Donald Trump wrapped up his long stint as the main attraction at a traveling road show late Monday night, holding the final rally of his 2024 campaign after a string of more than 900 dating back nine years.
He got a huge round of applause when he finally took the stage at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids after midnight, where MAGA supporters waited in long lines and got there hours early.
He was still going after 2 am, even after a good chunk of his supporters had gone home.
‘Think of it: This is the last one,’ Trump said. ‘This is my last rally, can you believe it?’
But his wistful reminiscences about the ‘love’ in the room were punctuated with angry and foul attacks on his greatest rivals.
Trump singled out former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is only on the ballot in her San Francisco district, as a ‘crazy horrible human being who cheats like hell.’
‘They took two impeachments and they wasted all that time and money and energy when we should be focused on making American great again,’ he complained. Still going atPelosi, he said of the word he was contemplating: ‘It starts with a B, but I want say it. I want to say it.’
He said ‘nobody lies like this Kamala’ and called her a ‘very low IQ person,’ on a day the Harris campaign made a point of noting she hadn’t mentioned Trump’s name on the trail.
Donald Trump held what he said was his last campaign rally. He said he had held more than 900 of them
He claimed she had only a few hundred people at her rally, even though she drew thousands Monday.
The late hour — he didn’t start until after midnight – didn’t keep him from running through his full speech routine. By 1:40 AM, he was still introducing dignitaries, and called an autoworker supporter on stage for a quick speech.
It wasn’t until 1:45 AM that Trump called children Don Jr., Eric, and Tiffany on stage, along with Lara Trump and Michael Boulos. ‘We have Ivanka at home, watching every minute of it,’ Trump said.
‘Good morning. It’s another day. I spoke earlier before you came,’ said Hamtramck Mayor Amer Ghalib, who had spoken to the crowd hours earlier when Trump was en route. He praised Trump for working ’65 days with no rest.’
‘How is he a threat to our democracy as the fake news keeps saying?’ Ghalib said, pointing to Trump’s work ethic.
‘I urge you to go out to vote tomorrow,’ he said, prompting corrective shouts of ‘Today!’ from the crowd.
By this point there were plenty of empty seats in the upper decks.
‘Today when you wake up with not very much sleep, you’ve got to get to the polls,’ said Donald Trump Jr. during a brief stint on stage.
Eric Trump took the late night event as a sign of fervor, and indeed many of those who lingered still yelled out support for Trump. ‘I love you, Trump,’ yelled one man repeatedly.
‘Good morning. Who else could have this many people at 2 am? Only Donald Trump,’ Eric Trump said.
Last dance? Trump did a lively dance to Y.M.C.A.
Donald Trump Jr. came on stage at the event. ‘Today when you wake up with not very much sleep, you’ve got to get to the polls,’ he said
Trump said he wanted to call Pelosi a word that ‘starts with a B’
The crowd let out a loud cheer when Trump took the stage
Trump also made time to tout the endorsement of Joe Rogan, days after sitting down with him for three hours and delaying an event in Traverse City. Rogan has an estimated 18 million listeners to his podcast.
Trump joked with some of his regular fans, called out his opponents as ‘sick,’ and said victory was a near certainty.
‘What do you think a 95 percent or something?’ he asked.
‘We will be there on January 20th,’ he said with assuredness.
Although he mentioned throughout the day that he had a grueling four-rally schedule, Trump was determined to run through his favorite stories and settle scores.
‘She’s a lovely person crooked Hillary,’ Trump said, sarcastically. He was more severe when talking about Kamala Harris, calling her ‘a radical left lunatic.’
He blasting ‘transgender everything,’ and got one of his biggest cheers in response.
Crowd members listened intently as Trump ran through his greatest hits, even though many had been to multiple Trump rallies before.
Several yelled out expressions from the crowd. ‘Jesus loves you!’ yelled on. ‘We love you, Trump’ screamed a woman, and ‘No taxes on tips!’ yelled a man.
Trump recounted the attempted assassination attempt against him and spoke of divine intervention
MAGA fans cheered loudly when Trump arrived
Trump took a long time soaking in the applause, then delivered a lengthy speech that extended well past 1 am
‘Weave!’ yelled one man — hoping for an extended diversion that comes back together.
