Connect with us

Politics

Four Californians walk into an Iowa caucus

Published

on

Four Californians walk into an Iowa caucus

The Californians pulled on hats, gloves, scarves and puffy winter coats. Michael Porter covered his face in a warm balaclava and his wife, Natalia, stepped into the boots she had just purchased at Costco. Their 28-year-old daughter, Deborah Stoner, pulled a neon orange Ron DeSantis T-shirt over her head and popped on a matching “DeSantis Precinct Captain” hat. Her husband, Jonathan, wrapped a scarf around his head.

Then they pushed their way out the front door, their breath making puffs in the frigid winter air.

It was Iowa caucuses night for the California family.

Raised in Huntington Beach, Deborah has served in various roles in Iowa Republican politics since moving here with her Lakewood-raised husband in 2017.

Advertisement

Natalia Porter of Huntington Beach glasses are fogged up as she enters Caucuses night after walking in sub-zero temperatures in Ames, Iowa.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

This year, she was precinct captain for DeSantis, the Florida governor. And for Monday’s caucus, she had a special audience: Natalia and Michael, Deborah’s parents, had flown from Southern California to Iowa especially for the first-in-the-nation nominating contest.

Longtime Republicans, the couple switched their registration to no party preference in 2016, when Trump became the GOP nominee.

Advertisement

Unless they flip back, they won’t be able to vote in California’s crucial March 5 Republican presidential primary.

By playing host to her parents, Deborah was giving them a chance to participate in the presidential nomination contest a different way. They could witness the inner workings of Iowa’s caucus process, get a closer look at the GOP candidates and their supporters, and think about how they might vote in November.

Ron DeSantis precinct captain Deborah Stoner, formerly of Huntington Beach, now living in Ames, Iowa, right, speaks with a Trump supporter during caucuses night at Mitchell Elementary School in Ames.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Advertisement

Natalia refused to vote for Trump in 2016, instead opting for independent candidate Evan McMullin. Michael voted for Hillary Clinton. They “didn’t believe Trump was going to do what he said,” Natalia explained. They were pleasantly surprised by Trump’s performance, and they both voted for him in 2020. But they believe the Republican Party used California only for fundraising, so they’re sticking with their NPP registrations.

In the few days since arriving in the frigid state, where temperatures have hovered well below zero, Natalia and Michael had already made the rounds — they saw DeSantis, as well as former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy at barbecue restaurants over the weekend. Michael, a soft-spoken math professor at Cal State Long Beach, got to meet a presidential candidate for the first time since Bill Clinton visited Irvine in the early ‘90s.

“It was surreal,” he said. “I’m used to always seeing them on TV, and then, yeah, to actually see a real presidential candidate just a few yards away from me.”

“I love learning about how our country works in all sorts of different ways,” Natalia said.

Michael Porter Sr. and his wife, Natalia, observe the process during caucuses night at Mitchell Elementary School.

Advertisement

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Michael and Natalia raised their two children in a conservative Christian home where dinnertime was revered and foul language was not tolerated. For civic education, Natalia towed her home-schooled children around Orange County suburbs, door knocking for local Republican candidates. She and Michael each took a child into the voting booth on election day, to help them bubble in their vote on the ballot.

Deborah jokes she got an early start in politicking when her mom took her to a George W. Bush election rally. Natalia remembers standing on sizzling asphalt in Garden Grove, taking turns holding up Deborah and Mike Jr. so they could see the stage.

“I was like, ‘We’re hoping this is our next president!’” Natalia recalls.

Advertisement

But Iowa’s first-in-the-nation election procedure is famously opaque, even for political junkies like Natalia and Michael.

A caucus goer leaves with a Trump sign after Trump won the Iowa Caucuses in this precinct by nine votes at Mitchell Elementary in Ames, Iowa.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

“We read stuff and we’re like, OK, this makes no sense,” Natalia said. “It will be completely foreign to us.”

Advertisement

The caucuses slip by unnoticed for many Americans, who are still awakening to the 2024 election cycle. In Huntington Beach, Mike Jr., 30, a diagnostic tools manager for an original equipment manufacturer, said if it weren’t for his parents’ special trip to Iowa for the caucuses, he’d “have no idea they were existing.”

“People really need to know the candidates, and what they stand for and what they believe in, and make informed decisions on election day, rather than knowing about a candidate and how they did in Iowa,” he said.

