Las Vegas – Former President Donald Trump whipped up a crowd of excited supporters in a key battleground state on Sunday, his first rally since he was convicted in a New York court on what he and his supporters called “false” charges.
Thousands of Nevadans gathered in Sunset Park, just a few miles from the Las Vegas Strip, to hear the former president speak, who wasted no time in blasting the “Biden crime family” and his conviction as “bullshit.”
“We’re going to take down the Biden crime family. The Biden family is a crime family that has weaponized the Department of Justice like never before in this country,” Trump said. “We’re going to end the weak and failed administration of the worst president in the history of this country, the villain Joe Biden, and we’re going to make America great again.”
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On June 9, 2024, thousands of Trump supporters attended a rally in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Fox News Digital/Brandon Gillespie)
Trump also spent a significant amount of time early in his speech slamming President Biden’s handling of the southern border, an issue of particular importance to voters in the state.
“Under the Biden administration, the invasion is a disaster… Bad Joe has imported more people in the last four years than at any time in our history,” Trump said. “They’re changing the fabric of our country. They’re destroying our country.”
Trump then criticized Biden’s age, mental state and frequent vacations to Delaware beaches, saying, “This guy goes to the beach all the time. Some people think he looks good in a bathing suit, but I don’t know.”
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Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke at a campaign rally in Sunset Park in Las Vegas, Nevada, on June 9, 2024, pointing at the teleprompter and saying it wasn’t working. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
“He’s not old, he’s incompetent,” he added, saying he had taken the cognitive test “a second time” and performed “excellently” both times.
“Biden should undergo cognitive testing and he should undergo drug testing before the debate in two weeks,” Trump said.
President Trump has not endorsed anyone in the ongoing Republican primary for the U.S. Senate, but he has praised former U.S. Army Captain Sam Brown, who is considered a leading candidate in the race.
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Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives to speak at a campaign rally at Sunset Park in Las Vegas, Nevada, June 9, 2024. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump’s rise in approval ratings comes just days after a new Fox News poll showed the former president leading Biden by five points (50% to 45%) in a head-to-head race.
The lead remains stable (45% to 40%) even when adding independent presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (7%) and Dr. Cornel West (2%), and Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein (2%).
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Trump was convicted in a Manhattan court on May 30 of 34 counts of falsifying business records, but this appears to have had little effect on his levels of approval.
A separate Fox News poll found the former president tied with Biden in strongly Democratic Virginia, which hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since former President George W. Bush won in 2004.
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