Former President Donald J. Trump spoke in Minnesota on Friday night, vowing to boycott the state if he loses in 2020, falsely claiming he won the state twice and winning the state in 2024. He added that it works in his favor.
“I thought I won in 2016,” Trump said at a Republican fundraiser in St. Paul, Minnesota. “I know I won in 2020.”
The last time a Republican presidential candidate won Minnesota was in 1972, when Richard M. Nixon carried the state.
Nevertheless, Trump, a leading Republican candidate seeking to avenge his loss to Joseph R. He said he was adding.
Mr. Trump's nearly 90-minute appearance at the annual Lincoln-Reagan presidential dinner, on a day off from his criminal trial in New York, was another departure from the usual campaign stage. Last Saturday, Trump held a rally in New Jersey, a state he lost by double digits in 2016 and 2020. Earlier Friday, the Trump campaign announced it would hold an event in the deep blue Bronx next week.
Trump used his speech in St. Paul to pivot to a defense of law and order, saying he played a key role in quelling riots in the state after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. suggested. .
“I saved your city,” Trump said, adding, “Minneapolis wouldn't be where it is today if you hadn't had me president.”
Mr. Trump's day began with a high school graduation ceremony for his youngest son, Barron, in Florida, but the judge presiding over his trial in New York gave him a day off from court to attend. That didn't stop him from launching further attacks on Judge Juan M. Machan, who he falsely accused of denying his request for immunity.
“For a while, the judge said, 'I can't attend my son's graduation,'” Trump said.
Early Friday morning, Minnesota's Democratic Governor Tim Walz accused Trump of falsely claiming on a local TV station that he won the state in 2020. Walz said in an online broadcast that Trump's lies were “an insult.” Toward democracy. ”
“He lost by more than seven points,” Walz said. “And when he brags that he thinks he has a chance, I want to remind everyone that Joe Biden was closer in Texas than Donald Trump was in Minnesota.”
On Saturday, Trump will again headline the National Rifle Association's annual meeting in Dallas. It will be the ninth time the former president, who has vowed to roll back gun laws, has addressed the group.
Trump last spoke at the 2022 NRA convention in Houston, where he joined other politicians and others in response to the massacre of 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, days earlier. This was despite the fact that he was absent from musical activities. .
Jazmin Ulloa Contributed to the report.