Trump rally packs small city in South Carolina show of force

PICKENS, S.C. — Donald Trump built his 2016 campaign on the ability to pack supporters into arenas and fields. In his first early-state rally of 2024, he commandeered a small city.

Taking over the movie-set-like Main Street of a town of 3,300 in the hills of South Carolina on Saturday, Trump put on a show of force not only in his stronghold of rural America, but in an early primary state where he remains dominant.

In front of an estimated 20,000 people, Trump barged onto the home-state turf of two of his primary opponents, Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott. The size of Trump's crowd — and its fervor — was the latest ominous sign not only for them but for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump's top rival, who is desperately trying to peel off part of Trump's base in this first-in-the-South primary state.

In the concert-like atmosphere — with thousands standing for hours and dozens falling ill from the July heat — Trump appeared once again to dwarf the field.

“It was hardworking patriots like you who built this country, and it is hardworking patriots like you who are going to save our country,” Trump told the crowd, accompanied by a dramatic musical score.

A woman drenched in sweat raised her red Gatorade to the sky and swayed to the music. A man in a wheelchair removed his shirt to endure the heat.

“2024 is our final battle,” Trump continued. “Under our leadership, the forgotten men and women will be forgotten no longer.”

People flocked both from surrounding counties and other states to glimpse the twice-indicted former president, whose presence in the 3-square-mile city shut down businesses and strained municipal resources. Trump seized on the city’s long-planned annual Independence Day festival, announcing the rally two weeks ago after Trump’s team — with help from Republican elected officials in the state — convinced the city to agree to Secret Service shutdowns around its main business strip.

It was a sharp contrast from the event DeSantis held in South Carolina last week — a more subdued affair where he took questions in a North Augusta community center.

In Pickens, vendors set up days in advance, and local homeowners tried to rent out $50 parking spaces in their front yards. Some attendees slept outside the entry gate overnight. The line to enter snaked through the city center Saturday as the entrepreneurial-minded hawked camping chairs, bottled water and hot dogs. Rallygoers ripped cardboard boxes into pieces to make fans, and Trump’s campaign frantically brought around pallets of water and Gatorade to hydrate the crowd.

Around 11 a.m., when Trump’s branded plane flew overhead, the street erupted in cheers. The school choir from Greenville that was recently stopped from singing the national anthem inside the U.S. Capitol rotunda performed. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has endorsed Trump, was repeatedly drowned out in boos.

“I was open,” Tena Stark, a native of Pickens who now lives in Tennessee, said of her thinking about the Republican primary field. “But my mind is made up now. I feel like he’s the strongest man for the job.”

Her husband, Bruce, said Trump was the only one who could get him to travel four hours and show up at 4:45 a.m. to stand in the heat for a rally. Momentarily blanking on DeSantis’ name, he said he liked the candidate from Florida but thinks DeSantis needs “more time” to be prepared to handle the job of president.

Trump could hardly have selected a more favorable location for his rally. Pickens County supported Trump more than any other part of South Carolina in the 2020 election, with nearly 75 percent of the vote going to Trump. But his appearance here was a shot across the bow in a critical primary state with two home-grown contenders.

Haley, the state’s former governor, and Scott, its current junior senator, are under especially heavy pressure to perform well on their home turf. And unlike the other early states — where Trump is also dominating in polling — South Carolina is one in which the former president has robust establishment support. He has secured the endorsements of the state’s governor, senior senator and three congressmen — something statewide and federally elected Republicans have so far refrained from doing in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

“This state picks presidents,” former Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, who has also endorsed Trump, said from the stage. “When we come together and show this kind of support for an individual, it speaks volumes about the eventual nominee.”

By the time Trump took the stage, the crowd was already beginning to thin out, with an apparent exodus of his supporters needing shade, cold drinks and a break from the blistering sun.

Walter Ford, who operates Main Street Pizzeria, initially tried to use Facebook to presell parking spaces at his business and considered selling pizza by the slice to passersby, but he eventually gave up and decided to “take the loss” by closing. Ford said he isn’t upset, calling the rally a “historic event for our little city.”

