A week after he made his triumphant (well, not really) return to rallies, Trump celebrated another milestone: his first rally since his organization and its CFO were criminally indicted. On Saturday night, the president-turned-failed blogger held another event, this time in Sarasota, Florida. And not only did he address the giant elephant in the room, he actually all but admitted he was responsible for it being there in the first place.
As is his wont, Trump spent a chunk of his speech ranting to his base about himself and his many woes. That includes a grand jury in New York indicting the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg, its chief financial officer, with tax evasion. But, Trump posited, is tax evasion really a crime? What even is a crime?
“They go after good, hard-working people for not paying taxes on a company car,” Trump told the crowd. “You didn’t pay tax on the car or a company apartment. You used an apartment because you need an apartment because you have to travel too far where your house is. You didn’t pay tax. Or education for your grandchildren. I don’t even know. Do you have to? Does anybody know the answer to that stuff?”
Surely many who showed up Saturday could relate to a man who racked up a reported $1.7 million in un-taxed fringe benefits. And, Trump argued, aren’t there worse crimes than that?
“For murder and for selling massive amounts of the worst drugs in the world that kill people left and right, that’s okay,” Trump bellowed. “Think of it, think of how unfair it is. Never before has New York City and their prosecutors or perhaps any prosecutors criminally charged a company or a person for fringe benefits. Fringe benefits. Murders, okay. Human trafficking, no problem — but fringe benefits, you can’t do that.”
As usual, Trump blamed his troubles on “the radical left,” who were out to “get him,” just because he may have committed some crimes — the same crimes, in this case, that once ruined Leona Helmsley in the 1980s.
The rest of the speech was largely a Greatest Hits package. He made false claims about the 2020 election that he very much lost. He slammed Biden. And there was a new one: He demanded the name of the officer who killed Ashli Babbit, the supporter who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and who wouldn’t have been there had she not fallen sway to Donald J. Trump.
(Via The Washington Post)