OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former President Donald Trump believes that the Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans do not want to face him in the presidential election even if they claim they do.
“You know, they’ve been working on that very hard,” the former president said to attendees at his rally in Iowa. “You know, they always say disinformation and misinformation, almost the same, but not quite. But disinformation and misinformation, they always say ‘we want to really run against Trump.’
“If they want to run against me, they wouldn’t have indicted me four times and fought like hell to keep me off the ballot,” he added. “But the fake news, and the stupid people at The Wall Street Journal editorial board, they said the other day, ‘well, they really want to run against Trump.”
“As you know, we’re just 44 days away from Iowa’s first in the nation caucuses,” the former president went on. “You know, I kept you as first of the day. Don’t let other people take their credit. We kept you there.
“On Monday, Jan. 15, we’re going to win the Iowa caucuses, and then we’re going to crush Crooked Joe Biden next November. And we are going to very simply make America great again. Crooked Joe Biden’s banana republic ends on Nov. 5, 2024,” he said.
The former president did talk about his Republican opponents, but he focused on attacking Biden.
“Biden and his radical left allies like to pose as defenders of democracy,” he said. “You see, he was standing up there not so long ago with the pink and red background – that looked a little bit sinister. I don’t know if he knew what the hell he was doing up there, but he was up there spewing the words that somebody wrote for him.
“But Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy. Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy, and it’s him and his people,” the former president said.
“They’re wreckers of the American dream. The American dream is dead with them in office. It’s sad. We had such a dream,” he said.
The former president said he would “bring back the American dream bigger and better than ever.”
“For decades, you watched as a corrupt political class in our nation’s capital looted your money, trampled on your dignity, and push their radical agenda into every aspect of your lives,” he said. “You know it very well.
“But in 2016, you voted to stand up to those liars, losers, crooks, and creeps, and you elected an outsider as your president, and it was about America first. We want to put our country first. They haven’t done that in a long time. But we did it for four years, and that’s why we did so well. That’s why it was one of the great presidencies, they say.,” he said.
In October it was reported that Trump managed to put more distance between him and the rest of the 2024 GOP presidential field in Iowa, where the first primaries will take place early next year, according to a local media report, though one of his opponents has gained in popularity.
“Support for Nikki Haley has swelled in Iowa: The former United Nations ambassador has pulled even with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in what has become a heated battle for second place in the first-in-the-nation caucus state,” the Des Moines Register reported.
“But former President Donald Trump still dominates the race. He’s ahead by 27 percentage points—a lead that has expanded slightly despite his mounting legal problems,” the outlet’s report continued.
The paper cited a new Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll of likely Republican caucus voters that found 43 percent named Trump as their first choice for president, up slightly from 42 percent in the August poll.
