Trump complains he has lost all his friends in bizarre speech at Evangelical rally
Donald Trump traveled to Miami today for a campaign rally with some of the incredibly hypocritical Evangelicals who constitute a large part of his frothing MAGA base. It ended up being exactly the kind of unhinged circus we’ve come to expect from him and his so-called Christian supporters. The president served up a putrid, steaming hash of lies, brags, and literal nonsense to his cheering crowd of goons and Vox’s Aaron Rupar has compiled some of the more egregious clips.
Rupar correctly pointed out that the event started in a very cult-like fashion. The Evangelicals gathered around Trump to lay their hands on the serial sexual predator who they helped elevate to the White House to cut their taxes and fight against abortion rights. Trump, a man who never even pretended to be religious until he assumed the mantle of the GOP, bowed his head solemnly, doing his best impression of a pious man.
Yikes. Major cult energy at Trump's evangelical event in Miami. pic.twitter.com/dH2SQGiEX6
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 3, 2020
Before long, Trump launched into his freewheeling speech. Bizarrely, he went off on a tangent about Christmas even though it’s now January. He repeated his oft-uttered lie that people were afraid to say “Merry Christmas” before he became president, a claim that sounds utterly idiotic to reasonable people yet one which his unthinking followers lap up eagerly.
There is not and never has been a war on Christmas and the fact that these people taking it seriously shows how deeply embedded a false sense of victimhood is in the Trump movement. They want to pretend they’re being targeted because it makes them feel important and gives them an imagined threat to unify against.
TRUMP: “Now they’re all saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again, they’re all saying it. You’d go to these big department stores 3, 4 years ago, and they’d have the snow & the red & the white, but they wouldn’t say ‘Christmas.’ … they said, ‘we can’t say it.’ They’re all saying it again” pic.twitter.com/A3wsufAfIV
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 3, 2020
Trump also took the time to talk about one of the few things in the world he actually cares about: Fox News and the white nationalist ghouls that populate it.
“Sean Hannity, Laura — a lot of great people — Tucker’s been great, Fox & Friends, right? Ainsley, Steve, Brian’s come a long way” — Trump name-drops a number of Fox News hosts right after joking about shredding the Constitution and serving as many as 20 years in office pic.twitter.com/lfE5pGSqKy
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 3, 2020
During a particularly disgusting stretch of his speech, Trump once again targeted several Congresswomen of color and falsely smeared them as anti-semites. The irony of a hateful man like Trump, a man whose presidency has seen a massive spike in hate crimes, was clearly lost on the crowd.
TRUMP: “These people hate Israel — they hate Jewish people. I won’t name them. I won’t bring up the name of Omar, Tlaib, AOC — I won’t bring that name up. Won’t bring it up.” pic.twitter.com/jCrySCb1Ag
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 3, 2020
CNN’s Daniel Dale also reported on the rally. Apparently, Trump claimed that he has lost his friends because the office of the president demands so much respect, which is funny because it’s impossible to imagine anyone actually liking Trump and spending time around him for any reason other than access to his money and power. Did he actually have any real friends to lose?
Continuing to be in church, Trump repeats various of his usual false claims. He says, for example, that Obama left him 142 judicial vacancies (104, in large part because of McConnell) and that presidents usually leave none (they regularly leave dozens). https://t.co/10Ro0Lzf0F
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 3, 2020
As 2020 proceeds we are going to be subjected to even more of these inane and sometimes horrifying speeches. Buckle up America.
