“Can you believe I’m doing about 34 of these things?” President Donald Trump asked the people gathered in a hangar at the Sioux Gateway Airport for his rally on Thursday night. “Now, I don’t mind, I don’t mind. I don’t mind because I truly like the people here.”
The Sioux City rally is part of a series of campaign events Trump has been doing ahead of the Nov. 3 election in areas that normally vote overwhelmingly for Republicans, because Republican candidates are either struggling or losing. On Monday, Oct. 19, Trump campaigned in Kansas. On Monday, Oct. 26, he’ll be in Mississippi. The following day, Trump will hold a rally in Texas, which hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994.
Before Trump took the stage on Thursday night, the two large monitors hanging over the stage played the “God Made Trump” video. It’s the most famous of the 13 campaign-ad-style videos the White House had made using $20 million from the Department of Homeland Security’s budget that debuted last month. The Trump administration claimed the ads did not violate federal laws that prevent taxpayer dollars from being spent on campaigns, and instead insisted the ads were public service announcements. After criticism by lawmakers in both parties, Trump said his Super PAC would reimburse the government for the cost of the ads. He quickly changed his mind, and instead of reimbursing the government, Trump now says his Super PAC will pay for any future ads like these.
“God Made Trump” is an adaptation of “So God Made a Farmer,” a speech the conservative radio news commentator Paul Harvey gave at a Future Farmers of America convention in 1978. The new version claims, among other things, that Trump has arms “gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild” and that he likes to “finish a hard week’s work by attending church on Sunday.”
After the video, which asserts God created Trump to be “a shepherd to mankind who will never leave or forsake them” was finished, the president entered to the sounds of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” Trump appeared somewhat tired, as he half-heartedly pumped his fists to the music, before walking to the podium, which was flanked by teleprompters and behind a bulletproof shield. His energy level never increased during his 95-minute-long speech.
“I love this place,” the president began, as the crowd chanted “USA, USA.” “I know you’re not all farmers, but I love farmers. And we’re taking care of our farmers and everybody else. And I want to just say a special ‘hello’ to Iowa. It’s an incredible place.”
Trump boasted about winning the state three times, and “receiving more votes than any candidate in political history.” Trump’s best showing in Iowa — the 55.73 percent of the vote he won against Kamala Harris in 2024 — was actually just the 14th highest percentage of the vote won by a presidential candidate in Iowa history.
“I kept the Iowa caucuses first in the nation,” Trump told the crowd. “I did that for you, and I did that for your people.”
According to the president, without him, Iowa would be shoved to the back of the Republican primary schedule, no higher than 42nd place.
“As long as I’m around in any capacity, you’re going to be number one, always going to be number one,” he said. “You’ll always be number one, I’ll have that little extra power.”
“You know, we only have a little more than two years left,” Trump continued. “Can you believe it? But I’m going to have a lot of power when I leave and I’m going to keep you number one. It doesn’t matter.”
The president then turned briefly to the upcoming election.
“Two days from now, the people of Iowa are going to elect Ashley Hinson as your next senator,” he said. “And we’re going to elect a great guy, a real Trumper for a long time, Zach Lahn, to the governor’s mansion.”
The president may have meant to say the election is in 12 days, or perhaps he was confused because he is supposed to return to Iowa two days before the election for another rally. If Trump was aware what he said, he gave no sign and he never corrected his error.
Trump said both Hinson and Lahn are “doing great.” He added, “I looked at polls, very impressive.”
It’s not clear what polls the president could have been referring to. Polls have consistently shown the race between Hinson and her Democratic opponent, state Rep. Josh Turek, within the margin of error, and Rob Sand leading Lahn. Earlier on Thursday, the Cook Political Report published new polling on the two races. Turek was leading Hinson, 46 to 44 percent, and Sand was 11 percentage points ahead of Lahn, 54 to 43 percent.
Although Trump began talking about the races for Senate and governor, it would be over an hour before he called Hinson and Lahn to join him on stage, and allowed each two minutes of speaking time.
In the meantime, Trump called Turek “a woke, far-left radical,” and claimed, “Turek voted to allow schools to turn your children transgender without informing the parents and with no parental consent.”
“I didn’t even know you could do that here,” he said. “I know you can do it in Minnesota.”
Of course, you can’t do that here or in Minnesota. Lying about children somehow undergoing a complete course of gender-reassignment procedures, including surgery, all during school hours and without any parental involvement, is a standard part of Trump’s speeches at rallies. It has been for years. That it’s clearly not true, or even vaguely plausible, doesn’t appear to matter to Trump, and it didn’t appear to matter to the audience in the hangar at Sioux Gateway Airport either.
