For Trump, it is the first mass meeting of the year and it comes after a few turbulent days when, among other things, he himself claimed that he would soon be arrested. No such decision has yet been made by the grand jury in New York.
The district attorney was “investigating me for something that is not a crime, not a misdemeanor, not an affair,” Trump claimed to supporters.
The choice of location for the speech has attracted attention. It is exactly 30 years since the siege in Waco took place. It culminated in April 1993 when around 80 members of the religious sect of David died in a fire after the federal police FBI for 51 days had an iron ring around the facility. The extreme right sees the incident as a symbol of the resistance to the authorities’ intervention in people’s privacy.
Trump himself did not mention the Waco story in the speech, but said he asked Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to simply pick a place where the former president had strong support.
Trump also defended those who stormed Congress, opening the entire meeting by playing the song “Justice for all” in which men imprisoned for their involvement in the storming run and Trump recites the American Pledge of Allegiance.
— You will be righteous and proud. The thugs and criminals who corrupt our justice system will be defeated, Trump said.