Former President Donald Trump gave his first major speech since his historic conviction, both denouncing the verdict and hitting on parts of his campaign message.
Symbolically speaking from the spot where he first launched his presidential campaign in 2016, Trump lambasted the verdict against him and bashed President Joe Biden in a longwinded, and at times rambling, message.
Here are the five most memorable moments from Trump’s lengthy speech the day after his conviction.
Calling Joe Biden “the dumbest president we’ve ever had”
Trump had harsh words for his rival and 2024 opponent, saying that Biden was not only the worst but also the dumbest president in American history.
“Crooked Joe Biden, the worst president in the history of our country. He’s the worst president in the history of our country, the most incompetent,” he said. “He’s the dumbest president we’ve ever had. He’s the dumbest president, most incompetent president, and he’s the most dishonest president we’ve ever had.”
His fixation on a Daily Mail poll
Trump touted a Daily Mail poll, the first since his conviction, which showed a significant bump in his approval ratings. He boasted the results twice in his speech.
“The other thing, a poll came out,” he said. “The first poll. Maybe others will be bad. But the poll just came out a little while ago, The Daily Mail.”
“Does anybody read The Daily Mail? They have a good poll. I like it today,” Trump continued. “The Daily Mail just came out with a poll and it has Trump up six points in the last 12 hours. Six points since this happened.”
The outlet’s poll was conducted by J.L. Partners, and surveyed 400 likely voters in the hours after Trump’s conviction.
“Amongst those who are open to changing their mind, people feel more positive by a margin of 6 points,” James Johnson, who conducted the poll, said. “That is outside of the margin of the error of the poll, and we are saying that is significant.”
Labeling Judge Juan Merchan a “devil”
Trump issued a harsh rebuke to Judge Juan Merchan, saying that his looks were deceiving.
“You saw what happened to some of the witnesses that were on our side — they were literally crucified by this man who looks like an angel, but he is really a devil,” he said. “He looks so nice and soft. People say he seems like such a nice man. Unless you saw him in action.”
His focus on Jan. 6 and Cassidy Hutchinson’s limousine story
Trump took a detour to discuss the Jan. 6 riot, and the Jan. 6 Commission that led an investigation into it. He slammed the two Republicans on the committee, former Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, focusing his ire on the latter.
“But it was all Democrats and two wayward Republicans, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger,” he said. “He cries every time he goes on television. He’s the most emotional human being I think I’ve ever seen, and that was our representatives.”
Trump focused on one central aspect of the Jan. 6 investigation, the testimony of former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who claimed that the former president tried to hijack the presidential limousine during the riot. This claim was undermined by a subsequent House Republican investigation which found other testimonies contradicting her story.
“So they have testimony to all of that, that I did not attack the Secret Service agent in the front of a car. You know, these are strong people, and I supposedly went to the driver, and I grabbed him around the neck,” he said, making a noise and motion to articulate the story. “And he rebuffed me, and then I went to the other guy, who I think is a black belt in karate, and he’s slightly younger than me, maybe 35 years, 40 years, 50 years. And I grabbed him around the neck and said, ‘he’s a black belt in karate. They know how to get somebody from around their neck.’”
They would have gone like this, and that would be the end of that,” he added, motioning a karate move with his hands. “Actually, I had a friend that said you shouldn’t dispute that. That makes you look like the toughest cookie we’ve ever seen. You should have let that go on.”
Concern over “languages we haven’t even heard of”
Toward the end of his speech, Trump began lamenting the state of immigration to the country, even saying that so many people were coming into the country that many were speaking unknown languages.
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“Who on earth can want open borders, where people are allowed to pour in from countries unknown, from places unknown, from languages that we don’t even, that we haven’t even heard of,” he said. “We have people sitting in schools with languages where very few people have ever even heard of these languages.”
“It’s not like Spanish or French or Russian — languages unknown,” the former president continued. “We have people coming from corners of the globe, and many of them are not good people. Many terrorists, record levels of terrorism, record levels of terrorists have come into our country, record. They’ve never seen anything like it.”
