During his rally in Pickens, South Carolina, former President Donald Trump tore into Biden with a vengeance. Trump said that because of the recent indictments brought against him by the Biden DOJ, he would be taking the gloves off in fighting Biden and would start hammering him for his perceived corruption, and it no longer mattered to him if those attacks negatively impacted the dignity of the office of the president.
Speaking to the rally attendees, Trump first commented on the gloves being off, saying that he used to limit the attacks on Biden somewhat because he respects the office of the president itself, even if Biden is undeserving of respect. In his words: “You know, I’ve been hitting him much differently than I have, because I’ve always respected the office. And then when they indicted me for nothing, I said, ‘Now the gloves are off.‘”
Continuing, Trump christened the new, gloves-off campaign against Biden with a new nickname for him, saying that because of the allegations of corruption brought against Biden and the new nature of the fight against him, he’s “Crooked Joe” now. In his words:
“Now we have to say it like it is. He’s a crook. Under crooked Joe Biden. I never called him that. I took the name away from Hillary Clinton. We call her beautiful Hillary now. Now it’s Crooked Joe, because it’s a much more appropriate name right now for this man who’s just destroying our country.”
Trump then characterized the DOJ indictment of him as election interference, saying that Biden is trying to discredit and lock up Trump because the polls are looking so bad for him. Speaking about the situation and insinuating that America is drifting into Banana Republic territory, Trump said, “They want to do this for election interference. He’s getting his a** kicked in the polls, and he needs to do this for election interference — which is their new form of cheating. It’s actually a pretty old form, but it’s new to this country to the extent that they’re doing it.”
Later, Trump broke out the new nickname once again when saying that he would, in 2024, kick Joe Biden out of the White House to Make America Great Again. He said, “We are going to evict crooked Joe Biden from the White House. We’re going to bring our country back. We are going to take back our country. We’re going to make America great again. That’s what we need.”
He also said that though the Democrats impeached him, it is Biden that should be impeached because of the corruption allegations, saying that DC is a rats’ nest that needs to be cleaned out immediately. In his words: “The radical Democrats impeached me — they impeached me. But that was just the beginning, because they also indicted me a couple of years later for asking questions about the Biden bribery scam. It just happened it turned out I was right. This is a sick nest of people that needs to be cleaned out and cleaned out immediately. It turned out I was right.”
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Trump also alleged that it’s not just Biden who is corrupt, but that the whole bureaucratic apparatus has been tainted by corruption, as shown by its coming after him and attempting to lock him up. He said: “These scoundrels and thugs in our weaponized government are corrupt — just like the president is corrupt. So they decided only to come after me. It’s an amazing thing. It’s called election interference and it’s backfired on them, because my poll numbers are much higher now than there were months ago. And we were still leading by a lot. But now we’re really leading. A lot of people are going to start dropping out.“