Former President Donald Trump compared President Joe Biden’s administration to the secret police of Nazi Germany in remarks at a private, closed-door donor event on Saturday afternoon, according to NBC News.
The former president’s comments came as he spoke about his legal troubles in Arizona regarding several of his former top aides as well as 11 so-called fake electors from the 2020 election. According to an audio recording of the dinner provided to NBC News, Trump said the following:
These people are running a Gestapo administration. And it’s the only thing they have. And it’s the only way they’re going to win in their opinion.
He also stated that current US President Joe Biden is “the worst president in the history of our country. He’s grossly incompetent. He’s crooked as hell. He’s the Manchurian candidate, he accepts massive amounts of money from China, from Russia, from Ukraine and many other countries. He’s a crook.” Yet the Biden’s campaign have not responded.
Trump delivered the speech at his Mar-a-Lago club Saturday afternoon as hundreds of donors gathered there for the Republican National Committee’s spring meeting. Among the featured guests at the retreat this weekend are a number of potential vice presidential candidates, including South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Rep. Byron Donalds and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. During the lunch, Trump brought all of those guests to the stage.
Trump also said he would allow anyone who donated $1 million on the spot to come up to the stage. Two people took him up on the offer, including one woman who declared, “Donald J. Trump is the person that God has chosen.”
Trump stressed that he did not let his legal troubles bother him too much. However, he admitted he was surprised when he was charged. He also called Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting two federal cases against Trump, an “evil thug” and “deranged.” Despite, Trump has recently focused more on his own legal peril as he faces four different indictments and 88 criminal charges. On Friday, he had to hear testimony in court from his former communications adviser Hope Hicks in a trial in which he is accused of falsifying business records to hide hush money payments made to a porn star.
Trump entered the event to a recording of the national anthem, which he did with a group of people arrested in connection with an attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021 by a crowd of Trump supporters seeking to disrupt the certification of Mr Biden’s electoral college victory.
In his speech, he repeatedly complained about the Manhattan criminal trial, which he will revisit on Monday, insisted Democrats were using “welfare” to cheat in elections and said he would need an attorney general with “courage” as he mocked his former attorney general William P. Barr, who recently endorsed Trump after being critical of him following the end of the administration.
Despite, Trump’s advisers presented an optimistic case for the candidate and noted that Trump remains mostly ahead in the polls, even though President Biden has outspent him, just as the former president was outspent in the primaries by his rivals. In March, Trump and his allies reported raising $65.6 million – a significant amount, but still well below what President Biden and related outside groups raised.
Trump’s advisers also described some of their strategies for the general election in the presentation, including reaching 2016 levels of support among white voters and expanding support among black and Latino voters, especially urban men. Campaign strategists also outlined a plan to avoid losses that occurred in 2022 related to the abortion issue and the backlash against the Supreme Court’s reversal of federal abortion rights before the midterm elections.
