Before an audience of invited guests that included some of the most far-right media propagandists in the country, and just hours after his arraignment on 37 federal criminal felony charges, Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s leading candidate for President of the United States delivered what could be called one of his most extreme attacks on the Biden administration and the federal government to date.
Despite his attorneys reportedly having reviewed his speech before he delivered it Tuesday night from a small outdoor stage in front of his Bedminster, New Jersey golf resort, where, ironically, Trump was recorded in July of 2021 reportedly admitting to his alleged crimes in audio now in the hands of the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Special Counsel, the twice indicted, twice impeached ex-president told lie after lie after lie to the MAGA crowd.
Expected guests included Mike Lindell, Sebastian Gorka, Kash Patel, along with Bernie Kerik, the disgraced former NYPD commissioner who was pardoned by Trump, and far-right pastor Robert Jeffress, according to Politico’s Meridith McGraw and The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman. Also, one Republican U.S. Senator who has made Christian nationalist remarks.
“Visibly deflated after pleading not guilty for the second time in three months,”is how The New York Times characterized Trump as he arrived at Bedminster and delivered his campaign-style speech, which he had edited while eating McDonald’s on his private plane during the trip from Miami to Bedminster. The Times pointed to “his dry and low-energy resuscitation of his legal defense — even inflected with the usual references to Marxists, Communists and fascists,” which “pleased his advisers but drew a relatively muted response from a crowd that had minutes earlier craned their phones for a shot of his motorcade.”
During that speech, Trump, in a baseless yet jaw-dropping claim, declared his “persecution is being done by the same weaponized agencies that for seven years have been running illegal psychological warfare campaigns against the American people, much as if they were trying too destabilize a foreign country.”
It is a claim for which he offered no substance, evidence, or proof, but if it were true, the obvious question would be, why when he was president for four of those seven years, did he allow it to happen?
Trump then launched in to a myriad of nicknames that falsely describe the legitimate investigations into his actions and the actions of Russia and President Vladimir Putin, along with both his impeachments, and false allegations of “spying” on his campaign.
Late Wednesday morning The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey, pointing to Trump’s “illegal psychological warfare campaigns” allegation asked, “Where is this heading, campaign wise?”
The ACLU’s Brian Tashman, who has researched and written about politics and the far right for years, pointed to Trump’s remarks and said he was “Channeling Alex Jones.”
Watch a clip of Trump alleging “weaponized agencies…have been running illegal psychological warfare campaigns against the American people” below or at this link.