The Republican frontrunner also says the “deep state” stepped up its attacks against him when he promised to end the conflict in
Former President Donald Trump told his supporters on Saturday that President Joe Biden is turning the US into a “banana republic,” and promised to throw the “repulsive political class the hell out of office” if re-elected next year.
Trump, who is reportedly facing arrest over campaign finance charges in New York, held his first campaign rally ahead of the 2024 election in Waco, Texas, on Saturday. Speaking to a crowd of several thousand people, Trump reiterated his long-held belief that the charges against him – as well as the prosecution of the January 6, 2021, rioters – are a Democrat-orchestrated plot to keep him out of office and criminalize his supporters.
“The Biden regime’s weaponization of law enforcement against their political opponents is something straight out of the Stalinist Russia horror show,” he declared, calling Biden’s America “a third-world banana republic.”
“From the beginning it’s been one witch hunt and phony investigation after another,” Trump asserted, adding “it’s no coincidence that the deep state is coming after me even harder since I pledged to swiftly end the war in Ukraine.”
Trump warns of ‘death and destruction’
Read more Trump warns of ‘death and destruction’
Trump has claimed for months that if elected, he would be able to achieve a settlement to the conflict within 24 hours. He has not elaborated further on how he would achieve this, but has blamed the conflict on “all the warmongers and ‘America Last’ globalists” in the Pentagon, State Department, and other organs of the national security establishment and “deep state.”
“Justice will only be done once we have thrown this repulsive political class the hell out of office,” he told the crowd in Waco on Saturday.
Trump made a number of campaign promises at the rally, vowing to boost domestic energy production, phase out imports from China, end funding for “critical race theory and [deleted] insanity” in schools, and use state, federal, and military resources to “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
“Eisenhower did it, so we don’t have to feel so bad,” Trump quipped, referring to the removal of more than a million illegal immigrants by Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration in the early 1950s under ‘Operation Wetback.’
Trump is currently leading most polls to take the Republican nomination in 2024, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in second place by between two and 30 points. While DeSantis has not declared his candidacy, Trump devoted a portion of his speech at Waco to attacking his potential opponent. Referring to DeSantis as “DeSanctimonious,” Trump took credit for the governor’s political career, and condemned him for shutting down his state at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Netanyahu fires defense minister
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, on Sunday, less than a day after Gallant attempted to put the brakes on the PM’s controversial effort to overhaul the nation’s judiciary system. Massive protests soon broke out condemning the move.
Gallant was the first in Netanyahu’s cabinet to break ranks with the PM over his full-speed-ahead proposal to seize greater control over the selection of Supreme Court justices and restrict the court’s power over the Knesset. The plan has been condemned both internationally and domestically, driving a wedge between the PM’s office and the military.
The defense minister warned that the unrest over the PM’s planned power-grab was putting Israel’s national security at risk, and that therefore he could not support it. “The rift within our society is widening and penetrating the Israeli Defense Forces,” causing “a clear and immediate and tangible danger to the security of the state,” Gallant declared in a televised speech on Saturday. “I shall not be a party to this.”
Massive wave of protests sweeps across Israel
Read more Massive wave of protests sweeps across Israel
Netanyahu announced his dismissal less than 24 hours later in a one-line statement on Sunday, setting off a firestorm of protest. Thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets of Jerusalem to denounce what is widely perceived as unconscionable overreach by the PM. Protesters blocked Tel Aviv’s Ayalon highway in both directions, while others gathered outside the homes of Likud Party MKs and other high-ranking officials.
A group of universities announced a general strike, while the director general of the Defense Ministry cut short his trip to the US to return home. Israel’s consul general in New York, Asaf Zamir, announced his resignation via Twitter, vowing to “join the fight for Israel’s future to ensure it remains a beacon of democracy and freedom in the world.”
Gallant, a former naval commando, had repeatedly warned his boss that many in the IDF had threatened to walk off the job, temporarily or permanently, should his proposal become law. While the military has not revealed exact statistics on how many fewer reservists reported for duty this month compared to previous months, it confirmed receiving a letter from 200 reserve pilots announcing they would sit out the next two weeks of duty in protest of Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.Gen. Herzi Halevi had even admitted reservists were stretched thin enough that it might have to pare back certain operations, government officials told the New York Times earlier this week – a possibility that would be unthinkable to the belligerent PM.
Former PM Ehud Barak spoke out against his successor on Sunday, predicting the protests within the IDF reservists’ ranks would grow and calling on Netanyahu to step down. Firing Gallant “shows that he has lost his judgment and his capacity to assess reality,” Barak said.
