Former President Donald Trump told an audience in Iowa on Friday night that there's only one Republican presidential candidate who can turn the country around after years of decline under the Biden administration.
"And you know who that candidate is who is going to get the job done," said Trump, who was among a dozen GOP candidates delivering stump speeches at the Lincoln Day Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa. "I won Iowa twice by really a lot; we set records, and together we will crush crooked Joe Biden, the most crooked president in the history of our country by far and also grossly incompetent. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's destroying our country.
"We will win the election big and we will make America great again."
Trump is the front-runner by a large margin for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The latest RealClear Politics average of polling has him at 52.4%, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (18.4%) and multimillionaire business entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (5.4%), both of whom also spoke at the event.
Trump listed his accomplishments for Iowa during his first term, including getting the state's farmers $28 billion from Chinese tariffs and being a strong supporter of ethanol fuel, which relies on corn production, a staple of Iowa agriculture.
"Unlike the establishment globalists in this race, I have been an unwavering warrior for Iowa ethanol, and I will remain your ethanol champion; very important to your economy," Trump said, before using his nickname for DeSantis. "Ron DeSanctus has aggressively fought against ethanol, which I think would be devastating for Iowa. He fights against it all the time."
Trump said under his leadership, the U.S. had the greatest economy "in the history of the world" and that he did more to secure the border than any other president. He also boasted about his appointment of more than 300 federal judges, including three on the Supreme Court who helped to end the federal right to an abortion.
"Remember, the Democrats are the radicals on this issue because they're willing to kill babies in their fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth month," he said. "And they're willing to kill babies even after birth. They are extremists.
"They are the radicals. And politicians running for office cannot allow this to happen and cannot allow them to get away with what they do. They try to politicize that issue. We did a phenomenal thing for our country and for life."
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