressive activist/Hillary 2020 supporter who became one of the most famous memes of all time:
Before Trump left on his plane, he stopped to speak briefly to the people standing in the overflow area near the venue, according to Trump campaign senior advisor Dan Scavino:
This is a developing story. We'll bring you further updates as they become available.
You can watch the full speech in the video below (move the video to 1:52):