Trump once again defended his mental acuity before going on one of his tangents.
‘If I do it they say he’s cognitively impaired, there’s something wrong with him. These people are sick.’
‘This has been an incredible journey. It’s very sad in a way,’ Trump said, reminiscing.
He spoke a few times about divine intervention during the attempt on his life.
‘I hope that God did put me here to really save this country,’ Trump said.
He asked for ‘the honor of your vote.’
‘I don’t want your money,’ he said – after spending the year hitting up supporters for campaign contributions, legal defense, and even selling items from NFTs to luxury watches and sneakers.
The venue is home to the Griffins ice hockey team with a 12,000 seat capacity plus space on the floor, and Trump wasn’t shy about checking his rivals.
‘I’m running against an evil Democrat system,’ Trump said.
It was the culmination of a long day on the road where Trump hit some of the key battlegrounds, racing against the clock and contending with the physical toll of hours upon hours of public speaking.
Trump kicked off his marathon speaking tour in North Carolina, then hit Pennsylvania and Michigan, both parts of the ‘Blue wall’ that determined the outcome of the last two presidential elections.
‘I was going to get out of here fast. I’m doing four of these things today. And the voice is holding up, just about barely,’ he told the crowd after a late start Monday morning.
Trump’s campaign assembled a ‘closing argument’ for his Pittsburgh rally, but as he has throughout the week, Trump found ways to veer off it dramatically.
At his first event, Trump said he would threaten the new president of Mexico with tariffs, said he loved dogs, went after Michelle Obama, plugged his wife’s book, and defended ‘the weave.’
Former President Donald Trump held his final campaign rally in Grand Rapids, after wrapping up his final Pennsylvania event in Pittsburgh
At his second, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, he said he like to see rival Kamala Harris in the ring with Mike Tyson, while backed by fans holding pink ‘Women for Trump’ signs.
Then in Pittsburgh, backed by supporters wearing hard hats, reminisced about the past. ‘We have people that have come to hundreds of the rallies and we all love it,’ he said.
‘They’re only done for one purpose, to put us in a position that we could be put in tomorrow to fix our country. Because the rallies – otherwise it’s just nice entertainment,’ Trump said.
‘The only way we can blow it is if you blow it. I’ve given you the ball. I mean, you gotta go and vote.’
He said of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who he wants to come into his administration: ‘Bobby’s going to pretty much do what he wants.’ But on one condition: stay out of energy policy. ‘Leave the liquid gold to me. Don’t trample on our liquid gold,’ Trump said.
Trump’s struggles to stay on message have been evident throughout the week, when he said maybe he shouldn’t have left the White House in 2020, and said ‘somebody would have to shoot through the fake news.’ Those comments followed comedian Tony Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage’ at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally.
Former Rep. Mike Rogers, a Senate candidate, attended Trump’s rally
The arena was decked out with digital signage that conveyed Trump’s repeated warnings of election fraud. ‘Swamp the vote,’ said one.
One person who rejected the idea that Trump strayed off message is Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers.
‘He’s not off message,’ Rogers told DailyMail.com. ‘Listen, he’s talking about EVs. He’s talking about cost of groceries, talking about getting America back on track. Everybody knows what that means,’ he said.
Among those waiting inside the arena for Trump hours before he arrived was Mike Melcher, a mechanic from Grand Rapids. He went to a Trump rally back in 2015 in Grand Rapids before a few thousand. ‘My buddy’s like you gotta go.’ Asked how Trump had changed, he said, ‘I think he’s got a lot more wise people he’s selected as far as organization … I think he’s got a lot more select people to carry him on.’ He said they would be ‘tighter, stronger, people that ain’t going to be flippity floppity on them.
Amer Ghalib, a Muslim American who immigrated from Yemen to become the Hamtramck mayor, spoke at the rally and addressed two critcisms of Trump.
‘This 78-year-old man has been doing everything possible to get your support. Some people are saying he’s a threat to democracy. How is that possible when he’s working so hard to get your support?’ he asked.
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