It was also a major disruption. The Pickens police chief told the local newspaper his officers had to study “every parking lot in this city” to figure out how to accommodate the massive crowd. And, most notably, Trump himself called into the Pickens County Courier last week to give an exclusive interview to the weekly newspaper, calling Pickens “my area.”

“Those are the people I love,” Trump told reporter Jason Evans. “We’ll break some records. We’ll break them together.”

Trump held his first rally of the 2024 race in Waco, Texas, in March, but Trump’s rally here was his first in an early-nominating state after one scheduled for Iowa in May was canceled at the last minute over weather concerns.

In his address Saturday, which was set to be followed by the city’s regularly scheduled Independence Day weekend festivities and fireworks, Trump expressed at length his grievances over multiple criminal cases pending against him. Speaking for more than an hour, Trump railed against President Joe Biden while briefly criticizing DeSantis, eliciting light booing from the crowd as he attacked DeSantis’ record on farming.

It was the latest in a series of elaborate July 4 events Trump has taken part in in recent years, such as his speech at Mount Rushmore in 2020 and his “Salute to America” event on the National Mall in 2019, which made him the first president to give an Independence Day address there in 68 years.

Nate Leupp, the former chair of the Greenville County Republican Party, said mere curiosity about logistics and how Pickens was going to pull off the event was prompting some Republicans he knew to go.

“This one being outside in a small rural town has gotten a lot of people interested in it,” Leupp said ahead of the rally. “I’ve heard of a lot of people wanting to go just for that reason.”

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Hes there when you need him: Trump defends Lindsey Graham at South Carolina rally

Donald Trump defended political ally Lindsey Graham after a crowd of supporters at a campaign rally booed the South Carolina senator in his home state Saturday.

Graham was met with resounding boos when he spoke before Trump at the event in Pickens, S.C. But when Trump took the stage later in the afternoon, the former president urged his supporters to accept Graham as an asset in his bid for reelection in 2024.

“We’re going to love him,” Trump said of Graham. “I know it's half and half, but when I need some of those liberal votes, he’s always there to help me get them. We’ve got some pretty liberal people, but he’s good. We know the good ones.”

Trump said he would have to “work on these people” later in the speech after supporters continued to boo at the mention of Graham’s name. Trump then lauded Graham for endorsing him for president early on after he declared his 2024 candidacy, promising supporters that he would get Graham “straightened up” and offering to campaign for him in South Carolina.

“He’s there when you need him,” Trump added.

Graham has a spotty record of loyalty to Trump, calling him a “nutjob,” a “loser” and a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” during Trump’s 2016 campaign for president. Graham went on to become a fierce ally of Trump during his presidency, although his support for Trump faltered again when he criticized participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.

Recently, however, Graham has aligned himself with Trump once more, endorsing his 2024 presidential candidacy and betting former Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) $20 that Trump would beat President Joe Biden in the general election. Last month, Graham said Trump was "stronger today politically than he was before" after the former president was indicted on charges relating to the storage of classified documents retained from his time as president in his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Graham waited several minutes for the crowd to stop booing him after he appeared at Saturday's rally, sarcastically thanking the crowd and urging them to "calm down for a second" so he could voice his support for Trump.

“It took a while to get there folks, but let me tell you what happened,” Graham said Saturday. “I’ve come to like President Trump, and he likes himself, and we’ve got that in common. And I’m going to help him become president of the United States.”

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Musk limits number of posts Twitter users can view per day

Twitter users will face new limitations on the number of tweets they can view per day, according to a tweet from the company’s billionaire owner Elon Musk on Saturday.

“To address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, we’ve applied the following temporary limits,” Musk tweeted, before announcing that verified accounts would be limited to reading 6,000 posts per day, unverified accounts to 600 posts per day and new unverified accounts to 300 posts per day.

Before Musk unveiled Twitter’s new policy, users were met with a message reading “rate limit exceeded,” when trying to view content. Enough users were confused by the alert that “#TwitterDown” was trending in the U.S. on Saturday morning.

The announcement is the latest in a series of major changes for the social media company, including the appointment of a new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, who took over the role from Musk in June. Upon her appointment, Musk tweeted that Yaccarino would “focus primarily on business operations,” while he would stay focused on “product design & technology.”

