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WELLINGTON, Ohio – Former President Donald J. Trump returned to the rally podium Saturday night after six months of absence, his first major public rally since the Jan. 6 “Save America” event, which led to deadly riots at the Capitol.
On Saturday, the same words – “Save America” - appeared behind Mr Trump as he addressed a crowd of several thousand at the Fairgrounds in Wellington, Ohio, 35 miles southwest of Cleveland.
He repeated familiar lies about fake 2020 votes. He attacked Republican officials for refusing to support his efforts to nullify the election results – including Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, who voted to impeach Trump, and whose main rival, Max Miller, was the reason for Trump’s visit. The former president paid tribute to Mr. Miller when they appeared together on stage.
Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party, with many GOP lawmakers repeating his lies about the stolen 2020 elections and fearing his passing, and many in the party waiting to see if he will run for the White House. in 2024.
However, in audience and on stage, the scene in Ohio on Saturday reflected how diminished Mr. Trump was in the post-presidency, and how dependent he is on a smaller group of allies and supporters who have embraced his alternate reality. As if it were their own. One of the main figures at the event was Representative Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia, the far-right Republican who promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Mr. Trump’s speech – low-profile, discursive, 90 minutes long – has failed at times with a well-liked audience. Dozens of people left early as he bounced from one topic to another – immigration, Israel, the protective mask of Speaker of Parliament Nancy Pelosi.
“Do you miss me?” asked Mr. Trump in one of his biggest lines of applause. He said, “They miss me.”
In interviews, many of the crowd expressed firm belief in Mr. Trump’s electoral lies, and plunged into rewriting history about the gang attack on the Capitol.
Tony Buscemi, 61, a small business owner from West Bloomfield, Michigan, who stood with his daughter Natalie, in the sunny field where Mr. Trump spoke, said he was at the Capitol on January 6, and falsely claimed it was a “mostly peaceful” gathering. .
People were praying. “People were singing,” Mr. Buscemi said, adding that he might have entered the building himself had his daughter not convinced him it was a bad idea. “There was no rebellion,” he insisted. “I didn’t see anything wrong with that.”
Polls indicate that most Republicans remain skeptical that President Biden will win the election. 36 percent of Republicans in a Monmouth University poll conducted on Monday said Biden won the election fairly, while 57 percent said his victory was the result of fraud.
However, there is still evidence that Mr. Trump’s influence on Republican voters is waning – albeit slightly.
In late April, 44 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in an NBC News poll said they were more supportive of Trump than the party itself. A slightly higher percentage, 50 percent, said they were more willing to support the party.
It was the first time since NBC pollsters began asking the question in early 2019, with as many as half of Republicans saying they support the party more than men.
Giovanni Rossonello contributed to the report.
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