Politics isn’t as high a priority for him nowadays — especially after becoming a father eight months ago. Although he still votes and bats around policy issues with his parents and sister, Mike Jr. is “not a politics nerd.” A registered Republican, he’s waiting until California’s primary election day on March 5 draws closer to decide how he’s voting. And how a candidate shifts on policy positions is more important to him than how they perform in Iowa.

Natalia Porter, left, helps her daughter Deborah Stoner gather DeSantis fliers on Monday night.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Advertisement

“For me as an individual in California, 2,000 miles away, I kinda already know who the front-runners are, and I know the people who I think are gonna show up on our ballot,” he said. “I’m more focused on the information I need rather than a process in politics.”

On Monday night, Mike Jr.’s parents were all about the process. They trooped into the elementary school caucus location and wiped the fog from their glasses as Jonathan handed his ID to the precinct officials and Deborah set down her box of DeSantis fans, fliers and mailers to do the same. “We’re just observing, we’re from California,” Natalia told caucus chair Roman Lynch.

“Oh! My condolences,” Lynch responded, and they both laughed.

“Seriously! Except I think we’ve got you beat on this weather,” Natalia said.

Advertisement

Once Deborah and Jonathan had signed in, they moved into the cafeteria, where coat hooks lined the walls and a dozen children’s tables soon began to fill with voters.

The 100,000 or so Republican caucusgoers Monday night represented a fraction of Iowa’s 2.2 million registered voters. And Iowa, as the 32nd-most populated state in the union, is a sliver of the overall American electorate.

Should such a small state with a largely homogeneous population — most of Iowa is white, rural and conservative — garner such attention for its first-in-the-nation status?

“There has to be an order,” Natalia said, shrugging. “Somebody’s got to be first. Right?”

Wearing a Trump hat, Ev Cherryington, 86, of Ames, right, cheers as the results of the Iowa Caucus are read giving Trump the win by nine votes on caucus night at Mitchell Elementary in Ames, Iowa.

Advertisement

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

“We’re narrowing the field, and that’s our job,” Deborah added. “It’s hard to win Iowa. And if you don’t show up, you don’t get a lot of traction, in my opinion. Because Iowa is personal politics, where you meet your candidates, you know who they are — including the presidential ones.”

Deborah delights in the candidate tour through Iowa every four years. She’s made a game of collecting campaign mailers and recording who sent them, what they’re about and whether they are for or against a candidate. The stack on her kitchen counter is a couple of inches high.

As caucusgoers began to filter into the elementary school cafeteria, Deborah worked the crowd, greeting familiar faces from her neighborhood and church, and giving one last pitch for DeSantis. At 7 p.m. sharp, the event kicked off.

Advertisement

One by one, representatives for each presidential candidate stood up to give a stump speech. Deborah bopped from the cafeteria to another schoolroom, where another precinct was sharing the space. Sporting her neon orange, she petitioned her neighbors to support DeSantis.

“It’s very much of a different perspective and approach to politics,” Deborah said in an interview before caucus night. “We are the first in the nation, and we have responsibility. And talking to people about politics is important to people.”

Volunteers for Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley are on hand to give out stickers as Iowans register for the Caucuses at Mitchell Elementary in Ames, Iowa.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Advertisement

When Deborah left her parents’ home in right-leaning Huntington Beach to study biological systems engineering at the famously leftist UC Davis, she immediately searched for like-minded students. She began volunteering with College Republicans and writing about conservative issues for a now-defunct newspaper, the Millennial Review.

Because Democrats dominate California politics, “You’re definitely a lot more free in California to vote how you feel,” Deborah said, “rather than knowing that your vote matters to the point of, well, I need to pick the lesser of two evils or something.”

That dearth of political competition — and what she sees as Republicans’ abandonment of California, except for fundraising purposes — has kept Natalia from rejoining the GOP, despite her belief that Trump was “way better than I thought he’d be as president.”

Still, if a different candidate — like her favorites, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz or then-Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal — had become the Republican nominee in 2016 rather than Trump, Natalia contends the party may have had a two-term president. Although Natalia is hoping someone else will win the Republican nomination this year, she is resigned to voting for Trump again in the general election if he is the Republican choice — even if she is still disgruntled by the party’s treatment of her home state.

