Donald Trump returned to Alabama Saturday and got a roaring reception from supporters who stood in long lines, waited out rainy weather, and walked through grass and mud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and cheer the former president.
Trump tossed his trademark red ball caps to the crowd as he strolled out to cheers while “God Bless the USA” played over the loudspeakers.
He marveled at the crowd — packed seating down front and the standing audience of general admission fans who filled the field at York Family Farms in Cullman, where the Rock the South music festival happened last week.
The event had rock concert vibes, with a sea of people wearing “Make America Great Again” and “Save America” ball caps and T-shirts with messages like “Trump Won” and “Trump in 2024.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, one of the speakers who warmed up the crowd, said, “They used to call it Woodstock. This is Trumpstock here in Cullman County.”
Trump talked for 90 minutes. He spent much of that time blasting Joe Biden as a failed president.
Trump was an hour into the speech before he talked much about his unsubstantiated claims that he lost the election because of voting fraud, claims rejected by courts, election officials in swing states, and Attorney General William Barr. But that didn’t matter to Trump loyalists tonight.
Trump promised the crowd that the movement he launched six years ago is alive and well. He said he loved Alabama, where he got 62% of the vote in 2016 and 2020. He left the stage as the sound system thumped out “Sweet Home Alabama.”
Trump’s appearance in Cullman drew criticism from the state’s Democrats.
“Instead of finding solutions to our COVID crisis, improving worker wages and conditions, and expanding healthcare for Alabamians, the political leaders of the Alabama Republican Party spent their Saturday worshipping former President Trump while he continued to spew lies about the 2020 election,” the Alabama Democratic Party said in a press release.
It was Trump’s first speech in Alabama in four years and came six years to the day after a rally at Ladd Peebles Stadium in Mobile helped launch the campaign that carried him to the White House in 2016.
Speakers who preceded Trump got hearty responses as they heaped praise on Trump and denounced Biden, Democrats, “woke” culture and the “fake” news media.
The last to speak before Trump was Congressman Mo Brooks, who carries Trump’s endorsement in next year’s U.S. Senate race. Brooks got an enthusiastic response but some of the crowd turned to boos when he urged them to leave the 2020 election behind and focus on 2022 and 2024.
Brooks later shared the stage with Trump when the former president called him back for a second appearance on stage.
“Mo is a fearless warrior for your sacred right to vote,” Trump said. “He’s going to be an incredible senator and we’re proud of him.”
Trump also praised Tuberville, who he endorsed during Tuberville’s successful run last year.
Trump gave a shoutout to controversial U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, pointing her out in the crowd.
Trump touched on many topics but focused most heavily on what he described as Biden’s disastrous handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the failure to plan for the safe departures of Americans and others.
“This will go down as one of the great military defeats of all time,” Trump said. “This was not a withdrawal. This was a total surrender.”
The former president said he had an exit strategy from Afghanistan that would not have allowed the Taliban to overrun the country as has happened in recent days.
“We could have gotten out with honor and we should have gotten out with honor and instead we got out with the exact opposite of honor,” Trump said.
The rally came amid a surge in the COVID-19 pandemic that is filling state hospitals and exhausting health care workers. Few people in the packed crowd wore masks.
Trump told the crowd he had received a vaccination and urged them to do the same. But he quickly followed up by saying it was their choice to get the shots.
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Trump rally in Alabama: Loyalists turn out to hear former president in Cullman - AL.com
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