With iconic boardwalk rides towering around him, former President Donald Trump on Saturday evening made sweeping vows about New Jersey, stepped up attacks on President Joe Biden, and railed about his legal woes in a speech before thousands of supporters at a campaign rally on the beach in Wildwood.
Speaking for 90 minutes in the famed Jersey Shore city, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee also compared his (immediately debated) crowd size to Bruce Springsteen’s, referenced Hannibal Lecter when warning about undocumented immigration, threw punches the Garden State’s most recent two governors, and made an endorsement in the state’s closely watched U.S. Senate race.
Trump, returning to the campaign trail aftera key week in his hush-money case, started his speech by once again predicting he will pull off an unlikely feat that no White House contender from his party has accomplished since 1988: carry the deep-blue Garden State, which he has lost twice by double digits.
“As you can see today, we’re expanding the electoral map,” he told the audience gathered on the sand six months to Election Day. “We’re going to win the state of New Jersey.”
Trump repeatedly hit Biden, his Democratic opponent, at one point arguing high prices on items such as hot dogs — like the one he said he ate just before the event — are draining Americans’ wallets.
The former Atlantic City casino mogul, who still spends summers at the golf club he owns in Bedminster, said voters should support him if they want “lower costs, higher income, and more weekends down the Shore.”
He also declared he knows the Jersey Shore “better than more than most of the people that are here, I hate to tell you that,” adding “there’s nothing like it.”
“If you want to keep it going, you have to vote for a gentleman named Donald J. Trump,” said Trump, decked in a navy suit, red tie, and red MAGA hat.
“If Joe Biden wins this election, the middle class loses and New Jersey loses.”
And as former New York Giants Lawrence Taylor and Ottis Anderson watched from the crowd, Trump proclaimed dominance over New Jersey’s most beloved rock star.
“Is there anything better than a Trump rally?” Trump asked. “Bruce Springsteen. We have a much bigger crowd than Bruce Springsteen. Right?”
In other words, it was a Jersey edition of a sprawling, irreverent, and often-fact-checked Trump rally speech.
Biden, meanwhile, held a private fundraiser in Seattle on Saturday during which he said Trump is “clearly unhinged,” according to a report by CNN.
“It’s clear that … when he lost in 2020, something snapped in him,” the president told attendees. “Just listen to what he’s telling people.”
Still, Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, said he believes the election will be “close.”
Saturday marked the second time in four years Trump hosted a rally in Wildwood. The last time was a winter-season event inside the local convention center in 2020, 10 months before he lost to Biden.
This one was held outside along the Atlantic Ocean, with the boardwalk’s famous ferris wheel and Great White roller coaster providing the backdrop, during a breezy and busy May weekend. It comes as Trump and Biden prepare to face off in a rematch in November.
Trump said there were 100,000 people on hand. Lisa Fagan, a spokeswoman for the city, told The Associated Press she estimated the crowd to be between 80,000 and 100,000, based on having seen “dozens” of other events in the same space. That’s despite Wildwood’s mayor saying the area of the event could accommodate up to 40,000.
Debates over the crowd size quickly erupted on social media.
U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-2nd Dist., said from the stage this was the largest political rally in New Jersey history — though it likely falls short short of when then-presidential hopeful Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared in Sea Girt in 1932, a gathering that reportedly drew 120,000 people.
A number of people began exiting the beach as Trump’s speech passed the hour mark.
Saturday’s event also came as Trump continues to be on trial in a courtroom two hours north in Manhattan, a case that has limited his time on the campaign trail. This was only his third rally since the trial started four weeks ago.
He faces three other unrelated criminal indictments, as well.
Trump appeared in Wildwood under a judge’s gag order that limits his legal ability to comment publicly on witnesses, jurors, and some others connected to the trial. The judge already has fined him $9,000 for violating the order and warned jail could follow if he doesn’t comply.
At the rally, Trump compared himself to notorious gangster Al Capone.
“I got indicted more than him,” Trump said. “On bulls**t, too.”
He also blamed Biden for the criminal charges he faces, saying he has been “forced to endure a Biden show trial, all done by Biden” and deriding the president as a “total moron.”
He referred to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as ”Fat Alvin” and said the judge is “highly conflicted,” as well.
Trump has repeatedly accused the Biden administration and Democratic officials in New York of using the legal system to block his return to the Oval Office. Prosecutors allege Trump broke the law to conceal an affair with porn actor Stormy Daniels that would have hurt his first presidential bid.
Last week, Trump was forced to sit through testimonyfrom Daniels, who described a sexual encounter with the former president in stunning detail. Trump is set to return to the courtroom next week, when prosecution witness Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, expected to take the witness stand.
In addition, Trump continues to face criticism over the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, despite multiple court rulings rejecting that.
Democrats held a press call Friday ahead Trump’s appearance, noting the U.S. lost a net 2.7 million jobs during his time in office — a period affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Under Biden, U.S. employment is 10% above where it was when he took office.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, also smacked Trump on social media.
“As Trump holds his rally today in NJ, he remains focused on himself, not the American people,” Murphy wrote. “Joe Biden continues to deliver results: investing in infrastructure, reducing prescription drug costs, and protecting reproductive freedom. The choice is clear.”
National polls show a tight race. In New Jersey, a recent survey from Emerson College found Biden leading Trump here by 7 percentage points and by only 5 when third party candidates are added.
