Trump dismisses GOP opponents at rally in Hialeah
The front-runner in the Republican presidential primary was nowhere to be seen on the debate stage in downtown Miami on Wednesday.
“Nobody’s talking about it. Everybody’s watching us,” said former President Donald Trump onstage in Hialeah, a workingclass city across the county where he continued to stake his claim as nominee-in-waiting amid fervent cheers of his supporters during a rally at Milander Park.
He dismissively nodded to the other GOP candidates with a jab at Gov. Ron Desantis, who won big in his gubernatorial reelection in 2022. But Trump focused on the scoreboard.
“Remember we got 1.2 million more votes than Ron Desanctimonious,” Trump said, using his typical nickname for the governor while pledging to win Florida once again. Trump’s figure is about 100,000 voters larger than rough estimates he’s used before.
Instead of sparring with a Republican field that lags far behind him in the polls, Trump swept into a MAGA stronghold where he was welcomed in a carnivallike atmosphere on a football field lined with bleachers, food trucks and vendors hawking Trump memorabilia. In this swath of Miami-dade County, Trump made strong gains in the 2020 election and continues to have broad appeal to Hialeah’s largely Cubanamerican community.
Even though Gov. Ron Desantis is admired here, Trump is adored.
“We’re so humbled that he picked Hialeah to do this rally, because Hialeah loves Donald Trump,” said Hialeah Mayor Esteban “Steve” Bovo, about two hours before Trump took the stage.
Trump played to his crowd, chastising President Joe Biden’s administration on its Cuba policy.
“Joe Biden and the radical left Democrats are turning the United States into communist Cuba,” Trump said, without citing any specifics.
When he wasn’t hitting many of his usual talking points — false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, attacks on the media and assertions that the unsubstantiated statements that criminal indictments against him are political persecutions — he pledged to cancel the student visas of all “Hamas sympathizers” on college campuses, promised to prevent a third world war and said he would build a missile shield for the U.S.
Trump complained of being the victim of politically-motivated attacks by the judicial system just days after the Washington Post reported that the former president and his allies are plotting to exert control over the Justice Department and get revenge on former administration officials.
Trump also received a local recognition when Bovo revealed his plan to name a street in Hialeah “President Donald J. Trump Avenue.” Near the stage, a Ted Hendricks Stadium scoreboard that displayed the numbers 45, 2024 and 47 — Trump was the 45th president, and if elected next year, Trump would be the 47th U.S. president.
He took the stage two days after sitting in the witness box in a New York City courtroom to answer questions in a civil lawsuit that accuses him of inflating real estate values to his benefit. There, a frustrated judge asked Trump’s lawyers to keep him from meandering in his answers.
On Wednesday, Trump was free to let his winding oratory flow, including unusual tangents and some awkward moments.
He defended people over the age of 80, including Biden, noting a friend made his fortune between the ages of 80 and 90. In comments about mental institutions, he randomly mentioned Hannibal Lecter, a cannibalistic main character from the novel and film “The Silence of the Lambs.” He complained about bad television commercials being played on “fake news” media networks.
At one point he was giving shoutouts to a slew of Miamidade politicians for their endorsements, and he thanked U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, Miami-dade County’s former mayor, for his support. The mention prompted jeers from the audience,
“Oh, you don’t like Carlos?” Trump asked. “Come on Carlos, you gotta get that straightened out. Really. Wow.”
The moment mirrored boos hurled at Gimenez in 2020 when a Trump rally violated the county’s social distancing and mask rules for COVID-19 and went on well past the midnight curfew Gimenez had mandated.
He also took aim at elections that allow voters to cast mail ballots — a widely used method in Miami-dade County that is often plays a major role in local, state and federal elections.
“Any time you have mail-in ballots, you have corrupt elections,” Trump said, drawing little reaction from the crowd. “Anybody that wants it, they’re corrupt. And that includes Republicans by the way.”
On Tuesday, the city of Miami’s general election for three commission seats saw more than 8,900 ballots cast by mail, or more than half of the election’s turnout. In Hialeah, more than 5,300 people voted in the city elections by mail, or more than 60% of total votes cast.
Trump fans
Trump supporters gathered early Wednesday outside Ted Hendricks Stadium to line up for a good seat and essentially rally before the rally. Sporadic “Trump” chants broke out, fans waved giant flags emblazoned with “Save America” and wore T-shirts with “Supertrump” wearing a cape like a comic book superhero.
Many expressed unwavering adoration for the 45th president. Though he faces 91 criminal charges across four indictments, among the faithful, Trump is a victim of political persecution orchestrated by government institutions that cannot not be trusted.
“They’re wasting all our taxpayers’ money on senseless trials,” said Nidia Law, a hairdresser who drove in from Naples for the rally. She said much of the media’s coverage of Trump is tainted. Other rally-goers asked reporters if they were “fake news” or “real news” as they walked into the venue.
The former president’s braggadocio echoed among his supporters.
“If Trump is leading every poll, why does he need to go to a debate?” asked Santiago Torran Barnet, who came to the U.S. from Cuba 23 years ago. Dressed like a Mambí, a 19th-century Cuban fighter for independence from Spain, the 61-year-old said Trump “is the only option for America.”
“There is a phrase in Spanish lo que se sabe no se pregunta [what is known is not asked],” he said. “It does not make any sense that Trump participate in any debate. He is going to win.”
Some diehards traveled far for the event. Micki Larson-olson, 54 came to Hialeah from Abilene, Texas. The retired Air Force veteran was at the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and she was imprisoned 180 for trespassing.
“I paid my debt to society, but I will wait for a big reimbursement once the truth comes out,” she said. “I refused to get down from the stairs of the Capitol because I was fighting for the American people.”
She said she believes that Trump doesn’t need to attend any Republican debate because the Republican Party didn’t help him to prove that the election was stolen from him.
“Trump is here for us. We have to be here for him, she said. “He will show force today. How many people would be watching that debate?”