One of the evangelical groups that helped send Donald Trump back to the White House held a massive rally for the once and future president in Phoenix over the weekend, and Trump pledged to keep the promises he’s made to them.
Among the thousands of attendees at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest 2024 was retiree Jeanne Smith of Walkertown, N.C., who was interviewed by AZ Central.
“Trump has given up everything,” she said. “He could have a wonderful life. He doesn’t have to be doing this. Trump, I think more and more, is a man of faith. I don’t know where his energy comes from.”
Turning Point USA has become one of the most political groups rallying evangelicals to support Trump and his MAGA agenda. With revenue of $81 million last year, Turning Point exerts vast influence. The Phoenix event — just days before Christmas — drew 20,000 people.
According to the Associated Press: “Speakers and attendees at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest 2024 hailed Trump and billionaire Elon Musk for initially scuttling a bipartisan agreement to keep government open. They jeered House Speaker Mike Johnson and his willingness to engage with Democrats, disregarding Johnson’s close alliance with Trump and frequent appearances at his side.”
And former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, fresh out of prison for refusing to testify before Congress, declared at the event: “The political class is infected with a malignant cancer. The cancer is bipartisanship. We don’t need partisanship. We need hyper-partisanship.”
Bannon also said: “President Trump came back from the political dead. We have nothing else to discuss. It’s only about the execution of President Trump’s agenda.”
“It’s only about the execution of President Trump’s agenda.”
Trump, meanwhile, portrayed himself as a national unifier with an electoral mandate. He won the Electoral College and defeated Kamala Harris by only one and a half percentage points — the thinnest margin in modern history — and did not win the support of a majority of voters.
“Our movement not only won a mandate,” he said. “We’ve built majorities all over the place that will define our country’s future.”
At the Phoenix rally, he repeated the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him by fraud while praising the outcome of the 2024 election that he won. While he and his supporters created riots and mayhem in protest of the 2020 results, peace is possible because he won this time, he said.
“We had no riots. We had no anything. It was a beautiful thing to watch. They just said, ‘We lost.’ And we want to try bringing everybody together.”
Others at the event also praised Trump as the nation’s greatest hope.
“Thank you, God, for sending us Donald Trump,” declared Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk as Trump appeared on stage.
Matt Gaetz speaks at AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix Dec. 22. (Photo: Alexandra Buxbaum/Sipa via AP Images)
“It feels good to win back our country,” Kirk said. However, he warned, “The transformation of the Republican Party is not yet complete.”
The event also featured other controversial allies, including Ben Shapiro, Michael Flynn and former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, who spoke just one day before release of the House Ethics Committee investigation that alleges the Southern Baptist church member has a long history of paying women for sex and had sexual relations with a 17-year-old at an orgy.
In his 75-minute speech, Trump revisited common themes from the campaign trail, including railing against transgender people and immigrants.
“We are going to end the transgender lunacy,” he said.
And he also pledged, “We will begin the largest deportation operation in American history, larger even than that of President Dwight D Eisenhower.”
He also talked about TikTok, demanding return of the Panama Canal, his desire to return Mount Denali in Alaska to its original name of Mount McKinley, his relationship with Elon Musk and potential conversations with Vladimir Putin.
“My administration will live by the motto ‘Promises Made, Promises Kept,’” he said to the crowd of conservatives.
And he predicted inauguration day, Jan. 20, “will truly be Liberation Day in America.”