Donald Trump wrapped up his long stint as the main attraction late Monday night at a traveling roadshow, holding the final rally of his 2024 campaign after a streak of more than 900 dating back nine years.
He received a huge round of applause when he finally took the stage after midnight at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, where MAGA supporters waited in long lines and arrived hours early.
He continued after 2 a.m. even after many of his supporters had gone home.
“Think about it: This is the last one,” Trump said. “This is my last meeting, can you believe it?”
But his wistful memories of the ‘love’ in the room were interrupted by angry and vile attacks on his biggest rivals.
Trump branded former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is on the ballot alone in her San Francisco district, as a “crazy, horrible human being who cheats like hell.”
“They filed two impeachments and they wasted all that time, money and energy when we should be focusing on making America great again,” he lamented. While still with Pelosi, he said of the word he was considering, “It starts with a B, but I want to say it.” I want to say it.’
He said ‘no one lies like this Kamala’ and called her a ‘person with a very low IQ’.
Donald Trump held what he said was his final campaign rally. He said he had detained more than 900
He claimed she only had a few hundred people at her rally, even though she drew thousands of people on Monday.
The late hour – he didn’t start until after midnight – didn’t stop him from going through his full speaking routine. At 1:40 a.m., he was still introducing dignitaries and called a supporter from a car workshop to the podium for a short speech.
It wasn’t until 1:45 a.m. that Trump called the children Don Jr., Eric and Tiffany onto the stage, along with Lara Trump and Michael Boulos. “We have Ivanka at home, watching it every minute,” Trump said.
‘Good morning. It’s another day. I spoke before you came,” said Hamtramck Mayor Amer Ghalib, who had addressed the crowd hours earlier as Trump was on his way. He praised Trump for working “65 days without rest.”
“How can he pose a threat to our democracy, as the fake news continues to claim?” Galib said.
“I urge you to vote tomorrow,” he said, prompting shouts of “Today!” from the crowd.
At that time there were plenty of empty seats on the upper decks.
“If you wake up today without much sleep, you have to go to the polls,” Donald Trump Jr. said during a brief stint on stage.
‘Good morning. Who else could have so many people at two in the morning? Only Donald Trump,” said Eric Trump.
Last dance? Trump did a lively dance at the YMCA
Donald Trump Jr. came on stage at the event. “If you wake up today without much sleep, you have to go to the polls,” he said
Trump also made time to tout Joe Rogan’s endorsement, days after sitting with him for three hours and postponing an event in Traverse City. Rogan has an estimated 18 million listeners to his podcast.
Trump joked with some of his core fans, calling his opponents “sick” and saying victory was all but certain.
“How about 95 percent or something like that?” he asked.
“We will be there on January 20,” he said confidently.
Although he talked all day about having a grueling schedule of four rallies, Trump was determined to get through his favorite stories and settle scores.
“She’s a nice person, corrupt Hillary,” Trump said sarcastically. He was more serious when he spoke about Kamala Harris, calling her “a radical leftist lunatic.”
He shouted “transgender everything” and got one of his biggest cheers in response.
The crowd listened intently as Trump ran through his greatest hits, even though many had been to several Trump rallies before.
Several people shouted from the crowd. ‘Jesus loves you!’ shouted on. “We love you, Trump,” one woman shouted, and “No tax on tips!” a man shouted.
Trump talked about the attempted assassination of him and spoke of divine intervention
MAGA fans cheered loudly when Trump arrived
It took Trump a long time to absorb the applause, after which he delivered a lengthy speech that lasted well past 1 a.m.
‘Weaving!’ one man shouted – hoping for an extended diversion coming back together.
Trump again defended his mental acuity before going on one of his tangents.
‘If I do it, they say he is cognitively impaired, then there is something wrong with him. These people are sick.’
‘This has been an incredible journey. It’s very sad in a way,” Trump said, reminiscing.
He spoke several times about divine intervention during the attempt on his life.
“I hope God put me here to really save this country,” Trump said.
He asked for ‘the honor of your vote.’
“I don’t want your money,” he said — after a year of tapping supporters for campaign contributions, legal defense and even selling items from NFTs to luxury watches and sneakers.
The venue is home to the Griffins ice hockey team with a seating capacity of 12,000 plus floor space, and Trump has not been shy about checking out his rivals.
“I’m fighting an evil democratic system,” Trump said.
It was the culmination of a long day on the road that saw Trump encounter some of the key battlegrounds, race against the clock and contend with the physical toll of hours of public speaking.
Trump began his marathon tour in North Carolina before hitting Pennsylvania and Michigan, both parts of the “Blue Wall” that determined the outcome of the last two presidential elections.
‘I wanted to get out of here quickly. I’m doing four of these things today. And the voice is barely holding up,” he told the crowd Monday morning after a late start.
Trump’s campaign delivered a “closing argument” for his rally in Pittsburgh, but as he has done all week, Trump found ways to dramatically deviate from that.
At his first rally, Trump said he would threaten Mexico’s new president with tariffs, that he loved dogs, went after Michelle Obama, plugged his wife’s book and defended “the fabric.”
Former President Donald Trump held his final campaign rally in Grand Rapids after wrapping up his last event in Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh
During his second appearance, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, he said he was happy to see rival Kamala Harris in the ring with Mike Tyson as he was supported by fans holding pink “Women for Trump” signs.
Then in Pittsburgh, supported by supporters wearing safety helmets, he reminisced about the past. “We have people who have come to hundreds of meetings and we all love it,” he said.
“They are done for one purpose only: to put us in a position where we can be placed tomorrow to restore our country. Because otherwise the rallies are just fun entertainment,” Trump said.
“The only way we can blow it up is if you blow it up. I gave you the ball. I mean, you have to vote.”
He said of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom he wants to include in his administration: “Bobby is going to do pretty much whatever he wants.” But on one condition: stay out of energy policy. ‘Leave the liquid gold to me. Don’t trample on our liquid gold,” Trump said.
Trump’s struggle to stay on message has been evident all week, when he said that perhaps he shouldn’t have left the White House in 2020, saying that “someone should get through the fake news.” Those comments followed comedian Tony Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash” during the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden.
Former Rep. Mike Rogers, a Senate candidate, attended Trump’s rally
The arena was decorated with digital signs conveying Trump’s repeated warnings of election fraud. “Spoil the mood,” someone said.
One person who rejected the idea that Trump was going off message is Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers.
“He’s off the message,” Rogers told DailyMail.com. ‘Listen, he’s talking about electric cars. He’s talking about the cost of groceries, about getting America back on track. Everyone knows what that means,” he said.
Among those who waited for Trump at the arena for hours before he arrived was Mike Melcher, a mechanic from Grand Rapids. He went to a Trump rally in Grand Rapids in 2015 in front of a few thousand attendees. “My friend says you have to go.” When asked how Trump had changed, he said, “I think he has a lot more sensible people that he has selected organizationally… I think he has a lot more selected people to continue him.” He said they would be “tighter, stronger people who won’t be any slouch to them.
Amer Ghalib, a Muslim-American who emigrated from Yemen, spoke at the rally and made two criticisms of Trump.
‘This 78-year-old man has done everything he can to get your support. Some people say he is a threat to democracy. How is that possible when he works so hard to get your support?’ he asked.