Former President Donald Trump quoted from a glam metal anthem to express his displeasure at his successor’s decision-making.
Standing before a friendly crowd in Florence, Arizona, the former president struck a defiant tone, revving up the crowd in voicing his refusal to capitulate to the Biden administration “wreaking havoc on our economy, going mandate-crazy, and running neighborhoods … running roughshod all over this country.”
“What they’re doing is incredible: They’ve taken away their dignity, they’ve taken away their liberties, and I say enough is enough, and we are not going to take it anymore,” he said, quoting a Twisted Sister song to roaring approval from the audience Saturday evening.
GOP ARIZONA GOVERNOR CANDIDATE DROPS OUT HOURS BEFORE TRUMP RALLIES WITH ENDORSED RIVAL
Trump warned about the “corrupt, power-hungry lunatics” in the Democratic Party who “are putting corporate profits over the rights of the American people” by implementing vaccine mandates, thereby lining pharmaceutical executives’ pockets at the expense of the health and safety of people in the United States.
“We’re done with the mandates. … The mandates are a disaster for a country,” he said, arguing vaccine requirements are “just absolutely decimating our economy.”
Trump also criticized the jail cell conditions of Jan. 6 prisoners as “an unprecedented assault on American civil rights and liberties,” arguing the accused rioters are being overzealously persecuted as “political prisoners.”
“The jails are filthy, disgusting, dirty, and they’re even be cited by the courts for being so horrible. … The showers a disgusting. the bathrooms are horrible, and people are being forced to live like that,” he said. “Let them use their lawyers. Let them go out and defend themselves, and if we think they’re innocent, we should help them defend themselves.”
The former president made several references to the Capitol Hill riot, taking particular aim at the “un-select committee of political hacks” investigating the incident as part of the Jan. 6 commission.
“They are Democratic hacks, and they’re vicious, and every one of a voted to impeach me, every one of them. … It’s a disgrace! It’s a disgrace to our country, what’s happening, and it takes the meaning out of the word,” he said, noting that Republican Rep. Liz Cheney “now polling at 16%,” and Rep. Adam Kinzinger “a crier,” both of whom voted in favor of Trump’s second impeachment, are also on the select committee.
Trump became the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “Stalinist show trial” over his words and actions preceding the Jan. 6 riot, though he was acquitted in the Senate. The former president has taken delight ever since each time one of the Republicans who supported the impeachment effort announces his or her retirement from politics.
“We just lost Katko, too. He’s gone now, too,” he said of Syracuse-area Republican Rep. John Katko while applauding Kinzinger’s announcement that he would retire from the House after Illinois released a post-census map unfavorable to his reelection prospects. “They’re falling fast and furious. The ones that voted to impeach, we’re getting rid of them fast.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
So far, 13 Republicans and 26 Democrats have announced their retirement from the House amid a midterm political climate that is expected to be heavily favorable toward the GOP.
Trump was previously impeached in 2019 on two Ukraine-related charges, with only a single Republican, Sen. Mitt Romney, supporting the effort. Despite the bipartisan push, the effort to remove him from office fell well short of the required threshold, and he was acquitted.
