On Friday evening, Trump delivered a televised speech at the America First Experience Gala held at Mar-a-Lago and aired his grievances regarding the appointment of special counsel in the furthering of his Jan. 6 legal saga.
Stepping to the podium dressed in a tuxedo, Trump remarked on the number of people in attendance, gave an attagirl to Kari Lake, who lost her Arizona gubernatorial race, and then went on to express his views that elections are "rigged, tainted and bad" until C-SPAN made the decision to cut away to other programming. In what was surely a hitch in Trump's giddyup, the programming they cut away to was U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland's public announcement that he'd chosen Jack Smith as special counsel.
At the point in which C-SPAN cut Trump short, he was mid-way through a rant about Chicago and Afghanistan. See that moment here.
"We'll take this opportunity to move on with our program schedule" -- C-SPAN bails from live coverage while Trump rants about Chicago and Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/vxqVMiQkxZ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 19, 2022
During what was heard of Trump's speech, he referred to Marjorie Taylor Greene as "a quiet person we like very much," spoke directly to a random man in the audience named Larry on several occasions, and spent a good portion of time talking about the special counsel before hopping the track.
"This horrendous abuse of power is the latest in a long series of witch hunts," Trump said. "They wanna do bad things to the greatest movement in the history of our country, but in particular, bad things to me."
"This is a rigged deal just as the 2020 election was rigged, and we can't let them get away with it," the former president protested.
From there, Trump jumps to how Biden is at fault for the investigation being conducted on his escalation of the events of January 6.
"Joe Biden is a corrupt and incompetent political hack," Trump said. "We are innocent. They are not innocent," he remarked on Biden and his son Hunter, dragging the whole family into the mix.
"I've done nothing wrong, they've participated in massive criminal activity," Trump said on the Bidens. "I've proven to be one of the most honest and innocent people ever in our country."
The aired segment from Friday's speech can be seen via C-SPAN.
