Former US President Donald Trump will return to the rally stage this weekend, holding his first campaign-style event since leaving the White House as he makes good on his pledge to exact revenge on those who voted for his second impeachment.
Mr Trump’s event at Ohio’s Lorain County Fairgrounds, not far from Cleveland, will be held on Saturday to support Max Miller, a former White House aide who is challenging Republican representative Anthony Gonzalez for his congressional seat.
Mr Gonzalez was one of 10 GOP House members who voted to impeach Mr Trump for his role in inciting the deadly January 6 insurrection at the Capitol building.
Mr Trump wants them all to pay.
The rally, held five months after Mr Trump left office under a cloud of violence, marks the beginning of a new, more public phase of his post-presidency.
After spending much of his time behind closed doors building a political operation and fuming about the last election, Mr Trump is planning a flurry of public appearances in the coming weeks.
He will hold another rally in Florida over the July Fourth weekend unattached to a mid-term candidate, and will travel to the southern border next week to protest President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
The rally also comes with Mr Trump facing immediate legal jeopardy. Manhattan prosecutors informed his company on Thursday that it could soon face criminal charges stemming from a wide-ranging investigation into the former president’s business dealings.
The New York Times reported charges could be filed against the Trump Organisation as early as next week. Mr Trump has denounced the investigations as nothing more than a “witch hunt” aimed as damaging him politically.
Although Mr Trump remains a deeply polarising figure, he is extremely popular with the Republican base, and candidates have flocked to his homes in Florida and New Jersey seeking his endorsement as he has tried to position himself as his party’s kingmaker.
Mr Trump has said he is committed to helping Republicans regain control of Congress in next year’s mid-term elections. But his efforts to support — and recruit — candidates to challenge incumbent Republicans who have crossed him put him at odds with other Republican leaders who have been trying to unify the party after a brutal year in which they lost control of the White House and failed to gain control of either chamber of Congress.
So far, nine of the 10 House Republicans who voted for Mr Trump’s impeachment have drawn primary challengers. And Mr Trump has offered to support anyone who steps forward to challenge the remaining candidate, representative John Katko of New York, according to a report on syracuse.com.
“We’re giving tremendous endorsements,” Mr Trump boasted on Friday morning as he called into the conservative Newsmax channel and explained his endorsement rationale.
“Fake Republicans, anybody that voted for the impeachment doesn’t get it,” he said. “But there weren’t too many of them. And I think most of them are being, if not all, are being primaried right now, so that’s good. I’ll be helping their opponent.”
Mr Gonzalez, a former college and professional football player, has stood by his impeachment vote in the face of fierce criticism from his party’s conservative wing, including his censure by the Ohio Republican Party.
At the same time, Mr Trump continues to obsess over his ongoing efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he still insists he won, even though top election officials, his own attorney general and numerous judges have said there is no evidence of the mass voter fraud he alleges.
On Monday, he told the conservative Real America’s Voice that he had never conceded the race or admitted defeat. And he publicly entertained the idea that he could somehow be reinstated into office, even though no legal or constitutional basis for doing so exists.
At the same time, he continues to tease the possibility that he will mount a comeback run for the White House in 2024. Aides say Mr Trump, who was banned from Twitter and Facebook after January 6, will make a decision after the mid-terms next autumn.
