Trump surrogates hit ground in Iowa in push to clinch GOP nomination

CEDAR RAPIDS — Conservative firebrand Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican congressman and Donald Trump ally, stopped in Cedar Rapids Friday to campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential candidate and former president.

Speaking to a sparse group of about 50 people in a downtown hotel ballroom, Gaetz attacked Democratic President Joe Biden’s economic agenda and immigration and climate policies.

“I couldn’t believe it today as we were driving across the beautiful state all of the signs saying, ‘No solar farms. No wind turbines,’“ Gaetz said. ”It seems as though we are turning America’s Heartland into some Green New Deal experiment. And it’s costing our country a great deal.”

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Gaetz said the U.S. is “blessed to have a great wealth of fossil fuels, and we ought to have the ability to have cheap energy for all Americans for a high quality of life.”

He said the Biden administration has “distorted” the economy with trillions of dollars in tax incentives for investments in renewable energy projects ”that really impact the way we buy energy, the way we fuel production, the way we achieve an efficient supply chain — all of the things that make an economy work.“

Republicans argue spending programs signed into law by Biden are pumping too much money into the economy and fueling inflation and high interest rates, which continued to moderate. Falling gasoline prices helped keep a lid on inflation last month.

“We’re engaging more people at our Trump events who didn’t even vote in the 2020 election, because they started to see how bad things have gotten,” Gaetz said.

Gaetz: Budgeting process has to change

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Gaetz told the crowd he’s trying to bring “some sanity back to Washington, D.C.” over government spending and budgeting.

The Florida congressman was among a group lawmakers blocking votes on a federal budget plan that threatened a government shutdown if legislation wasn’t passed.

Gaetz on Friday, to applause, said the budgeting process has to change, by forcing a return to passing individual appropriations bills, as opposed to massive omnibus spending packages, and allowing for a more open debate and amendment process on those bills.

He said of his Republican colleagues in Congress “have to have the courage to say ‘No’ to the Biden administration.”

“No more funding a border that is broken,” Gaetz. “No more funding government agencies that can turn against the people. No more funding a corrupt Department of Justice.”

‘Our policy under a Trump administration will be detain or remove’

While the House adjourned for the year on Thursday without passing aid to Ukraine, Senate Democrats announced they would put off their upcoming holiday break and stay in Washington next week to work on an elusive border deal in order to win Republican backing of long-delayed funding for Ukraine and Israel.

House Republicans want to raise the credible fear standard, triggered when asylum-seekers express a fear of persecution if they return to their home country.

“There’s no real review of the legitimacy of any asylum claim,” Gaetz said. “They know they can say the magic word and they get processed right into the country,” adding the country has the technological capability to secure the border and stem the flow of illegal border crossings.

“It’s about the willpower to return to the Trump policies,” Gaetz said of forcing asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are pending, and Trump’s use of Title 42, a policy that provided expedited removal of unauthorized migrants entering the U.S.

Some Democratic lawmakers and Latino advocates worry harsh asylum policy reforms, paired with the expedited removal process, will fuel mass deportations of people who could otherwise qualify for asylum.

“And our policy under a Trump administration will be detain or remove. That simple,” Gaetz said to applause.

Biden has requested added funding to focus on border enforcement, including to add 375 immigration judges, 1,300 new Border Patrol agents and funding for holding facilities as the administration works to quickly deport those who do not qualify for asylum.

Final pre-caucus push begins

The federal lawmaker has taken center stage in U.S. politics after instigating the vote to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy as House speaker, plunging Congress into crisis and uncertainty.

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He was among a group of prominent surrogates and close allies who descended on the state this week as part of push by Team Trump to shore up support and solidify the former president’s dominant lead as the Republican presidential front-runner a month out from the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses, which will kickoff the GOP presidential nominating contest.

Ben Carson, the former president’s secretary of housing and urban development, is scheduled to deliver remarks and kick off a Team Trump Iowa Faith Tour on Tuesday in Sioux City.

“There’s no other group coming to save this nation,” Gaetz told the crowd Friday. “We have to unify as patriots, and we have to know the stakes in what is before us,” and that Iowa GOP caucusgoers are “at the tip of the spear.

Trump gave a speech in Coralville on Wednesday, before planned stops in New Hampshire and Nevada, second and third on the primary calendar, respectively.

The former president is scheduled to return to Iowa on Tuesday for a speech in Waterloo. That will mark his fifth campaign stop in Iowa this month, as his campaign looks to convert his massive popularity among conservatives in the state into a strong showing at the caucuses.

Trump enters the final stretch to the Iowa caucuses buoyed by recent state polling that shows he has strengthened his already commanding lead over former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in Iowa.

And Trump’s allies in the Republican-led House of Representatives, including Gaetz, have approved a formal impeachment inquiry of Democratic President Joe Biden that could have ramifications for Biden’s campaign even as their investigations into the financial dealings of Biden and his family thus far have failed to produce evidence of misconduct or criminal wrongdoing by the president.

Trump faces criminal indictments that amount to more than 90 felony charges, including criminal charges that include conspiracy to defraud the United States and witness tampering over efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Gaetz is reportedly facing a House Ethics Committee inquiry. He has been under investigation since 2021 over allegations he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, converted campaign funds to personal use and accepted impermissible gifts under House rules, among other allegations.

In February, the Justice Department decided not to bring charges against Gaetz in a probe that included allegations involving sex trafficking and sex with a minor. Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

‘He’s the only one willing to fight for Republicans’

Jim Young, 70, of Cedar Rapids, said he will caucus for Trump, same as he did in 2016.

“I just feel that he’s got the experience from being president before, and I’m also one of those … election deniers,” Young said. “I don’t believe that he lost in 2020.”

Dozens of postelection ballot reviews and failed lawsuits across the country have found no evidence of widespread fraud that affected the outcome of the 2020 election.

Young also dismissed the multiple criminal indictments Trump faces as “fictitious,” and said it only reinforces his support of the former president.

“He’s the only one willing to fight for the Republicans like Democrats fight for their own,” he said. “They’re really persecuting him and he shouldn’t be the subject of that persecution.”

Should Trump be convicted, Young said “we’re still voting for him no matter what.”

“If he’s not on the ballot, we’ll write his name in,” Young said.

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com