Thousands of people flocked to Montgomery County Fairgrounds where former President Donald Trump held his latest rally in his American Freedom tour.
The Jan. 29 Save America rally had no designated social distancing and few masks, despite the exponential rise in the spread of the omicron variant. A line of cars over a mile long led to the event, according to the Houston Chronicle, and attendees began arriving hours before Trump’s speech. To accommodate the high attendance, $100,000 was unanimously approved for overtime pay for police and security personnel by the Montgomery County commissioners, according to Community Impact, to assist with traffic and crowd control.
Among some of Trump’s greatest concerns during the night were border security, his own political career and the weight that future elections will hold for Republicans, to name a few.
Trump’s first comments of the evening regarded the size of the crowd, saying the “fake news” would not turn the cameras around to see the crowd, to show his support.
“I was just informed by a wonderful local politician — this is the biggest crowd of its kind in the history of Texas,” Trump said. “The fake news will say, ‘A smattering of people showed up.’ The lines are going back 30 miles long, the cars are still coming.”
Editor’s note: As previously stated, the lines into the rally ranged from one to three miles long, approximately, on FM 3038 and other roads leading to Airport Road where the event was held.
Trump then delved into the politics of the night, one of the first being his stance on immigration. He said more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would be necessary at the border to ensure the safety of American citizens. Trump also said it was hypocritical of the federal government to approve foreign military presence, while not providing enough protection at the southern domestic border.
“We fight for other borders, but we don’t fight for our own,” Trump said. “They torture your children with masks in school, while they host parties packed with unmasked donors in New York.”
Another topic of the night was Trump’s response to some of his own controversies, including his impeachment, the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021, and especially his loss in the 2020 election, for which he said he believes Democrats are to blame.
“The 2020 election was rigged and everyone knows it,” Trump said. “You know who knows it more than anyone else? The Democrats.”
Trump expanded further on the left’s influence on voting, and said national Democratic leaders are still working to keep Republicans out of government through “fraud.”
“The radical Democrats are aggressively pushing to permanently expand their mass mail-in ballot fraud nationwide,” Trump said. “And you wonder, ‘Why do they want to do that?’ Well, they cheated so successfully in the election. They don’t have a voting rights bill, they have a voting fraud bill.”
Trump added more about the 2020 election, saying “many people” have uncovered some forms of voter fraud and ballot harvesting.
“Just yesterday, we had a giant victory in the great state of Pennsylvania,” Trump said. “A statewide court ruled that the practice of no-excuse mail-in ballots — put in place by Democrats right before the stolen election — is illegal and flagrantly unconstitutional.”
Both the comments on mandates and Trump’s presidential actions led him to address his concerns about Democratic incumbents, in Texas and across the country, with the coming midterm elections in November. This became one of the main talking points of the night, since Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and former Gov. Rick Perry were in attendance, along with political leaders from Arkansas, Missouri, South Dakota and Indiana who also made the trip to Conroe for the rally, Trump said.
“We soon will not have a country left with all that’s happening to this incredible land of ours by these radical left crazy people,” Trump said. “And just remember, in one year, what they’ve done to our country is not even believable.”
Trump concluded his speech by ensuring that Republicans would take back positions in state and national government and he would take back the White House in 2024.
“We’re just nine months away from what could be the most important midterm victory in all of American history,” Trump said. “Our country is at stake, and we need a landslide so enormous that the radical Democrats cannot steal it no matter what they do.”