Donald Trump paraded his new endorser in front of an excited New Hampshire crowd Tuesday night, saying Vivek Ramaswamy had a “big, beautiful, bright future” in front of him after dropping out of the race.
He introduced his former rival and called for the Republican Party to endorse his candidacy before the November elections.
“It’s time for the Republican Party to come together, unite and move forward as one team, we have to beat corrupt Joe Biden,” Trump said to roars of ecstasy at the Atkinson Country Club.
He took the stage in New Hampshire after 24 hours that would represent an extraordinary day of ups and downs for any other candidate.
For Trump everything was almost the same as always.
President Donald Trump introduced Vivek Ramaswamy to an ecstatic crowd in Atkinson, New Hampshire, on Tuesday night at the end of a whirlwind 24 hours.
Admirers offered Trump a chance to vent after an awkward morning in court.
After crushing his rivals by 30 points in the Iowa caucuses (the first formal test of his popularity) on Monday night, he flew to New York for his $10 million defamation trial, where a judge told potential jurors that another jury had already determined that the former president sexually abused columnist E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s.
Then it was necessary to return to the electoral campaign to culminate another day of breaking norms in the life of the former president.
And it ended with the opportunity to introduce Ramaswamy, who dropped out a day earlier after a disappointing fourth-place finish at Iowa.
The 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur was quick to praise Trump as the kind of leader who could bring stability to a country at war.
“It’s between the permanent state and the average citizen, between those of us who love the United States of America and a fringe minority who hate this country and what we stand for,” he said.
“And now we need a commander in chief to lead us to victory in this war.”
In the basement ballroom there were about five hundred people, shoulder to shoulder.
They had to wait about four hours for Trump, whose arrival was delayed by snow storms and freezing weather in the Northeast.
“This was a little tricky tonight, I’ll tell you,” he told his audience, describing how his pilot suggested the trip might not be a good idea, “but I’m glad I made it.”
Vivek withdrew from the race Monday night after finishing fourth in the Iowa caucuses.
As of 7:30 a.m., Trump had more than 51 percent of the vote, with Haley and DeSantis in second and third place.
After dispatching his opponents in Iowa,
And he concluded his speech by describing his agenda for the coming days.
‘I’m going on a Biden witch hunt. And then I come here in the afternoon and I stop and we make speeches and we get your votes and all that,’ she said.
“But no one has ever had to do this before.”
Fans offered a chance to vent after attending to other matters earlier.
He frowned and grimaced as the judge in his New York defamation trial addressed the jury. And then he left, before the opening speeches, to run to New Hampshire.
The former president also faces four criminal cases and 91 charges in addition to the defamation case.
He has used his court appearances as a campaign tool, addressing reporters outside the courtroom and using what he calls “witch hunts” to rally his base and raise money.
He admitted as much last week after hearing closing arguments in the New York fraud lawsuit against him. “I guess they would consider it part of the campaign,” he told reporters.
None of the accusations dented the enthusiasm of the crowd in the Atkinson Country Club ballroom.
Hundreds of people braved frigid temperatures and a snowstorm to line up for Trump in Atkinson, New Hampshire, on Tuesday night.
Trump supporters filled a basement ballroom and waited four hours before Trump appeared.
Michael Navaria, 57, a retired police officer who attended his first Trump event with his wife, said his supporters simply ignored the details of the “witch hunt.”
‘Absolutely. It bothers me that they are persecuting him,’ she stated. “He’s so obviously political.”
He added that it was up to voters to choose the president, not the courts or lawyers. And Trump had an enviable record in office.
“Everything you say happens,” Navaria said.
Trump’s court campaign is working so far. In Iowa, he won the state caucuses by 30 percent, leaving Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley trying to claim they were the only viable alternative to the former president.
He leads in polls in New Hampshire, but there he will face a tougher challenge from Haley, who has made inroads with the state’s more moderate electorate.
On Tuesday he launched a state-level ad, criticizing the possibility of a rematch between Trump and Biden in November.
“America’s two most unpleasant politicians,” is how the ad describes them, saying they are both being “consumed by chaos, negativity and past grievances.”