‘Greatest threat’: Trump returns to Correspondents Dinner shooting scene and lets his foes have it

‘Greatest threat’: Trump returns to Correspondents Dinner shooting scene and lets his foes have it President signals intent to make national election about three House candidates in New York - Bookmark - CommentsGo to comments A quarter-century after the September 11th attacks and eight decades after the end of World War II, President Donald Trump claims the “greatest threat” ever faced by the United States is not China, Russia or another foreign enemy, but a trio of House candidates in his former home state of New York. Speaking at the Washington, D.C. Hilton exactly two months to the day his last appearance there at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was cut short after an assassination attempt, Trump told attendees at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to the Majority conference that they had to “stop this horrible threat of cancer that's permeating our country called communism.” He was referring not to the peril of the Chinese Communist Party or the former Soviet Union, but to three Democratic candidates for New York House seats who won primary victories this past Tuesday after being endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani: Darializa Avila Chevalier, Claire Valdez and Brad Lander. None is an actual communist, but all three are aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America and identify as Democratic Socialists rather than as mainstream Democrats. If they win this year’s general election in November, none will be particularly powerful or influential as freshman members of a body that largely operates on seniority. Yet Trump told his audience at the right-wing religious conference that the choice of voters in three House districts in the city where he spent most of his life amounted to “the greatest threat to our country since its founding” and warned that allowing Democrats to win the November election would lead to the end of life in this country as they know it. “These ruthless communists will attack all religions, but in particular Christianity. They always do,” he said. “They will close your churches in this country, they go communist and they're trying to. They will kill your people, and that's what they're about, they want to end religion, they have to end religion, because their ideology doesn't work if you have strong religion.” “There will be no food, there will be no housing, there will be no military, there will be no law and order, there will be no nothing. There will be no nothing. You'll be a third world inhabitant in every way, and everyone will suffer or die,” he continued, adding later that the New York House candidates in question are “animals” and “people that want to destroy our country” while warning that it is “all too easy to get elected.” Trump also found harbingers of doom in the New York City Rent Stabilization Board’s decision to enact a two-year freeze in rent increases for the relatively small number of rent-controlled apartments left in his former hometown. The policy, which was approved earlier this week, fulfills a major campaign promise of Mamdani’s. The president claimed the board members had been “swayed” by the primary election results and were now acting out of fear to essentially “confiscate” landlords’ property by not permitting them to increase rents. He then suggested that the move would lead to the downfall of America itself. “What the mayor doesn't say is that these buildings will soon turn into ghettos and slums, and that everybody will continue leaving New York, and as this spreads throughout the country, very much like an uncontrollable form of cancer, the country itself will be taken down — it will be third world, strictly third world,” he said. Trump added that Republicans “have to win this election” because “everything” his audience of religious activists held dear would be at risk if his party isn’t permitted to maintain an iron grip on Washington in perpetuity. It was then that he pivoted to making his pitch for the partisan voting restriction package he has obsessed over for months, the bill he calls the “Save America Act.” The proposed legislation would ban most postal balloting and make it far more difficult for Americans who lack passports or certified birth certificates to register to vote — and it would effectively disenfranchise millions of married women who have changed their names. But Trump has repeatedly demanded that Congress enact the bill and has explicitly said it would prevent Democrats from winning in the November midterms. Yet he has faced resistance from even some Republican senators from rural states that rely heavily on voting by mail. He went so far as to call one of them out by name — Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski — and encouraged his followers to harass her, telling them to “call her and tell her to get on the ball” before complaining about California’s election process and making false claims that the Golden State routinely has “rigged” elections because Republicans have rarely won there. Trump has a long history of claiming any election he or his party does not win is “rigged” despite never offering evidence to back up the allegations — including during the months after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden, leading to a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol. During that time, he routinely berated state election officials to find a way to change the results — including during a now-infamous phone call in which he urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “"find 11,780 votes" to overturn his loss there. Without any hint of Irony, Trump told his audience at the Washington Hilton that such behavior is why Republicans did not win in California’s primaries. “They're going to go for weeks and weeks and weeks, and you know what they do - they cheat. How many votes do we need? How many votes? That's why they take their time. How many votes do we need? Okay, here they are — honestly, it's terrible,” he said. Join our commenting forum Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Comments [Image text:] ESITMA-FREESON C FAITHFRSEDOM COALETION FAITHFREEDOM COALITION FAITH&FREEDOM COALSTION FAITHKFREEDOM COALITION FAITH.FREEDOMCOALITION FAITH&FREEDOM COALITION FAITH&FREEDOM COALITION FAITH&FREEDOMCOALITION FAITH&FREEDOMCO FAITH&FREEDOM COALITION FAITH&FREED FAITH&FREEDOM COALITION FAITH&FREEDOM COALITION