THE GUARDIAN
In his first campaign rally after being convicted of 34 felonies, former president Donald Trump recalled how he just went through a “rigged” trial with a “highly conflicted” judge despite there being “no crime”.
The court cases Trump faces have become a mainstay of his campaigning throughout the last year, where he frequently tells his followers that the charges are a form of election interference and designed to tamp down the Maga movement.
“Those appellate courts have to step up and straighten things out, or we’re not going to have a country any longer,” he said.
Trump spoke at a Turning Point Action event in sweltering Phoenix, at Dream City church, a megachurch where he and Turning Point have held rallies in the past. The extreme heat led to some waiting outside for the venue to open to need medical attention for heatstroke.
Trump held a rally at the same church in 2020, during the height of the pandemic, when church leaders claimed to have an air-purification system that killed 99% of the Covid-19 virus. Turning Point Action is the campaign arm of Turning Point, the conservative youth group founded by Charlie Kirk, a figure in the Maga movement.
The former president also took aim at Joe Biden’s recent executive order limiting asylum seekers, which Trump called “bullshit” and said he would rescind on his first day in office, should he win. He condemned Biden on immigration and ran down Trump administration border policies, saying his Democratic rival could solve immigration problems by reinstating all of his old policies.
“Arizona is being turned into a dumping ground for the dungeons of the third world,” Trump said.
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