Trump Blasts Democrats During First Rally After FBI Raid
During his latest “Save America” rally, former President Donald Trump blasted President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party for their “corruption and extremism.”
The event — which was held on Saturday night in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, alongside Republican candidates Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano — was Trump’s first rally appearance since the FBI raided his home in Palm Beach, Florida, on August 8.
The former president began his speech by going after Biden and the federal agencies involved in the raid.
“There’s only one party that’s waging war on American democracy by censoring free speech, criminalizing dissent,” Trump said, referring to Democrats. “You see that happening. Disarming law-abiding citizens by issuing lawless mandates and unconstitutional orders, imprisoning political protesters. That’s what they’re doing. Rigging elections, weaponizing the Justice Department and the FBI like never ever before, and raiding and breaking into the homes of their political opponents. I wonder who that could be?”
“Republicans in the ‘MAGA’ movement are not the ones trying to undermine our democracy. We are the ones trying to save our democracy,” the former president added. “The danger to democracy comes from the radical left, not from the right.”
Trump then began calling out the Department of Justice for approving the raid of his Mar-a-Lago home.
“[There] could be no more vivid example of the very real threats to American freedom than just a few weeks ago. You saw, when we witnessed one of the most shocking abuses of power by any administration in American history,” he said. “The shameful raid and breaking into my home, Mar-a-Lago, was a travesty of justice. It made a mockery of America’s laws, traditions and principles before the entire world. The entire world was watching, and they’re shocked. They’re shocked.”
The former president went on to claim that the raid was only made possible by “a phony pretext” and signed off on by a judge who was “handpicked” by the administration — Bruce Reinhart, who has been criticized for not recusing himself from the case after it was discovered that he had posted anti-Trump comments on his Facebook page, donated to the campaigns of Barack Obama and Jeb Bush, and previously worked for convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump also made sure to mention that the people in the FBI and DOJ who went after him are the same people who looked into Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, which they ultimately decided to do nothing about.
“Think of that? Yet now, the same people, the exact same people, are sending the FBI storming through the home of their No. 1 political rival,” the former president said. “It’s a disgrace, a disgrace, like possibly never before. Our country has never seen anything like, if they talk about documents not being properly stored, we had. They go in and take documents, dump them on the floor, stage a photo shoot, and pretend that I had done it, like I had put them all over the floor.”
Trump’s rally came just days after Biden gave his dark and divisive speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, in which he targeted Trump and his supporters — whom he referred to as “MAGA Republicans” — demonizing them and calling them a threat to “democracy.”
“As you know, this week Joe Biden came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to give the most vicious, hateful and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president — vilifying 75 million citizens, plus another probably 75 to 150 if we want to be accurate about it, as threats to democracy and as enemies of the state. You’re all enemies of the state,” Trump noted before arguing that Biden is actually the one who is “an enemy of the state.”
Trump went on to encourage Pennsylvanians to get out and vote in the upcoming November midterms, reminding them of the problems caused by the Biden administration and the Democrats, including skyrocketing inflation, record-high gas prices, and rising crime rates in cities like Philadelphia.
“Above all, this election is a referendum on the corruption and extremism of Joe Biden and the radical Democrat Party,” he said. “If you want to stop this destruction of America, you must vote Republican. You gotta get out and vote.”
