Trump tells Kentucky rally Iran’s military and nuclear capabilities degraded | Donald Trump
Iran’s military and nuclear capabilities have been significantly weakened, Donald Trump told hundreds of supporters gathered at a packaging plant in northern Kentucky on Wednesday.
“Their drones are down 85%, we are blowing up their factories,” he told an enthusiastic audience in Hebron.
“They don’t know what hit them,” Trump said.
Trump appeared to suggest that the 10-day conflict might not end anytime soon, without providing further details on when it might end.
“We don’t want to come back every two years. We’re going to get the job done,” he said.
While Trump and his fellow Republicans are under pressure from the economic recession, immigration crackdown and Iran conflict, according to polls, the president noted that this year’s midterm elections will be “very, very important.”
He highlighted “clean, beautiful Kentucky coal” and the new jobs he said its management helped create in the construction and pharmaceutical industries.
Hundreds of people lined up to see the president because of storms and a tornado warning. One supporter was Chuck Wills, a 76-year-old Vietnam veteran who waited three hours for a front-row seat in the spring rain Wednesday morning.
“It was worth it,” he said from a seat just feet away from Trump’s podium.
Wills, who lives locally, acknowledged that the economy might be in a better place under Trump.
“There will be some pain at first [the economy] Wills believes this is a necessary intervention in the war against Iran, saying: “He’s the first person to take on Iran. That’s the price to pay. I have no problem with that.”
Wills, who is retired from working for an oil company, said the increased cost of gas due to the Iran war is not a big price to pay. “A few dollars here, a few dollars there,” he said. “But they need to get this done quickly. We’re hoping it’s short-term.”
Kentucky, a deep red state, has emerged as a key testing ground for Trump’s agenda ahead of a highly anticipated primary in May.
On Wednesday, Trump announced at Truth Social that he was running against Ed Gallrein, a Kentucky farmer and Republican opponent of Thomas Massie, a longtime Trump critic and one of the leading Republican voices calling for the full release of the Epstein files. On Wednesday, Trump called Massie “the worst Republican congressman” in a post on Truth Social.
Gallrein, who gave a brief speech at Trump’s event in Hebron, claimed that Massie was working with Democrats to “destroy our nation.” The May 19 primary is expected to be a tight race.
But even in Kentucky, where more than 64 percent of voters support Trump in 2024, the effects of rising prices have not gone unnoticed.
The Kentucky Republican party said the purpose of the president’s visit was in part to “showcase the work he is doing to make America affordable again”; These comments highlight the challenges facing the administration due to rising prices and the Iran conflict.
Trump also visited a pharmaceutical company outside Cincinnati on Wednesday, claiming his tariff regime is bringing businesses back to the United States.
In Kentucky, Trump spoke for nearly an hour and 10 minutes and was applauded by hundreds of supporters holding signs saying “lower prices” and “higher paychecks.”
Corina Petty, a nurse who is a two-hour drive from Bullitt County, approved of Trump’s handling of the economy.
“It’s only been a year. The economy was very bad when he came. He’s already done a lot of good things. It’s just going to take a little more time,” he said.
Waiting in line at 9:30 a.m. (more than eight hours before Trump came to speak), Petty thought the war on Iran was a necessary conflict and wanted it to continue “as long as it takes,” which he estimated would last about three weeks.
“Iran had to be dealt with. They are financing terrorist groups. President Trump is the only president we have the courage to go in with,” he said.
Later, as Trump was insulting Barack Obama, people in the crowd behind him began calling for paramedics when an elderly woman collapsed right behind him, halting his speech for more than five minutes.
Among the paramedics who helped the woman was former TV host and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Mehmet Oz, who attended the meeting.
The choice of political leaders in the United States today was not good for Troy McCoy, an 18-year-old college student who set out from Louisville with two friends to see the president, but he still supported Trump.
“There are a lot of young people today who see it as the lesser of two evils,” he said. “But I’ve been following him for a long time and agree with most of what he says.”
