WASHINGTON — Donald Trump brought his dark views on Joe Biden’s presidency to Dallas on Saturday night, warning that “American civilization will collapse” if he is not returned to power and regurgitating his falsehoods about the 2020 election .
“The elections were rigged and stolen, and now our country is being systematically destroyed. And everybody knows it….I ran twice and I won twice,” he declared at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “America is on the brink of an abyss. And our movement is the only force on earth that can save it.”
“We have to take this opportunity to deal with the socialists and the fascists on the radical left,” Trump said, rallying activists for the November legislature.
Persecution and grievance were recurring themes at the three-day conference at the Hilton Anatole, where speakers echoed Trump’s debunked claims that he actually won 2020. Trump and others denounced the investigation of the House on January 6.
“Look what they’re doing to President Trump. They understand they can’t beat him at the polls. They can’t beat his energy. They can’t beat his vision.” Steve Bannon, a former Trump strategist, said at CPAC Friday, two weeks after his conviction for two counts of contempt of Congress to defy a subpoena related to the attack on the US Capitol. “They’re trying to put him in jail to make sure he can’t run again in 2024 and be the rightful president he should be right now.”
Trump has been a rock star at CPAC for years.
He easily won a poll of attendees Saturday, beating Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis 69-24 as the top choice for the presidency in 2024. Sen. Ted Cruz was a distant third with 2 percent.
“I said I’d better win this damn straw poll… It’s an honor,” Trump said, noting that he also had a 99 percent approval rating. “When was the last time someone had a 99% pass rate?”
Nationally, just under half of Republicans named Trump as their top choice a recent New York Times/Siena College poll. And nearly one in five believe his actions after losing the election “threatened American democracy.” At CPAC, 91% of attendees said they would support Trump if he seeks the Republican nomination.
“Almost all the progress we’ve made has come directly or indirectly from Donald Trump,” said conservative media host Glenn Beck, warming up the crowd for Trump.
High on Beck’s List: The Supreme Court Ruling Overturning Roe vs. Wade and ends half a century of constitutional protection of abortion rights. Trump installed three justices on the nine-member court, cementing a shift to the right that will last a generation and endearing himself to conservatives.
Lake Kari, the Trump-backed GOP nominee for governor of Arizonacalled him “the greatest president we’ve ever known.”
“He’s got the globalists against him. He’s got fake news against him. He’s got the left against him, and he’s even got some people in our own party against him,” he said.
Trump took the stage at the Hilton Anatole to the beats of Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American,” eyeing the ballroom intently until the song ended.
A video was played just before she stepped into the spotlight: a four-minute distillation of her case against Biden.
America, he said, has become a “joke.” And he said: “We are a nation that allowed Russia to devastate a country, Ukraine, killing hundreds of thousands of people, and it’s only going to get worse.”
Fortunately for Ukraine, this greatly exaggerates the toll. The The United Nations has confirmed 5,327 civilian deaths in Ukraine Western intelligence agencies say Russia has lost up to 20,000 troops, and Ukraine slightly less.
Trump paid attention to Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Amarillo, joking that Jackson liked being the White House physician more than serving in Congress, because he “loved to look at my body … He said he was the best president know that it has ever lived.”
Trump criticized Pelosi for visiting Taiwan earlier this week, saying she had unnecessarily provoked China.
“I was impeached twice. She failed twice. The woman brings chaos,” said Trump, who claimed that by going to Taiwan, Pelosi “played right into her hands. Now they have an excuse to do what are doing”.
In Congress, both Republicans and Democrats praised Pelosi for refusing to let China dictate where US officials can travel.
Trump bashed Biden for failures on the economy, border security and foreign policy, not always with the facts on his side, such as when he mocked Biden for allowing gas prices to soar.
“At $1.87 a gallon I got it … A friend of mine in California called me this morning. He just paid $8.55,” Trump predicted. He had quoted $8.25 a day earlier at a rally in Wisconsin.
Data from the Federal Energy Information Administration they show an average of $4.13 per gallon nationally and $5.47 in California.
Prices rose after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, but have fallen 20% from their peak in late May. The low point Trump cited came during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the economy had ground to a halt.
The latest average in Texas is $3.65, up nearly a dollar in two months.
Trump was in Dallas in July 2021, the last time the American Conservative Union held CPAC there. He enjoyed chants of “four more years” and made up stories about a “rigged election.”
“No evidence? There is so much evidence”, he insisted then.
He also used the forum to play down the violence at the Capitol on January 6, when a crowd of his supporters tried to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.
Related: CPAC: Donald Trump tells stories of rigged election, documents Jan. 6 riots, hints at 2024 comeback
He complained that some “patriots” remained in jail months later, glossing over the fact that some supporters had called for the deaths of Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker Nancy Pelosi that day.
Jan. 6 House hearings revealed that members of Pence’s senior staff and security staff feared for their lives and that of the vice president.
Trump’s list of complaints in July 2021 included his attorney general. Bill Barr, he complained, had refused to back down on his claims about voter fraud or assign the Justice Department to participate in a fishing expedition to obtain evidence.
Barr has since testified under oath before a House committee on Jan. 6 that Trump’s fabrications had no basis in fact, and has explained his refusal to follow through.
Trump remains formidable within the Republican Party.
He has used his influence to punish Republicans in Congress who voted to impeach him over the Jan. 6 attack and to attack state officials who refused to help overturn his defeat.
Related: Democrats slam Hungarian PM Orbán’s appearance at CPAC in Dallas
On Friday, for example, he upset a gubernatorial candidate in Wisconsin against state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. Biden won the state by more than 20,000 votes, and Vos resisted pressure from Trump to somehow overturn that result.
