WaPo (“Trump insults prosecutor at Jersey Shore rally filled with vulgar jabs“):
Donald Trump on Saturday insulted the prosecutor who has charged him in his ongoing New York criminal trial, speaking at a large rally on the Jersey Shore filled with personal attacks, coarse language and vulgar expressions from the former president and his supporters.
The presumptive Republican nominee called Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “fat Alvin.” He described New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who is presiding over his trial, as “highly conflicted.” And he reprised his accusations that both are “doing the bidding” of President Biden, even though there is no evidence they have coordinated with Biden or his administration.
The attacks were the latest show of defiance against judges and prosecutors from a candidate who is facing 88 criminal charges across four indictments. They were part of a flurry of broadsides or baseless claims that Trump and his backers launched at a beachside rally that marked a return to the campaign trail after at the end of another week when Trump spent much of his time in a courtroom.
Given that Merchan has cited Trump for ten violations of his gag order and threatened to jail him for contempt, I don’t see how he can not follow through at this point. Not only is he continuing to insult the court but he’s creating a threatening environment for the jury pool.
He said he was indicted on “bulls—” prompting some in the crowd to repeat “bulls—” in response. He attacked former New Jersey Republican governor Chris Christie, winking at the audience “you cannot call him a fat pig.”
As Trump berated the Biden administration, he asked the crowd: “Everything they touch, turns to what?”
“S—!” the crowd responded.
“You can’t use the word s—,” Trump said, to laughs.
At another point, as Trump complained about the news media one rallygoer turned to the workspace for journalists yelling: “You guys suck. F— fake news. Go f— yourselves.”
Trump has, of course, been a crass vulgarian throughout his political career. But this is over the top even for him.
And he’s taking his stream of consciousness speaking styles to new levels.
Thousands attended the event on a chilly evening, which marked a blue state detour for a candidate who is trying to balance his four-day-a-week trial and running for president with about six months left until the election. The setting was a change of scenery from a typical Trump rally.
But it included many of the same polarizing features of such a gathering that critics have voiced alarm over, including attacks on undocumented immigrants, who he accused of staging an “invasion,” as he vowed to “stop the plunder, rape, slaughter and destruction of the American suburbs, cities and towns.” He sharply derided his domestic critics and opponents, claiming “the enemies from within are more dangerous to me than the enemies on the outside” the country. He praised the six Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. And he engaged in meandering asides, including about conversations he has had with celebrities or world leaders.
Trump at one point told the crowd: “Let’s talk about hot dogs, I just had one actually,” before he went on to discuss inflation.
While Trump has spent the past week angrily complaining about his trial, he appeared to bask in the attention from his supporters on Saturday. He spoke surrounded by a roller coaster and Ferris wheel, complimenting his own remarks as a “good speech” and telling the crowd: “Do I feel comfortable with you? I love you.
And the WaPo report doesn’t even include the most bizarre parts of the speech.
POLITICO (“Trump, escalating attacks at rally, says Biden is ‘surrounded by fascists’“):
[I]n recent events, Trump has been escalating his attacks on the justice system and Biden. During a private donor retreat last week in Palm Beach, Trump accused Biden of “running a Gestapo administration.” And on Saturday, he said the president is “surrounded by fascists around the Oval Office.”
“All of this persecution is only happening because I’m running for president. If I wasn’t leading in the polls by a lot and running for president, they wouldn’t be after me. I’d have a nice place. I’d be down in Palm Beach. I’d be traveling the world,” Trump said, before repeating falsehoods about the 2020 election that he lost to Biden.
During the speech, Trump threw well-worn lines on the border, windmills and electric vehicles, China and migrants. And he compared himself to the infamous gangster Al Capone, which has become a regular bit on the campaign trail.
“Al Capone was so mean that if you went to dinner with him and he didn’t like you, you’d be dead the next morning. And I got indicted more than him. On bullshit, too. Just bullshit,” Trump said. The crowd erupted into cheers of “bullshit.”
While Trump hit many familiar targets in his speech — like criticizing countries for not contributing more to NATO — he also attacked Biden over his pledge to withhold weapons from Israel if it launches any assaults on the highly populated city of Rafah. Other Republicans have also strongly criticized Biden’s warning to Israel and accused him of emboldening Hamas.
“He has truly set the world on fire,” Trump said. “This week, he announced that he will withhold shipping weapons to Israel as they fight to eradicate Hamas terrorists in Gaza. That was shocking to hear it, even as there are still American hostages being held by Hamas.”
And Trump vowed to deport any foreign student who brings “jihadism or antisemitism” to U.S. college campuses, saying that America’s biggest enemies are “from within.”
“The enemies from within are more dangerous to me than the enemies on the outside. Russia and China we can handle, but these lunatics within our government that are going to destroy our country, we have to get it stopped,” Trump said. “They’re not on the right, they’re on the left.”
NY Post (“Trump blasts Biden as ‘total moron’ before crowd of 100K at NJ rally: ‘Whole world is laughing at him’“):
“You could take the 10 worst presidents in the history of our country, and add them up .. and they haven’t done the damage to our country that this total moron has done,” Trump, 77, said to a cheering crowd of tens of thousands.
“He’s a fool, he’s not a smart man. He never was,” Trump said.
“He was considered stupid. I talk about him differently now because now, the gloves are off. He’s a bad guy … he’s the worst president ever, of any country. The whole world is laughing at him, he’s a fool.”
The former president also alluded to his own plethora of indictments, which allege he committed a variety of crimes before, during and after the 2016 and 2020 elections.
He blamed Biden, 81, for his legal troubles, saying, “You don’t do that to your opponents.
“It’s done in third-world countries, it’s done in banana republics, it’s not done in the United States of America.”
The man is simply inhinged.
