During a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump spewed a litany of personal grievances and attacks on his political opponents on both sides of the aisle. Those among the targets: Chris Christie, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and more.
The 2024 candidate once again smeared Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as a “racist,” and baselessly suggested she had an “affair” with a “gang member.”
“They say there’s a young woman—a young racist in Atlanta—they say she was after a certain gang and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or a gang member. And this is a person who wants to indict me […] wants to indict me for a perfect phone call,” he said.
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In 2019, when Willis was a defense attorney, she represented rapper YSL Mondo in an aggravated assault case. The rapper would later tell Rolling Stone, “I done had auntie-to-nephew, mother-to-son type talks with her.” Apparently it was this innocuous comment that Trump—with the help of right-wing commentators—spun into the accusation of an “affair.”
Referencing both his own criminal indictments and the GOP’s efforts to launch an impeachment inquiry against Biden, Trump fumed that the president was “totally dishonest” and “crooked.” At the same time, the thrice-indicted ex-president unironically claimed that he “didn’t talk this way five weeks ago” due to his “respect for the office of the president.” (He’s been calling Biden “crooked” since at least April.)
After having to show up to three courts since April–New York, Florida and Washington, D.C.–Trump said he’d prefer to be in “the south of France” rather than in the U.S. A potential fourth indictment in Georgia this month may require another arraignment and plea.
After trying out a couple juvenile lines about Christie’s weight, the GOP 2024 presidential frontrunner then went on a truly Trumpian tangent about how he decided to strip Hillary Clinton of his favorite nickname for her and officially bestow it upon President Joe Biden. “I even changed his name. I took it away from Hillary, and we call him ‘Crooked Joe.’ Instead of ‘Sleepy Joe,’ we call him ‘Crooked Joe.’ I retired it,” he proudly declared.
“That was a great day for Hillary. I said we’re removing the name from ‘Crooked Hillary.’ Now we call her ‘Beautiful, Beautiful Hillary,’ such a beautiful woman, and we’re giving it to Biden because he’s a crooked person.”
Neither President Biden nor his son, Hunter, were immune from Trump’s barbs.
The target of House Republicans’ investigation into the Biden family—that has so far been far from fruitful—Hunter Biden was recently expected to agree to a plea deal over tax and gun crimes, until it fell through at the last minute.
“At some point,” Trump said, “Joe is gonna have to say, ‘You know, this son thing just isn't working out.’ Do you agree? ‘This son thing is not working out too good.’”
In the same context, Trump also criticized the Secret Service for wrapping up its investigation into the cocaine found in the White House last month without identifying any suspects or making any arrests.
“I wonder where that cocaine came from? What happened? That was the quickest investigation I’ve ever seen,” said Trump, who had suggested not-so-subtly that it belonged to the president and his son.
The criticism of Biden continued, with Trump complaining about his indictments—even though the White House has stayed mum on each of them.
“Is this going to be the future of America, where a sitting president tells his attorney general to indict the opponent?” Trump said, even though Attorney General Merrick Garland tasked a special counsel to pursue the investigations, and a grand jury in Florida and Washington, D.C. voted to indict.
Notably, in the run-up to the 2020 election, Trump gave a Fox Business Network interview in which he publicly pressured his attorney general, Bill Barr, to indict Biden and Barack Obama.
“Unless Bill Barr indicts these people for crimes — the greatest political crime in the history of our country,” he said of the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, “then we’re going to get little satisfaction, unless I win.”