Musk also made waves last week as he appeared to agree to a fight against Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Musk on Friday tweeted “some chance fight happens in Colosseum,” after reports that Italy’s minister of culture reached out to the two tech giants offering to coordinate the fight at the historical site.

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State Department failed to plan well enough for Afghanistan withdrawal report finds

The Trump and Biden administrations made mistakes with their crisis management before and during American troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, a State Department report released Friday found.

The 21-page report, requested by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, found the decisions of both “President [Donald] Trump and President [Joe] Biden to end the U.S. military mission posed significant challenges” for the State Department.

Among contributing factors to the chaotic and violent withdrawal, the report found, were that the State Department wasn’t best prepared for the collapse of the Afghan government, “prolonged gaps in filling” senior positions overseas and difficulties staffing and running the department’s in-person crisis response due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Overall, the department found that the U.S. needs to better plan for "worst-case scenarios," rebuild the department's crisis management capabilities and "ensure that senior officials hear the broadest possible range of views including those that challenge operating assumptions or question the wisdom of key policy decisions.”

Nahal Toosi contributed to this report.

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State Department didn't track carbon footprint of climate summit flights

The State Department didn’t keep tabs on the carbon pollution associated with flying hundreds of federal officials to the last two global climate summits, the Government Accountability Office said in a report made public Thursday.

Failing to do so ran afoul of a 2021 executive order by President Joe Biden that directed agencies to track the greenhouse gas emissions their operations produce, including official air travel, GAO said.

The report was requested by Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who have all criticized the administration's climate policies.

“Americans are tired of bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. who don’t practice what they preach when it comes to protecting the environment,” Capito said in an email to POLITICO’s E&E News.

The State Department said in an email that the department is working to counter global climate change “at scale,” an effort that requires “face-to-face diplomacy.” That includes reducing pollution from the aviation and shipping industries.

“We have already seen in recent history that when we don't show up, we cede leadership to others,” the department said, alluding to the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, a move that Biden reversed.

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry “believes in showing up and doing everything he can to keep 1.5 degrees [Celsius] within reach,” the department added. Scientists have warned that exceeding that threshold would mean runaway warming.

The White House declined to comment.

The State Department leads delegations to the annual U.N. climate confabs that include officials from other agencies — including the president in some years. The federal government sent 191 executive branch officials to the 2021 talks in Glasgow, Scotland, and 259 to last year’s summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, according to a tally included with the report.

In its report, GAO said the State Department didn’t analyze air travel emissions for either meeting because it is still working on a methodology for doing so.

GAO recommended that the State Department “consistently” measure the greenhouse gas emissions created by flying to U.N. climate gatherings in order to align with Biden’s goal of a zero-carbon U.S. economy by 2050.

“For State and other federal agencies, the first step in meeting these goals is understanding U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from air travel and other sources, including U.S. delegation air travel” to U.N. climate summits, the GAO wrote.

In a response to GAO included in the report, State Department Comptroller James Walsh said the department agrees “with the thrust of the recommendation.” But he suggested that GAO expand its advice to include a request for greenhouse gas accounting for all State Department air travel, not just to U.N. climate conferences.

Ernst, who took the lead in requesting GAO's investigation, said in an email to E&E News that the aim was to highlight the Biden administration's "hypocrisy."

“The gas is always greener when you’re burning fossil fuels in the name of saving the planet,” she said. “While giving lip service to greenies, Biden bureaucrats are blatantly emitting the greenhouse gases they demonize. The double standard is clear, and Americans have had enough of this hot air."

Capito’s emailed statement echoed that sentiment.

“In the Biden administration, the same people who are closing down power plants across the country and forcing Americans to buy electric vehicles are also the ones flying to climate conferences and using fossil fuels without apology," Capito wrote.

GAO pointed to a report by the U.K. government that found that aviation travel to the 2021 conference in Glasgow made up a significant share of the meeting’s overall carbon pollution.

Those talks were reported to be the highest-emitting climate summit to date, according to numerous outlets.

A report compiled for the U.K. by the sustainable management firm Arup estimated that the Glasgow meeting would result in roughly twice the carbon emissions of the previous conference held in Madrid in 2019.

