Former President Donald Trump predicted a “monumental victory” during a South Dakota speech on Friday, slamming COVID-19 lockdowns, the nation’s migrant crisis and the apparent politicization of the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Ahead of the former president’s speech, Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem endorsed Trump in the 2024 presidential election which sparked repeated chants of “USA.” Trump called Noem “one of the most successful governors” in the country, claiming she did not lock down her state during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re racing toward a monumental victory,” Trump said Friday. “This is the most important election we’ve ever had because our country is going to hell.”
“Together we’re going to defeat crooked Joe Biden, the most crooked president in history,” the former president continued. “The most incompetent president in history.”
Trump slammed sex reassignment surgeries for minors that are being performed by hospitals and doctors throughout the country while arguing that the “Marxists, fascists and communists” are “dismantling” the nation’s borders.
South Dakota Governor, Kristi Noem welcomes former US president and 2024 Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump on stage during the South Dakota Republican Party’s Monumental Leaders rally at the Ice Arena at the Monument in Rapid City, South Dakota, September 8, 2023. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
The former president also took a jab at President Joe Biden’s economic record and the rising inflation rate in the country. The unemployment rate rose to 3.8% in August, increasing from 3.5% in July while the economy added 187,000 nonfarm payroll jobs. The Consumer Price Index hit a high of 9.1% in June 2022 and was 3.2% in July.
Trump has been indicted four times, the most recent in August after a grand jury ruled that the former president and some aides should be indicted for their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. The president’s other indictments focused on charges relating to alleged actions on Jan. 6, documents kept at Mar-a-Lago and alleged hush money paid to former porn star Stormy Daniels. (RELATED: ‘Another Dark Day’: Republicans Condemn Trump Arrest On Fulton County Charges)
The former president said on Wednesday that he would “absolutely” testify in a trial court over the 30 charges brought against him for storing 300,000 classified documents in his private residence at Mar-a-Lago.
“If we don’t take it back in ’24 I really believe we’re not gonna have a country left,” Trump said in South Dakota.