Trump warned of a grim future controlled by “far-left maniacs” if Iowans don’t elect Hinson to the Senate.
“If you don’t want communists controlling the U.S. Senate, which is between—” at this point, the president made one of those strange vocal eruptions that have happened at other recent speeches. He barked out a noise that sounded somewhat like “jade.”
Ignoring the sudden verbal tic, Trump carried on. “How about the gentleman from a place called Michigan? Jihadist. He’s a jihadist. Muslim Brotherhood.”
He was referring to Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan. El-Sayed is not a jihadist or member of Muslim Brotherhood, but he has become a favorite target in Trump’s speeches. The president routinely lies about El-Sayed, the former health director for Wayne County, using racist and xenophobic language, deliberately misnaming him, and engaging in anti-Muslim fearmongering.
Trump also name-checked another favorite target whose actual name he refuses to use, Texas Senate candidate James Talarico. Trump called him, as he typically does, “James Talafreako.” The president didn’t actually have anything to say about Talarico. He apparently just wanted to say the name.
The politician Trump talked about at greatest length, without getting distracted by one of his own asides on a different topic, wasn’t Hinson or Lahn. It wasn’t one of the other four “truly fantastic Warriors” Trump said he was coming to Iowa to help when he announced the Sioux City rally a week earlier. It wasn’t even anyone from Iowa. It was Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
Trump has long been hostile to Omar. He’s repeatedly made derogatory language about her, and her fellow Somali immigrants in Minnesota, using racist and xenophobic language. The president has repeated lies about the four-term congresswoman frequently, stoked anger against her and publicly fantasized about stripping Omar of her citizenship and deporting her. On Oct. 12, agents from the Department of Homeland Security armed with a search warrant conducted a pre-dawn raid on Omar’s home, and seized material. To the extent the raid has been explained, it is alleged over a paperwork error Omar’s father made when her family first came to the United States decades ago.
After some initial rambling about Omar, Trump told the crowd he had “breaking news” about the congresswoman.
“I don’t think even you people have heard this, although you might with your modern telephones and receivers,” Trump said, before repeating an unsubstantiated story about Omar that had been published by the New York Post and other conservative outlets earlier in the day, and was already in circulation on Fox News.
The crowd responded to what Trump said by chanting, “Lock her up. Lock her up.”
Most of what Trump said was just a regurgitation of what he says at almost every political event. He talked about being cheated out of a victory in 2020 by a “rigged” election. He boasted about his popularity and claimed to have created the “Golden Age of America.” He talked about changing the names of the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario, and then said, as he has repeatedly said for weeks, that he also wants to find a river and an ocean to rename. He lamented not being able to run for another term as president, because he said he could win easily. He made many transphobic statements that were untethered to reality, as he typically does at political events. He told the audience to “Pretend I’m on the ballot,” as he had for months. He repeated his promise of a $5,000 payment to every American adult if the Republicans keep control of the House and Senate.
Trump did not, however, talk about how much he admires Ohio Sen. John Husted’s ass, as he has at recent rallies. But he did talk about how attractive he finds former state senator Brad Zaun.
“I call him the Marlboro man,” Trump said. “He’s a handsome guy.”
The one genuinely new element was Trump’s discussion of a campaign ad that Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio, began running earlier in the week. The ad features the estranged mother of the Democrat running for governor, Amy Acton.
Ohio authorities stripped Acton’s mother of custody of Acton and her brother, after Acton’s stepfather sexually assaulted Acton and her mother sided with her husband. Acton’s stepfather was indicted for his actions, but left the state before he could be prosecuted. Neither Acton nor her brother have had a relationship with their mother in decades, and both have spoken openly about why.
In Ramaswamy’s ad, Acton’s mother calls her liar, claims the sexual abuse never happened and tells people not to vote for her. The ad has been condemned by people across the political spectrum. The current governor of Ohio Mike DeWine has called on Ramaswamy to stop running it.
“The ad, on its face, is deeply, deeply troubling,” DeWine, a Republican, said earlier this week.
Trump told the Sioux City crowd that Ramaswamy, whose name he mispronounced, called him for guidance regarding the ad. The president then talked about how great he thinks the ad is.
“So, I told him, leave it up and look upstairs and say, ‘Thank you God, very much. I appreciate it,’” Trump said. He added, “I only wish I could have had an ad like that against somebody.”
Trump spent six minutes praising Ramaswamy’s ad attacking a victim of child sexual abuse.
Like other Trump rally appearances, what he delivered on Thursday night was not so much a speech as it was a performance piece. That’s why there was so little actual Iowa content during his meandering 95 minutes on stage. He gave the audience what he apparently considers his best material, whether it fit the occasion or not.
It took Trump 35 minutes to even bring up the steel plant that is planned for Lee County.
