Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican, and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds welcomed former president Donald Trump’s return to the state Saturday, marking the launch of the Republican’s campaign for the 2024 election.
According to Iowa Capital Dispatch, both Grassley and Reynolds stood by the former president as the latter again repeated his baseless claims of voter fraud and a stolen election to a crowd of thousands.
Grassley, Reynolds Praise Trump
Grassley, who recently announced that he would run for the eighth six-year term, heaped praise on Trump and introduced him by noting there was “a great crowd honoring a great president of the United States.”
Trump admin made big agreement w China that was impt for farmers etc but it seems like Biden admin is now throwing in the towel on further progress. I hope I’m proven wrong &Pres Biden is playing long game to get the Chinese to the table But I see no evidence of that so far
— Chuck Grassley (@ChuckGrassley) October 5, 2021
However, neither Grassley nor Reynolds talked about Trump’s post-presidency, during which the former president has continued to make baseless claims about the results and urge Republicans to conduct “audits” of the vote counts.
Reynolds, who also sought reelection next year, gushed with praise for Trump in her brief remarks.
Trump spent around 30 minutes in the rally, his first in Iowa since his 2020 campaign, arguing falsely that he had won in Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania.
“Trump won! Trump won! Trump won!,” the cheering crowd chanted across the sprawling Iowa state fairgrounds. “He did. He did. Thank you,” the former president responded to his supporters.
Ignorant About Trump’s Lies
Meanwhile, aides of Grassley and Reynolds didn’t respond to Trump’s comment last week that the “real insurrection” was the 2020 presidential election, not the storming of the Capitol by the former president’s supporters determined to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election, reported Politico.
Grassley, who voted to certify the vote, has so far not made any remarks on Trump’s continuing false claims of the election. Asked in July, he said, “On December 12, after the electoral votes were cast, Biden is the president of the United States.”
On Saturday, Trump endorsed Grassley and pledged to endorse Reynolds separately in the months ahead.
In January 2021, when asked if she and other Republican leaders should have more quickly rejected false claims of election fraud, the governor said people need to stop pointing fingers and move forward.
Meanwhile, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham on Sunday said that she believes Trump will run for president in 2024 and hire “people of the January 6 mind.”
She said that initially she didn’t think Trump would run for the top job in 2024, but added: “I think now, because his base is reacting to him the way that it is, and polls are showing that he’s very much the leader of the Republican Party … I think he is going to run again.”