State Sen. Brad Zaun gushed and pumped his fist in the air as he introduced Donald Trump at a rally in Des Moines on Monday night after the former president secured a landslide victory in the Iowa Republican Caucus.
“I am honored to be the first person in the United States to endorse this guy,” the Urbandale Republican said.
Zaun, the president pro tempore of the Iowa Senate, has been loyal to Trump since the beginning. So loyal that he was one of six Republican state senators who introduced a resolution last year that called on the state of Iowa to condemn the treatment of people jailed in connection of the pro-Trump insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. Zaun never publicly explained his reason for sponsoring the resolution, which the rest of the Iowa Senate quietly ignored and let die.
Trump didn’t mention the resolution during his often rambling 15-minute speech on Monday night. He probably doesn’t know about it. He also appeared not to know Zaun’s last name.
He called him the “state senator” and “Brad,” but never said Zaun’s full name. Trump did, however, take time to mention how handsome he thinks Zaun is.
“He’s a good-looking guy, too,” Trump said. “You could pay him and give him a lot of money [sic].”
When it came to Iowa Republican Party Chair Jeff Kaufmann, Trump couldn’t seem to remember his first name.
“You are so great,” Trump said to Kaufmann, who was in the audience.
“Your Republican Party Chairman Bobby Kaufmann and his son, who is a brilliant guy and he worked with us,” Trump said, commending the Kaufmanns to the crowd.
Bobby Kaufmann is, of course, the son. He’s a member of the Iowa House of Representatives — holding a seat he took over from his father — and was one of the first Iowa politicians hired to work on Trump’s campaign in the state.
Anyone familiar with Trump’s speaking style expects a certain detachment from reality in his remarks, but sometimes it can be difficult to discern what is a self-serving flight of fancy and what is a purposeful lie.
“This is the third time we’ve won,” Trump said on Monday night.
That’s not true. Trump won the 2020 Iowa Republican Caucus as an incumbent, but lost to Ted Cruz in 2016. After that loss, Trump immediately accused Iowa Republican Party officials of corruption and rigging the caucus in Cruz’s favor. It’s not something Iowa Republicans talk about these days.
Trump had little reason to complain about Monday’s results. Even though less than 15 percent of the state’s registered Republicans braved the bitter cold to caucus on Monday — the lowest number of participants for many election cycles — Trump’s victory was impressive. He carried 98 out of 99 counties. His only loss was in Johnson County, where Nikki Haley beat him by one vote. Haley finished third with 19.1 percent of the overall vote, just behind Ron DeSantis, who received 21.1 percent of the vote. Trump won with support from 51 percent of caucus-goers.
For a brief moment, it seemed as if the sweeping victory had made Trump into a gracious winner, but that moment lasted for just half a sentence.
After rattling off a few of his priorities with bumper-sticker-length phrases, Trump turned his attention to Biden.
“So, I don’t want to be overly rough on the president,” Trump said, sounding statesman-like before returning to form, “but I have to say that he is the worst president that we’ve had in the history of our country.”
“He’s destroying our country.”
Trump then insulted President Jimmy Carter, who is currently in hospice care, and invoked the late Rosalynn Carter in order to repeat his claim that Biden is the worst president.
“And you know my wife attended the funeral two months ago of Rosalynn Carter, and it was beautiful,” said Trump, recycling a bit he’s used before in campaign speeches. “And Jimmy Carter was there and I thought to myself, ‘Jimmy Carter is happy now.’ Because he will go down as being a brilliant president by comparison to Joe Biden.”
The audience made happy and approving noises, as Trump’s sons chuckled behind him on stage.
The speech was probably the end of any serious campaigning in Iowa by Trump. Given his general election victories in 2016 and 2020, if Trump is, as appears to the case at the moment, the 2024 Republican nominee, it won’t make sense for him to expend any real effort in Iowa.
Trump ended his speech by evoking a cartoon version of Iowa.
“Iowa, we love you,” he said. “You just go out and buy larger tractors and more land. Don’t worry about it.”
If Iowa hasn’t made much of an impression on Trump, beyond its tractors, he has made a definite impression on Iowa Republicans. He highlighted one aspect of that impact in his victory speech.
“I don’t know if you know it, but they did polls tonight on the election of 2020,” Trump told the crowd in Des Moines. “‘Do you believe it was honest or not?’ Eight-two percent said, 82 percent said it was not.”
“And we can’t have that chairman,” Trump said, directing his comment at Jeff (not Bobby) Kaufmann. “You can’t have a situation like that.”
Trump and Iowa Republican leaders are, of course, responsible for that situation. Trump for constantly lying about his 2020 loss, and Iowa Republican leaders for being unwilling to stand up for the truth.
Trump wasn’t complaining about people being deceived. He was using their deluded belief to call for more restrictions on voting, such as eliminating absentee ballots and early voting.
In its entrance polling, CNN found 66 percent of Republicans attending a caucus believed Biden’s win in 2020 wasn’t legitimate. Breaking down those responses by candidate, the highest percentage of election deniers — 69 percent — was found among Trump supporters. Pluralities of the other candidates also said Biden was not legitimately elected, with two exceptions. Fifty-three percent of Haley supporters told CNN Biden was legitimately elected.
The other exception was Asa Hutchinson, but that’s just because CNN couldn’t find any Hutchinson supporters to survey. The former Arkansas governor, who has been steadily critical of Trump, dropped out of the race on Monday night, after winning just 191 votes, or 0.2 percent of the total.
