Speaking to a friendly crowd in Anaheim, former President Donald Trump vowed “to bring back law” to California if elected back to the White House.
In a speech riddled with Republican talking points but few specifics, Trump vacillated between praising California’s Republicans — from former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon to Huntington Beach Mayor Tony Strickland — to castigating the state for its immigration policies, homelessness, “woke tech tyrants” and more.
“You are the last line of defense standing between this state and total anarchy,” Trump said to some 1,500 people gathered at the Anaheim Marriott to hear him speak on the opening day of the California GOP convention Friday. “Help is on the way.”
“We will end the desecration of your once great state, California,” he said. “The world is being dumped into California, prisoners, terrorists, mental patients.”
Trump vowed to “solve the border problem in 24 hours” and bolster California’s water supply as he addressed those at the state Republican Party’s fall convention. Aside from the former president, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott were set to speak Friday, and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy was scheduled for Saturday.
Trump espoused his belief that he would win California in the general election if the state did away with mail ballots (except for servicemembers or the “very sick,” he said) and had stronger voter ID requirements. He claimed, without offering evidence, that California’s election system is “rigged.”
Trump didn’t shy away from making fun of President Joe Biden, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Los Angeles. Gov. Gavin Newsom, however, drew most of Trump’s ire, calling him “crooked Joe Biden’s top surrogate.”
In the background of the convention was a somber day for California politics. The former president didn’t directly address the death Thursday…
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