Republican front-runner Donald Trump, fresh off his landslide victory in the Iowa caucuses just 24 hours earlier, told a New Hampshire audience on Tuesday that President Joe Biden took away their American dream.
Speaking at the Atkinson Resort & Country Club in Atkinson, New Hampshire, Trump kicked off his Granite State campaign by making stark comparisons between the way things were under the first Trump administration and the current one.
"When was the last time you heard the phrase 'American dream?'" Trump asked rhetorically. "You haven't heard that term in a long time because there is no American dream. It's survival now. It's embarrassment. … We're a country run by fools."
Trump emphasized bread-and-butter issues like the southern border. Iowa caucusgoers said that the border and immigration are more important issues than the economy.
"We're gonna strengthen up our border like we used to have," Trump told the crowd. "Remember, we had the safest border in history, and now we have the worst border in the history of the world. There's never been a border like this, where millions … we'll fix it, and we'll fix it very fast.
"All Biden had to do … if he would have just gone to the beach and left our border alone; we had the most secure border. All he had to do was leave it alone."
Vivek Ramaswamy joined Trump at the event and spoke for a few minutes, less than 24 hours after he suspended his campaign after a disappointing fourth-place finish in Iowa, and threw his support behind Trump.
"He's going to be working with us for a long time," Trump said of Ramaswamy.
And all of it geared toward the first-in-the-nation primary on Jan. 23.
"One week from now, we're going to win the New Hampshire primary, then we're going to defeat crooked Joe Biden. He's a crooked guy," Trump said. "The worst president in the history of our country. He's the most corrupt president in the history of our country. And frankly, he's the most incompetent president.
"You can end up in World War III with this guy."