“They come here, and they fundraise … lots and lots of money, and then they take it elsewhere and they don’t really use it here,” she said. “They’re like we can raise it and it will go further other places. And it’s like, yeah, meanwhile my state is going down the drain faster than oil. It’s just awful.”

Advertisement

Like her mother, Deborah holds California up as an example of liberal policies gone too far.

“California is the state I grew up in. I have a lot of love for that state,” Deborah said. “What bothers me so much is I see the potential of California and how it’s being ruined by all these terrible policies.”

On a recent visit back to California to meet her niece, Deborah and her family discussed a recent debate in California about whether school boards should be required to notify parents if their child begins identifying with a different gender than the one assigned at birth. Deborah tried to persuade her parents and brother on the upsides of Iowa.

“Being able to keep up on both systems of politics and contrasting them is really useful to making my arguments more effective,” Deborah said. “I’m literally like in conversations with my brother going, ‘Do you really want to raise your daughter here? Do you think that’s a good idea?’”

“This is where I become a little bit more liberal than the rest of my family,” Mike Jr. said in an interview. “If my daughter grows up, and she can’t talk to me about stuff like that, then that’s my failure as a parent. … I should never need the school district to tell me, hey, my child wants to use these pronouns. My child should be telling me that. So if that hasn’t happened, that’s not the school district’s failure. That’s my failure.”

Advertisement

****

After the stump speeches ended, election officials hunkered around a table in the elementary school hallway, tabulating votes written on pink scraps of paper. Jonathan had cast a vote for Vivek Ramaswamy, the 38-year-old firebrand businessman.

Stumping for different candidates on caucus night didn’t seem to bother Deborah and Jonathan.

“We’re really not offended that the other person is voting for someone else,” Deborah said. “I don’t have anything against Ramasawmy, and he doesn’t have anything against DeSantis. We would both be happy if that was president instead of Biden.”

Silence fell over the elementary school cafeteria as Lynch, the caucus chair, stood up to announce the results: former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson: 1. Ramaswamy: 8. Haley: 33. DeSantis: 40. Trump: 49 votes.

Advertisement

“That’s about what I was expecting,” Deborah said. “I knew that DeSantis was in striking distance of Trump.”

“I didn’t know what to expect,” Natalia said. “California should caucus. This would be so much fun!”

By 8 p.m., the cafeteria had emptied. Deborah placed her DeSantis paraphernalia back in its box and the foursome trooped back home in the snow. By the time they got home, national news outlets had projected a statewide winner: Trump.

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Politics

Arizona school board member gets backlash after mocking board president with Nazi salute

Published

on

Arizona school board member gets backlash after mocking board president with Nazi salute

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

An Arizona school board member is facing calls to resign after appearing to make a Nazi salute during a contentious public meeting before later comparing the board president to a dictator and saying, “All I could think of tonight was Hitler.”

Video from a May 26 Deer Valley Unified School District Governing Board meeting appears to show board member Kimberly Fisher raising her right arm and saying, “Heil, heil” during a dispute with board President Paul Carver Jr.

The exchange occurred near the end of the meeting during a disagreement over scheduling a community study session related to district boundary discussions.

According to video of the meeting, Fisher objected to holding the session during the afternoon, arguing that community members would have difficulty attending.

Advertisement

NJ COUNCILWOMAN CONDEMNS ‘IGNORANCE’ OF COMPARING ICE AGENTS TO NAZIS DURING HEATED MEETING

A still image from a Deer Valley Unified School District board meeting shows board member Kimberly Fisher during a contentious exchange with board President Paul Carver Jr. over meeting procedures. (DVUSD)

“The whole point of having a study session with our community is that we can get their input and they can hear our discussions,” Fisher said during the meeting.

Carver later said he moved to adjourn the meeting because the discussion involved an item that was not on the posted agenda and could have raised concerns under Arizona’s Open Meeting Law.

“The reason for calling for the adjournment was simply that, as the question turned into discussion concerning an item that was not on the agenda, the board was moving into an area that could have been considered a violation of Arizona’s Open Meeting Law,” Carver said in a Facebook video posted after the meeting.

Advertisement

BYRON DONALDS REBUKES ‘SQUAD’ MEMBER OVER ‘FASCIST’ SLUR: ‘DO I LOOK LIKE A MEMBER OF THE THIRD REICH?’

