Former President of the United States and Republican candidate for the November 2024 election, Donald Trump, speaks on January 6, 2024 during a campaign rally in the state of Iowa for the Republican primaries ( GETTY NORTH AMERICA IMAGES / SCOTT OLSON )
During the electoral campaign, Donald Trump assured Saturday that he was going to “save America” by winning the November presidential election against the “corrupt” Joe Biden in a “failing” country and on the brink of “World War III”.
Three years to the day after the assault on the Capitol, the former Republican president held a series of meetings in the small state of Iowa (Midwest), which is organizing its caucuses on January 15 and thus launching the ball for the 2024 Republican primaries , giving him oversized weight in the presidential campaign for half a century.
The billionaire, who dreams of being re-elected in November and returning to the White House on January 20, 2025 despite his four criminal charges, will face voters in eight days for the first time since his crashing departure from the presidency on the 20 January 2021.
Three years after the unprecedented attack on the seat of Congress in Washington by his supporters on January 6, 2021, Donald Trump asserted in two rambling speeches lasting more than two hours each, in the small towns of Newton and Clinton, that he was going to “win for the third time” the presidential election in November.
– “Joe-the-Scoundrel” –
Elected in November 2016 and defeated four years later, the tribune considers that the victory in this election was “stolen” from him by Democrat Joe Biden, 81, whom he once again called “Joe-the-Scum” and whose age he made fun of.
A man wears an anti-Biden cap during a meeting of former president and Republican candidate, Donald Trump, on January 6, 2024 in the state of Iowa (AFP / Christian Monterrosa)
Calling him “incompetent”, “corrupt” and the “worst” president in the history of the United States, Donald Trump, 77, who overturned American democracy in a decade, judged that the leading world power was “in decline”.
Referring to the wars in Ukraine, Gaza, tensions with Iran and China, he warned his hundreds of enthusiastic MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) supporters in Newton: if Mr. Biden is re-elected, the country risks “World War III” and “Depression” as in the 1930s.
“We are a failing nation” and “we are going to bring it back from hell,” he said in the evening at a Clinton school, boasting of being “the only candidate capable of saving America from every Biden disaster.”
– “I am a dictator” –
Ironic about the warnings of Democrats and media of a risk of Trump “dictatorship” in the event of a second term, the businessman proclaimed to laughter and applause: “I am a dictator.”
The day before, in a speech in Pennsylvania focused on democracy in danger, Joe Biden had compared his rival’s rhetoric to that of “Nazi Germany”.
Despite his legal setbacks and the risk of prison for his attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election, polls credit Donald Trump with 60% of the Republican vote against his main opponents, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, whom he did not hold back from making fun.
In Iowa and in a number of conservative states, the septuagenarian has a very loyal base which brushes aside his escapades and his legal troubles.
The attack on the Capitol, temple of American democracy, remains a subject of deep division in the United States: a quarter of Americans and 44% of Trumpist voters believe, without proof, that the federal police (FBI) are involved in the attack. originally, according to a survey by the Washington Post and the University of Maryland.
– 1,200 arrests –
Near the US Capitol, January 6, 2021 in Washington (AFP / Olivier DOULIERY)
This same FBI announced on Saturday the arrest in Florida of three people for their participation in January 6. In 35 months of a sprawling investigation still ongoing, the authorities have charged more than 1,200 people in almost all 50 American states. More than half were convicted.
For Mr. Trump, they are “hostages”.
He has denied for three years having incited his supporters to insurrection – new images of violence of which were broadcast on television on Saturday – and to attack Congress where Joe Biden’s victory was certified on January 6, 2021.
A federal police poster for the arrest of Jonathan Pollock, accused of participating in the assault on the Capitol (FBI / Handout)
So to judge the pressure he would have exerted to try to reverse the results, a criminal trial must begin on March 4 in Washington.
It will be on the eve of one of the biggest deadlines in the Republican primaries: “Super Tuesday” in around fifteen states: Texas, California… but also Colorado and Maine.
The latter two states declared him ineligible for the presidency in December due to his actions on January 6, 2021. The Supreme Court took up this matter on Friday, even if, while waiting for it to decide in February, the name Trump remains on the primary ballot.