Former President Donald Trump focused heavily on criticizing President Joe Biden’s border security policies Thursday, at his first appearance in Arizona in almost two years.
It was also his first public campaign event after being convicted of falsifying business records in New York.
Trump told a crowd of thousands at the Dream City Church in north Phoenix that he will facilitate mass deportations if reelected in November.
“We will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in the history of our country,” he pledged.
Trump also claimed that Biden is letting mass illegal immigration happen intentionally.
Earlier this week, Biden issued an executive order temporarily banning migrants from getting asylum in the U.S. when crossings reach a certain threshold.
Trump said the new order is worse than no action and promised to rescind it, calling it “bullsh*t,” which the crowd then chanted.
Keeping with the focus on border security; Trump brought controversial former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio onstage, embraced him and kissed his cheek.
Arpaio’s signature immigration crackdowns led to a racial profiling verdict, and later a contempt of court conviction. Trump pardoned Arpaio in 2017 for the contempt charge.
Trump said repeatedly that the United States should use the death penalty on drug dealers as they do in China.
“You’ll never solve the problem without the death penalty,” he said.
He claimed that Biden is allowing illegal immigrants to enter the country because he thinks they’ll vote for him and help him win reelection. He also claimed that Biden is responsible for more slavery than anyone in modern history.
“Under crooked Joe Biden; the world is emptying out their prisons, insane asylums and mental institutions,” Trump said. “It's emptying out all of these places at levels that nobody’s ever seen.”
Trump also claimed that if he’d been in office for the past four years, the border would be secure, Russia would never have attacked Ukraine, Hamas would not have attacked Israel and there would be no inflation.
“You wouldn’t have had any inflation,” he said. “We had no inflation. We were down at a number so perfect, and now you’re suffering with numbers that nobody has ever seen before.”
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake and Republican state party chair Gina Swoboda attended the event. As did Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance - who hopes to become Trump’s vice president. He said he’s talked to Trump’s campaign team about the decision, but not Trump himself.
Trump spoke in support of Crane, Lake, and Congressman Paul Gosar. He also gave shoutouts to Congressional candidate Abe Hamadeh, Congressman Andy Biggs and Congressman Debbie Lesko - who is running for a seat on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
Trump did not mention Arizona’s other two Republican Congressmen; Juan Ciscomani (who he recently endorsed) and David Schweikert.
Arizona lawmakers present at the event included Gosar and Congressman Eli Crane; state Senators Anthony Kern (R-Glendale), Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), Sonny Borrelli (R-Lake Havasu City), Wendy Rogers (R-Flagstaff) and Justine Wadsack (R-Tucson); and state Representatives Joseph Chaplik (R-Scottsdale), Leo Biasiucci (R-Lake Havasu City), Teresa Martinez (R-Casa Grande) and Alexander Kolodin (R-Scottsdale).
Before Trump went on, he was introduced by a video decrying his recent trial. Trump repeated the point when he took the stage.
“I just went through a rigged trial in New York with a highly conflicted, and I mean highly conflicted judge…where there was no crime,” Trump said.
After the conviction, he said, more funds were given to his campaign “than any campaign, they think, in history.”
Trump repeated his claims of election fraud in 2020, and 2022 for his endorsees. “In 2020, as we all know, I did much better than I did in 2016,” he told the cheering crowd. “They used Covid to cheat, et cetera, et cetera.”
He called the Republicans on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors “sick” people who act like Democrats, and implied that there was clearly fraud involved in Lake’s gubernatorial election loss, because some of the machines malfunctioned on election day in Maricopa County.
Trump said only the “Republican machines” were broken. Arizona counties don’t have machines for different parties. Printing machines and tabulation machines handle ballots for all political affiliations.
This year, Trump told his supporters he’s working to make sure that his win is “too big to rig,” which is a common saying for the MAGA movement.
Trump also made fun of Biden, calling him weak.
“He has a press conference that lasts for about two minutes, and he goes like this; he’s reading a card, ‘Um, NBC, Jim? Jim,” Trump said, imitating Biden. “And then they ask him a question, he picks up the same piece of paper, he reads the answer. They never did that with me. No, we’re going to have people asking questions, whatever they ask is OK.”
The event was marketed as a town hall. But only a particular group of attendees was allowed to ask questions of Trump.
According to a Trump campaign manager, Turning Point Action selected those people beforehand. The press was sectioned off from the rest of the crowd and prevented from asking questions during the townhall.
The event was organized by Turning Point Action - the political arm of conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA.
According to a spokesperson for Turning Point Action, just under 4,000 people braved the scorching heat to attend the event, and thousands more were turned away when the church reached capacity.
Trump supporter Robert McConaghy said while waiting in line that he doesn’t like everything about Trump, but when it comes to the economy, he has more faith in him than Biden.
“I'm a business owner. … We’ve seen a massive shift in the economy over the past few years of young families that were able to buy homes that aren’t able to buy homes. Inflation is killing ‘em,” McConaghy said.
The Phoenix Fire Department said 11 people at the event were transported to hospitals after reports of heat exhaustion. It was 107 degrees outside when Trump started speaking at the town hall, where many of Trump’s supporters were unable to get inside before it reached capacity.
No one seemed perturbed by his recent conviction.
“He’s going to fight even harder, that’s what,” a woman called Marti said. “Vote Trump, otherwise we will not have a country like you’re used to now.”
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