Former President Donald Trump spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, on Saturday. The event precedes the South Carolina primary results expected later on Saturday, where he is predicted to defeat his competitor, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and the former South Carolina governor, in her home state.
The hour-and-a-half rambling speech covered his typical gamut, where he touted his cognitive abilities while demeaning President Biden’s; defended Jan. 6 insurrectionists; ripped on the media; preached a doomsday scenario if he is not reelected; and compared migrants to Hannibal Lecter, claimed “they are terrorists” who are “killing our people,” and a “contagion” — echoing his previous Hitler “poison the blood” reference, among other claims.
“I stand before you today — not only as your past but hopefully future president — but as a proud political dissident. I am a dissident,” he proclaimed. The term, typically reserved for those speaking truth to power over authoritarian rule, like Alexei Navalny whom he also recently compared himself to, riled the internet over the hypocrisy. Trump has previously said he’d act as a dictator for “Day One” (then later said he was joking).
He also dissed California and Gov. Newsom for the state’s water shortage, which has been a result of warming temperatures and low precipitation, attributed to climate change, per California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. When Trump was in office, his environmental policies ran counter to combating climate change. “And it’s true, in Beverly Hills you pay a fortune in taxes. They say you can only brush your teeth once a day,” he said (there is no law in California stating one can only brush one’s teeth once a day). “You can’t use too much water on your hair. That would put me out,” the water pressure crusader noted.
During Trump’s section of his speech where he claims he made the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, provide soldiers to keep migrants out (“He goes ‘No way.’ I said, ‘Way,’” Trump described of one of their exchanges), he segued into bashing migrants for the different languages they speak. “We have countries that honestly nobody has ever heard of. We have languages coming into our country. We don’t have one instructor, in our entire nation that can speak that language,” he claimed. “These are languages it’s the craziest thing. They have languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of. It’s a very horrible thing.”
Trump’s appearance closed out the CPAC conference, and gave the GOP frontrunner the chance to take what looks to be, as polls appear to indicate, a victory lap for the impending GOP presidential nomination.
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