Former President Trump, in a rambling speech at his election watch party, claimed he would unite the country, following his increasingly demonizing attacks on his critics in recent months.
“Success will unite us,” he said.
Despite calling his critics “evil,” “sick,” “internal enemies” and using crude terms to refer to his Democratic rival, he said the time had come to “leave the divisions of the last four years behind.” .
Trump supporters who gathered at the convention center in West Palm Beach, Florida, hugged each other and threw their MAGA hats in the air before his arrival, celebrating results showing him leading the presidential race.
“We are going to make America better than ever,” Trump said in a speech that frequently diverged from prepared remarks and followed some of the themes of his campaign rallies.
He praised his wife and children, his running mate JD Vance, his late mother-in-law, UFC CEO Dana White, professional golfer Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Trump has said Kennedy will play a role when it comes to health policy, but he has not specified what it would be. Kennedy, who launched his own presidential bid as an independent before dropping out of the race and endorsing Trump, joined him at several rallies in the final stretch of the campaign.
“He's going to make America healthy again,” Trump said of Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic who has promoted falsehoods on the issue.
“He wants to do some things and we're going to let him do them,” Trump added, before telling Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer, to stay away from Trump's oil plans.
“Stay away from liquid gold,” Trump said. “Other than that, have a good time, Bobby.”
Trump called Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire who helped create a super PAC that supported Trump and used his followers on his social media platform X to boost the former president, a “super genius” and “a new star.” .
Before Trump arrived at his viewing party, a Trump campaign spokesperson weighed in mockingly about the fading mood at the event Vice President Kamala Harris had planned at Howard University in Washington, DC. “It seems that joy has left the building,” Karoline Leavitt published in INCÓGNITA.
Echoes of 2016 on Harris' 2024 election night
Forgive the Democrats if they are having a little déjà vu.
There were notable similarities between then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's election night in 2016 and Harris' event on Tuesday.
Neither Clinton nor Harris showed up at his election night party, even though both arrived on Election Day believing they were on the verge of defeating Donald Trump.
Both sent their top advisors to inform the demoralized audience that the candidate would not speak. And there were notable similarities between what each man said.
“We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not yet been called. We will continue to fight through the night to make sure every vote is counted,” Cedric Richmond, co-chair of Harris' campaign, told the audience Tuesday. “So you won't hear from the vice president tonight, but you will hear from her tomorrow.”
“We are still counting votes,” Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said in 2016. “And every vote should count. Several states are too close to make a forecast. So we're not going to have anything else to say tonight.”