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Former GOP intel chair considers Michigan Senate run after presidential flirtations

Former House Intelligence Chair Mike Rogers is seriously weighing a campaign for Michigan’s open Senate seat, a move that would shake up the state’s sleepy Senate race and divert him away from a longshot presidential bid.

The Michigan Republican, who served in the House for seven terms, has told party allies that he is considering entering the Senate race to replace retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), according to a person familiar with the conversations. A second person who has spoken with Rogers recently confirmed the ex-lawmaker has real interest in the race.

Rogers has not made any plans official as he grapples with his political future.

“Mike Rogers is humbled by the outpouring of encouragement he’s received to run for federal office by Michigan friends, family and neighbors, as well as people across the country,” said John Stineman, an adviser to Rogers. “People recognize the need for strong leadership to meet the challenges America faces, and Rogers is actively considering the best way to continue his career of service."

As the former House member explores a potential run for the presidency, the field’s become increasingly crowded in recent weeks. He has argued people are looking for “steady” leadership and would not commit to supporting former President Donald Trump as the presidential nominee in a March interview with CBS.

In the Senate race, Democrats have largely united around Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) in her bid to succeed Stabenow, but the Republican side is more unsettled. John Tuttle, the vice chair of the New York Stock Exchange, is considering a bid for the Republican nomination. And former Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.), a vociferous Trump critic who lost his reelection bid, is also weighing a run.

Regardless of who gets in on the GOP side, it’ll be an uphill battle. Michigan Republicans last won a Senate race in 1994, when Spencer Abraham was elected. He lost to Stabenow in 2000. Rep. John James, who narrowly lost two recent Senate races, has filed to run for reelection in the House.

And regardless of what office he pursues, Rogers will have to contend with his past criticisms of Trump. He’s said that the GOP needs to move on from the former president, arguing that “Trump’s time has passed” and calling his political tactics “destructive.”

Rogers registered to vote in Florida in 2022, according to voter records, but is actively scoping out property in Michigan. After announcing his plans to retire from the House in 2014, he pursued a career in radio and TV as a national security expert and started consulting on national security, eventually moving his business to Florida, according to the Detroit News.

Rogers first won his House seat in 2000, narrowly taking a battleground district that set the stage for him to eventually become one of the most high-profile Republicans in Congress.

Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.

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Mayor Eric Adams doubles down on comparing Holocaust survivor to plantation owner

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Eric Adams doubled down Friday on comments he made earlier in the week comparing an 84-year-old whose family fled the Holocaust to a plantation owner.

The mayor, speaking during an interview on 1010 WINS Friday morning, justified his rhetoric by saying the woman, a tenant activist, was disrespectful when she stood up at a town hall and pointedly asked the mayor about the Rent Guidelines Board, a body entirely composed of mayoral appointees that recently voted for another rent increase for regulated apartments.

“My mom made it clear, never allow someone to be disrespectful to you. That woman disrupted a meeting where all the participants were acting respectfully and cordially to get their issues heard,” Adams said during the interview. “She disrupted that, and then she was degrading on how she communicated with me. I'm not going to allow civil service to be disrespected, and I'm not going to be disrespected as the mayor of this city.”

The woman, Jeanie Dubnau, attended a Wednesday mayoral town hall in Washington Heights. As the mayor was answering a question about housing, she yelled that he raised the rent. Adams asked her to stand up, and the two got into an exchange that included Dubnau accusing Adams of being controlled by the real estate industry.

Dubnau, who chairs the Riverside Edgecombe Neighborhood Association, is a longtime tenant rights activist. In 2015, she also harangued former Mayor Bill de Blasio during one of his town halls — which were far less choreographed than those held by Adams and allowed more organic interactions with voters.

Adams' reaction went much further.

“If you're going to ask a question, don't point at me and don't be disrespectful to me. I'm the mayor of this city, and treat me with the respect I deserve to be treated,” Adams said. “I'm speaking to you as an adult, don't stand in front like you treating someone that's on the plantation that you own. Give me the respect I deserve and engage in the conversation.”

City Hall defended the mayor’s comments, which were criticized by a number of observers for going overboard. Dubnau was born in Belgium after her family fled Nazi-led Germany in the 1930s. She moved to New York City when she was 8.

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