Last weekend, I took a trip to Claremont, New Hampshire, for the Trump Rally. He was one of three candidates I’d not yet heard this cycle. The others were Haley and Scott. Scott dropped out, so I won’t see him, but I caught up with Trump: long drive, sunny day (if only about 39 deg.), and some interesting observations.
Trump was, of course, Trump. There’s no escaping that. But he knows his audience and took several opportunities to tweak the media. They obliged by swallowing the bait, hook, lure, and several dozen yards of fishing line. Some things never change. But some do. Regular readers will know I’ve been on 45 for years to back away from all his warp-speed talk. To accept that he was snowballed like many of us and took longer than some to realize it – or, at least, his speech writers took too long.
He didn’t talk about it at all except to say that as president, he would (and I’ll add, try to) block funding to schools that teach CRT, that gender-bending grooming business to young kids, and that impose any mask or vaccine mandate.
Lots of applause.
He may have been saying this while “on tour” for a while, but it is the first I have heard of it, and that’s good news.
He also mentioned the need to clean out the bureaucracy, which includes the healthcare industrial complex. Again, good to hear, though it is a sentiment he shares with Ron DeSantis. As we reported here a few weeks ago,
As President DeSantis says, he will lead a major overhaul of the FDA, CDC, and NIH. Push for term limits for bureaucrats. Address the power of the CDC, FDA, and NIH abuse with their grant writing. End the revolving door and kickbacks between CDC, FDA, NIH, and big pharma. And require more rigorous research before government agencies issue reports making medical claims.
How dare you put a DeSantis thing in a Trump Rally post! I know, but it’s relevant, and we have readers who support both, and you’ll all have to deal with each other eventually, or we’re looking at more Bidenomics and all that other garbage, no matter which Dem is pulling whose strings.
All that talk about unity, coalescing, and the 11th commandment when it means only getting behind your guy … is none of those things.
Trump was also, as I noted, Trump. He picked on everyone and, at one point, had to remind an audience member who’d shouted it out that you can’t call Chris Christie a fat pig. He must have told him four or five times that you can’t call Chris Christie a fat pig.
On the way in, I saw one protester. A guy on a bicycle (bring-bring) with a makeshift mini-sandwich board that read “lock him up” on one side and “shame on Claremont” on the other. The dope in the vehicle in front of us with the Bernie sticker taped into their back window honked. Taped. Talk about a lack of commitment. No wonder Sanders kept losing the nomination. Wait. That’s right. The Democrats stole it from him. Twice.
Much like the last Rally I attended in Manchester (2018 as media), the people were friendly, patriotic, energized, and there were a lot of them. I saw plenty of people I knew or recognized. And the High School in Claremont was ill-suited to the draw. A lot of people could not get in, but here are a few of the ones that did (people were still coming through the Secret Service Screening line when I took these).
By the time Trump spoke, the upper gallery was packed, and we could see people outside trying to peer through the glass doors.
It was a fun event to cover, but next time, I’d like to do it a bit closer to home than Claremont (though I’d never been there, so that was one of several reasons to make the 90-minute trip).
As for getting to candidate events, that left me with Tim Scott (who dropped out a few days ago) and Nikki “no Hate Speech” Haley; with two months to go, I should be able to get to one of her events at the very least, so I can say I heard and reported from all of them in person.
And yes, I am covering the visit by Kari Lake next month for a Hillsborough County Republican Committee event, so check back for that in the future. And no, she is not running for President, but she is Kari Lake.
