Donald Trump was in Anchorage, Alaska, on Saturday night to headline a rally in support of Sarah Palin’s bid for Congress and Kelly Tshibaka’s bid to primary Lisa Murkowski, the longtime Republican senator whom the former president doesn’t feel has been sufficiently loyal. Trump attacked Murkowski relentlessly after he took the stage a little after 4:00 p.m. local time, and even bashed Alaska’s other Republican senator, Dan Sullivan, for daring to endorse her. “Murkowski is a bad person,” Trump said. “Dan Sulilvan should be ashamed of himself.”
But as is the case with every Trump rally, the primary subject matter was Trump himself. He breathlessly recounted his four years in office while laying out everything that needs to be done should he or his minions return to power. Trump was especially excited, however, to tout Truth Social, his new social media platform that he described as “hot as a pistol.” The platform’s fledgling quest to take on Twitter received a shot of life on Friday when it was reported that billionaire Elon Musk wants to back out of his landmark deal to acquire the social media giant.
“Leon’s, I’ll tell you what,” Trump began. “Elon, Elon, is not going to buy Twitter. … He’s got himself a mess. He said the other day, ‘Oh, I’ve never voted for a Republican.’ I said, ‘I didn’t know that. He told me he voted for me.’ So, he’s another bullshit artist. But he’s not going to be buying it.”
Trump on Elon Musk: “You know, he said the other day, Oh, I’ve never voted for a Republican. I said, I didn’t know that, he told me he voted for me. So he’s another bullshit artist.” pic.twitter.com/1cBiZsX1BJ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 10, 2022
Musk wrote on Twitter last month that he voted for QAnon-pushing Republican Mayra Flores after she won a special election to represent a congressional district in the southern Texas district where Musk is registered to vote. “First time I ever voted Republican,” Musk wrote. “Massive red wave in 2022.”
Musk has also said that he’s leaning toward supporting Ron DeSantis for president in 2024, which may be part of why Trump went so hard at him on Saturday night. DeSantis is widely seen as the only person who could stand in Trump’s way of the Republican nomination, should they both choose to run. Rolling Stone reported last month that Trump is even considering launching his 2024 campaign in Florida specifically to stick it to the Florida governor.
The rest of Trump’s rally in Alaska was lie-filled and incoherent. He mocked the idea of climate change, praising how it’s going to lead to more beachfront property. He appeared to mock his own supporters for opposing the Covid-19 vaccine, refusing to say the word “vaccine” in fear of the boos it would elicit. He gave told a longwinded story about traveling to Iraq where a general told them he’d hit ISIS “from the fucking center.” He butchered newly sworn-in Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s name. He play-acted trans athletes lifting weight, arguing that any “federal bureaucrats complicit in the travesty” of hormone-altering drugs for teenagers should “at least” be fired. He, of course, claimed several times that the 2020 election was stolen.
The rally became even more absurd when Trump stopped speaking to bring up a man who was wearing a t-shirt plastered with Trump’s face. A woman wearing the same shirt joined the man onstage. The awestruck duo shook Trump’s hand and retreated back into the crowd.
He asks for the shirt several times, and the guy gives it to him https://t.co/NufRTIldQF
— Roger Sollenberger found true love, suckers (@SollenbergerRC) July 10, 2022
“Take those shirts off and give them to me right now,” Trump said as they left, before continuing to praise the MAGA movement as he had been before stopping the rally.
The crowd started cheering suddenly, though: The guy was actually taking off his shirt to give it to the former president.
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