“I just approved it last week, and we had a great ceremony,” Trump said. “Ashley was there.”
Ashley was there, but the “ceremony” was on Sept. 28, not last week.
Trump ran through other standard claims he makes that are either grossly distorted or flatly false. For example, he said that thanks to him, Americans now pay the lowest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Trump also claimed that gas and oil prices are on their way down
“We won the war in Venezuela,” he said. “If you’ve got to take over a country, that’s the best” because now we are getting “millions and millions of barrels of oil” from its oilfields.
The president also said that more oil is passing through the Strait of Hormuz than before the United States attacked Iran.
Trump also told the audience the war with Iran will be over “very soon.”
“One way or the other,” the president said. “It’s almost insignificant to me which way. But one way or the other, it’s going to be done very soon. And your gasoline prices and your oil is going to come tumbling down.”
Trump didn’t directly talk about the country’s crisis of affordability, or Iowa’s. He didn’t use the word at all, or claim, as he has in the past, that no one heard of “affordability” before Democrats began using the word against him.
The president did talk about allowing everybody to use the tax-free, red-dye diesel, which is normally reserved for use in farm equipment. Zach Lahn has claimed that removing restrictions on red-dye diesel use was his idea, and that he suggested it to Vice President JD Vance, who then proposed it to the president. Trump did not mention either Lahn or Vance as he took credit for the move on Thursday night.
Trump reminded the audience of an announcement earlier this week of a program to provide payments to farmers totaling $8 billion to help them cover the high cost of diesel. Details on the programs will be announced sometime next month, after the election.
“Tonight, in more breaking news, my administration is using [the] Defense Production Act to release $150 million to increase American refining capacity to produce more diesel and more gasoline,” Trump said 49 minutes into his speech. He did not provide any details, but claimed it would boost production to “record levels.”
At the 78-minute mark of his speech, Trump finally called up Hinson. She used some of her two minutes at on stage to praise Trump, before attacking Turek.
“There’s never a good time to elect a tax-and-spend liberal to the U.S. Senate,” Hinson warned the audience. “Now would be the worst time.”
Following a quick, awkward hug, and an air kiss from Trump, Hinson exited.
The president then summoned Zach Lahn, and told the audience, “You also need to defeat radical Democrat Rob Sand.”
Lahn began by effusively thanking the president for coming to Iowa.
“Let me tell you why we’re thankful for this,” Lahn said. “Because this president has been fighting to preserve the culture of the United States of America. That’s why.”
Lahn called Rob Sand “a weird one,” and said, “My promise to you is I’m going to defend the culture of this state.”
His moment in the spotlight over, Lahn left the stage.
Trump then invited Joe Mitchell, the Republican running in IA-02; Chris McGowan, the Republican running in IA-04; and Brenna Bird, the Republican attorney general running for reelection, to join him on the stage.
“Brenna Bird from [sic] Iowa Attorney general,” Trump said. “Has been my fan and my [sic] — we love Brenna, right? Such an early endorsement.”
For anyone who has seen Bird around the president before, it might seem unlikely that anyone would lavish more praise on Trump than Bird would, but Joe Mitchell came prepared to do so. He brought a prop.
“Thank God you’re building the ballroom,” Mitchell began. “Thank God you’re getting rid of those awful bike lanes, by the way. We don’t ride bicycles in Iowa we ride Harley Davidsons. Isn’t that true?”
Mitchell continued to praise Trump, and said it was “a disgrace” the president has won the Nobel Peace Prize.
“So, what I came up with, Mr. President, is a new award,” Mitchell said, holding up a framed certificate he he was carrying. “It’s called ‘The Man of the Century Award.’”
“Because this man has done more for humanity and America than any other president ever,” Mitchell declared.
Mitchell handed the framed certificate to Trump, who handed it to an aide without looking at it. The president never mentioned it when he returned to the podium.
After the other Republicans left the stage, Trump began to wrap up his performance.
“So, in conclusion, if you elect a Republican House and a Republican Senate on Nov. 3, we will do things for you,” Trump said. “You’re going to be very, very happy.”
It took another 20 minutes for Trump to get to his final line about making America great again. Then the sound system blasted the president’s walk-off music, the Village People’s “YMCA.” Halfway through the second verse, after some low-energy fist-pumping, Trump left the stage.
Noticeably absent on Thursday night were Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Rep. Zach Nunn. Both Republican incumbents are in tough races, and both have been trying to convince voters they are champions of bipartisanship who will stand up to Trump. Both were listed by Trump as part of the group of “truly fantastic Warriors” he was coming to Iowa to support.
The president never mentioned either Miller-Meeks or Nunn on Thursday night.