Though New Jersey is heavily Democratic, there are pockets of MAGA support here. Wildwood is in the middle of one swath.
Saturday’s crowd also included many residents who said they came from out of state, including neighboring Pennsylvania, a critical swing state. While some questioned why Trump would spend time in New Jersey, a Trump campaign official told CNN the campaign believes it could get local TV coverage in nearby Philadelphia.
“I went to school in Pennsylvania,” Trump, a 1968 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, reminded them.
Trump said he plans to make a play for several other traditionally blue states, such as Minnesota and Virginia.
“And actually many other states. This guy’s so damn bad, it could be all of them,” he said of Biden.
Toward the end of his speech, Trump noted New Jersey is “home to some of the toughest, smartest, and most talented Americans ever to walk the face of the earth.”
“This is the state that pioneered the boardwalk, the diner, the motion picture, and gave the world America legends like Thomas Edison, Buzz Aldrin, Frank Sinatra, and so many more,” he said.
“Now, we are a nation in decline. We are a failing nation. We are a nation that has lost its confidence, has lost its willpower and has lost its strength. ... But we are not going to allow this horror to continue.”
It would be a huge upset for Trump to take New Jersey. He lost the state to Biden by 16 percentage points in 2020 to Democrat Hillary Clinton by 14 points in 2016. Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans here by about 1 million.
Michael Tyler, communication director for Biden’s campaign, rejected the idea of Trump winning the state.
“I think here on Planet Earth in the Biden campaign, we’re going to remain laser-focused on winning 270 electoral votes,” Tyler said. “We’re focused on communicating directly with the voters who are actually going to decide this presidential election.”
During Saturday’s speech, Trump also called mail-in voting “corrupt,” thanked the U.S. Supreme Court justices he appointed for helping overturn Roe v. Wade, said he would leave abortion policies up to the states, and promised to deport any foreign student who bring “jihadism or antisemitism” to colleges in the U.S.
During comments about curbing undocumented immigration, Trump brought up “the late, great Hannibal Lecter,” the notorious serial killer/cannibal in the 1991 film “The Silence of the Lambs.”
“He’s a wonderful man,” Trump said.
He noted the scene at the end of the movie, where Lecter says he is “having an old friend for dinner” as he peers toward his next victim.
“Remember the last scene? ‘Excuse me, I’m about to have a friend for dinner,’ as this poor doctor walked by. ‘I’m about to have a friend for dinner.’”
Trump has mentioned the character before when making claims that mental patients are coming over the U.S. border — which his campaign has not shown evidence to support.
Meanwhile, Trump cracked jokes about Republican Chris Christie, a one-time ally turned rival who consistently blasted the former president during a presidential campaign that ended weeks before the New Hampshire primary.
“Does anybody like Chris Christie?” Trump asked. “He was a major case of Trump derangement system.”
He referred to Christie as a “fat pig,” as well — an insult he has used before.
Trump then knocked Murphy, promising supporters that if he wins in November, they “won’t have to worry about Gov. Murphy and his 157 windmills” — nods to the wind turbine program at the center of the Democratic governor’s energy policies.
Trump’s appearance was a spectacle in Wildwood. From the boardwalk, curious onlookers peered through gaps in a blue plastic barrier attached to a chain link fence running the length of the venue space. Some tore holes in the plastic to get a better view as Trump spoke.
Trump flew from New York City to New Jersey in his trademark blue plane, which soared low over the rally around 4 p.m. His motorcade — carrying North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a possible vice presidential pick — passed under the boardwalk around 5:30 p.m.
The former president arrived on stage around 6:30 p.m. to a roar from the crowd. He finished his remarks just before 8 p.m.
Trump also weighed into a critical local race, endorsing Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner in the high-stakes election for the New Jersey U.S. Senate seat currently held by indicted Democrat Robert Menendez.
Serrano Glassner is running in the primary for the Republican nomination against developer Curtis Bashaw. She has ties to the former president: Her husband, Republican operative Michael Glassner, helped manage Trump’s 2016 campaign and was chief operating officer of Trump’s 2020 re-election bid.
“She’s a fantastic woman,” Trump said. “I’m giving her my complete and total endorsement.”
Both Serrano Glassner and Bashaw — who lives in nearby Cape May — were in the audience at the rally.
“I was going to stay out of it, but you’re running against a Christie person,” Trump said of Bashaw, who donated to Christie’s presidential campaigns.
Earlier in the rally, Van Drew, a Republican who represents Wildwood in Congress, told the audience to “remember four years ago” when Trump was in office.
“There is nothing wrong with saying you believe in America,” said the congressman, a former Democrat who switched parties in 2020 and became a vocal Trump backer.
He also touted Trump’s stance on immigration to a cheering crowd.
“Immigration is a good thing,” Van Drew said at one point. “Legal immigration.”
Spotted along the boardwalk were a few people wearing T-shirts that read “Proud Boys,” a right-wing group the Anti-Defamation League has labeled as extremist. Among the crowds gathered at the entrance to the beach awaiting Trump’s arrival were three masked Proud Boys members.
Police said no permits for counterprotests were filed with Wildwood.
NJ Advance Media staff writers Spencer Kent and Andre Malok and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Eric Conklin may be reached at econklin@njadvancemedia.com.
Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com.
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