Gone was the helicopter, but Donald Trump on Saturday renewed his repute for defying norms and making a mega-celebrity spectacle on the Iowa State Fair.
Trump, in fewer than two hours on the steaming fairgrounds in Des Moines, attracted hundreds of sweating, chanting supporters to his stops on the Iowa Pork Producers tent, a baby farm animal exhibit and a preferred Grand Concourse pub.
All of the while, Trump not-so-subtly tried to set himself other than Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s major rival with greater than five months until Iowa’s leadoff caucuses and who was on the fairgrounds at the identical time.
Just as DeSantis and his family were wrapping up their day on the fair, meeting with Iowa Republican leaders and activists, Trump descended into the large scrum of backers accompanied by a couple of dozen Florida U.S. House members, a shot at DeSantis who’s making an aggressive pitch to Iowa Republicans.
Trump spoke little to the general public in his short time on the fair, except to speak individually to some fairgoers. Nonetheless, he repeated during remarks to lots of crammed into the fair favorite “Steer and Stein” the disproven claim that the 2020 election was “rigged,” and that “we got thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands more votes.”
As a substitute, while most candidates looking for caucus support tout Iowa political endorsements, Trump spent most of his public remarks introducing Florida lawmakers who traveled with him to Iowa. The hassle, Trump aides said, demonstrates the emotions of those that know DeSantis best, but in addition clearly stoke outrage amongst those that feel the previous president has been persecuted with the 2 federal indictments he now faces.
“So to all my friends in Iowa if you see them come for this man, know that they’re coming for this movement, they usually are coming for all of us,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.
There was not a trace of concern within the air — given the concentration of supporters, the range of ages and the ocean of Make America Great Again hats — about Trump’s indictment this month on federal felony changes he worked to overturn the 2020 election within the run-up to the violent riot by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Stopping briefly to seek advice from reporters, he declined to say whether he would comply with a protective order by the judge overseeing the election conspiracy case, limiting what the previous president can publicly say about evidence within the investigation as he campaigns.
“I’ll have to check out the order,” Trump said. “The entire thing is a fake — it was put out by Biden, because they can not win an election the fair way.”
Asked later whether he would conform to plead guilty to lesser charges, Trump called the reporter “a clever guy.” “We do not do plea deals,” he said.
In 2015, because the emerging Republican presidential nominee, Trump commanded attention on the fair by offering children rides on his personal helicopter. In suit and tie, the then-TV celebrity and Recent York real estate executive cut a far different figure than candidates typically in jeans and cowboy boots.
In only as brazen style Saturday, Trump’s Boeing 757 circled the fairgrounds ahead of his landing just as DeSantis was participating within the series of one-on-one conversations Gov. Kim Reynolds is hosting with most GOP candidates and heading together with his wife Casey and young children to ride the Ferris wheel and bumper cars.
It was considered one of several episodes this 12 months in Iowa where Trump has sought to outshine DeSantis while each were within the state. DeSantis trails Trump in national and Iowa polls but is viewed still early within the race as his strongest potential challenger and has recently accelerated his Iowa outreach in an try and land an early blow against the previous president who stays extremely popular inside the GOP base.
Trump sought to assuage tension between him and Reynolds, whom Trump criticized for appearing more often with DeSantis, who has campaigned in Iowa more often. Reynolds, who has taken a pledge of neutrality, didn’t appear with Trump on Saturday, though Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson greeted Trump on the pork tent.
But in addressing the drama with Reynolds, Trump repeated his claim that he was liable for her election. Reynolds won a good race in 2018 after Trump campaigned for her, though she won reelection by a much larger margin in 2022.
“I even have a really nice relationship along with her,” he said. “I got her elected.”
Cheers of “Trump, Trump, Trump,” erupted on the three stops the previous president made — in a blue suit, but this time in an open-collared shirt — trudging shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, waving a porkchop on a stick, a rite of its own.
Though a lot of Trump’s stop was out of the odd, on the pork tent, he bowed to state fair protocol.
He held a porkchop on a stick up the gang and waved it.