Carver said Fisher made the gesture and comment after the motion to adjourn.

“The point behind this post is that there’s a lot of noise being made that she may have been justified in making that statement because she felt like I was being a dictator,” Carver said. “I was simply following the rules of the state of Arizona.”

He added that “it is never okay to make those gestures and make that statement with those gestures in any environment.”

MARYLAND TEACHER FACES CALLS FOR RESIGNATION OVER CONTROVERSIAL CHARLIE KIRK MEME

Advertisement

The incident prompted condemnation from district officials, who said Fisher was acting independently and did not represent the views of the district.

“The District does not condone, support, or endorse gestures or language associated with hate, discrimination, intimidation or violence in any form,” Deer Valley Unified School District said in a statement. “Such actions do not reflect the mission or vision of Deer Valley Unified School District.”

Kim Fisher took to Facebook hours after the board meeting to explain her side of the story. (Facebook/@kim.fisher.233417)

The district added that Fisher’s “views and actions do not reflect and should not be attributed to other board members, staff, other members of the school community or the District.”

TENNESSEE SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER CENSURED AFTER CALLING STUDENT ‘HOT’ AT MEETING

Advertisement

The Deer Valley Educators Association also condemned Fisher’s conduct and called for her resignation.

“DVEA was horrified and disgusted to see DVUSD Governing Board Member Kimberly Fisher deliver a Nazi salute during the Tuesday, May 26, 2026, board meeting,” association president Kelley Fisher said in a statement.

“Any leader who uses a Nazi salute during a School Board meeting is unfit for public service. There is no justification for this behavior. Kimberly Fisher should resign before she does more harm to our students and the community at large.”

WOMAN DISROBES AT CALIFORNIA SCHOOL BOARD MEETING IN PROTEST OF LOCKER ROOM POLICIES

Hours after the meeting, Fisher posted a Facebook livestream in which she doubled down on her criticism of Carver, repeatedly describing his leadership as dictatorial.

Advertisement

“We have been living or operating under virtually a dictatorship for a long time,” Fisher said.

She also accused Carver of acting like “a dictator” and urged voters not to support him in future elections.

DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN HURLS PROFANITY-LACED MESSAGE AT STEPHEN MILLER

Near the end of the livestream, Fisher appeared to connect her thinking during the meeting to historical dictators.

“What was it? Pol Pot, you know, was the most egregious dictator I’ve heard of,” Fisher said. “All I could think of tonight was Hitler.”

Advertisement

Fisher did not directly address the gesture or comment from the meeting during the livestream.

VIRGINIA SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER SUED FOR ALLEGEDLY EMBEZZLING $175K FOR STRIP CLUBS, VACATIONS, CAMPAIGN EXPENSES

In a separate video posted to social media, Carver said community members had asked why the board was not taking action against Fisher. He argued Arizona law limits the ability of school boards to discipline elected members.

Deer Valley Unified School District Governing Board President Paul Carver Jr. addresses community questions in a Facebook video after a May 26 board meeting during which board member Kimberly Fisher appeared to make a Nazi salute and say “heil, heil.” (Facebook/@paul.carver.264650)

“I need the community to understand that in the state of Arizona, the school district and the board do not have the ability to discipline board members,” Carver said.

Advertisement

Carver called Fisher’s behavior “rampant and repetitive” and said her actions were “totally unacceptable and unprofessional.”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Deer Valley Unified School District serves more than 33,000 students across northern Maricopa County, including communities in north Phoenix, Glendale, Peoria, Cave Creek and New River, according to the district.

Fox News Digital reached out to Fisher for comment.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Politics

Commentary: In Washington, the knives are out for Xavier Becerra. Most anonymously, of course

Published

on

Commentary: In Washington, the knives are out for Xavier Becerra. Most anonymously, of course

Xavier Becerra has spent nearly four decades in elected office. To some that speaks of extensive experience and a deep grounding in policy. To others, it smacks of political careerism and a long-term investment in the failed status quo.

Wired or tired?

It all depends on your perspective.

Becerra, a California native, emerged from the hothouse of Latino politics on Los Angeles’ Eastside. He was elected to the state Assembly in 1990, served 12 terms in Congress, was California attorney general and then, for nearly four years, ran the Department of Health and Human Services under President Biden.

It’s that latter stint that’s become a particular focus in the final days of California’s long and winding gubernatorial primary.

Advertisement

As Becerra surged from inconsequence to front-runner, opponents — led by chief Democratic rival Tom Steyer — have hammered Becerra’s performance in the Biden administration, suggesting he was AWOL during the COVID-19 pandemic and inept in his handling of unaccompanied migrant children, 85,000 of whom were supposedly “lost” on Becerra’s watch.

Politics is about persuasion and emotion, not rocket telemetry, so it’s not hard to figure out what’s going on.

“You look at Xavier and he seems to be perceived as a thoughtful, credible, trustworthy choice. That’s what I hear when I talk to regular people who aren’t political insiders,” said Darry Sragow, a Democrat strategist who’s spent decades running California campaigns. “So you see the people who want to take him out going after one of the words I just used here, which is ‘trustworthy’ and, to some extent, ‘credible.’”

A recent Steyer mail piece — which, naturally, features a grim-faced portrait of Becerra — accuses him of “mismanagement,” “scandal” and “incompetence,” and cites a 2024 quote from Susan Rice, a former Biden domestic policy advisor, describing the ex-Cabinet member as an “idiot.” (Apparently “bitch-a—,” another Rice epithet from the same Axios news report, was deemed unsuitable.)

The mail piece also quotes Xochitl Hinojosa, a Justice Department spokesperson in the Biden administration, saying Becerra “was not effective in government,” though several people who worked in the White House could not think of any occasion, or any reason, Hinojosa would have meaningfully interacted with Becerra.

Advertisement

Pretty weak sauce. But at least Hinojosa, who delivered her gibe on one of CNN’s talking-head shows, was willing to publicly attach herself to the criticism.

Six former Biden administration officials were quoted by Politico “reacting with a mix of incredulity, mockery and resignation” to Becerra’s sudden ascendance in the governor’s race. Critics also unloaded to NBC News and other outlets. All of them spoke anonymously.

Therefore, it’s impossible to discern their motivations. Jealousy? Ego? An attempt to stay politically relevant?

Or maybe Becerra was, indeed, a feckless, flailing and thoroughly awful Cabinet member, deserving of scorn and shame.

Ron Klain, who was Biden’s chief of staff during the first two years of his presidency, doesn’t believe so.

Advertisement

I think he did an excellent job as HHS secretary and I think the record shows that,” Klain said, citing, among other accomplishments, Becerra’s work helping negotiate a drop in the price of prescription drugs and expanding healthcare coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

On COVID-19, Becerra wasn’t confirmed until several months into the Biden administration. Dr. [Anthony] Fauci had been on the job and was quite a well-known figure to Americans. So, of course, he became more the face of the COVID response.”

“On immigration,” Klain went on. “Xavier’s part was small and discreet. He wasn’t the secretary of Homeland Security. He didn’t run the border. He oversaw an office called the Office of Refugee Resettlement” responsible for processing children who crossed the border alone. “I was in meetings where he was a passionate and forceful advocate for these minors,” Klain said.

Still, there are legitimate questions, notwithstanding Becerra’s deflections — Trump! MAGA! Trump! — about his handling of the migrant children, some of whom died, suffered horrible abuse or were catastrophically injured, according to revelatory reporting by the New York Times. It’s worth noting, however, that Becerra inherited a plan to deal with unaccompanied minors that was drafted and phased in by Rice and her Domestic Policy Council.

There is an unhappy history between the two; apparently Becerra was not alone in drawing Rice’s ire. In 2022, an article in the American Prospect accused her of creating an “abusive and dehumanizing workplace,” in which Rice routinely berated others, including the Health and Human Services secretary.

Advertisement

On social media, Rice has made no secret of her continued contempt for Becerra, a display that carries no small whiff of ax-grinding and score-settling. She highlighted the refusal of Biden’s Homeland Security chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, to endorse Becerra in the governor’s race, though it would be surprising if Mayorkas, Biden, Kamala Harris or any high-level Democrat picked a favorite in such a fiercely contested primary.

Becerra “had big things to do and he got them done,” said Neera Tanden, who succeeded Rice as head of Biden’s Domestic Policy Council and has vigorously defended Becerra against attacks on social media.

“I am not on or coordinating with the Becerra campaign,” Tanden said. “I just know these attacks are ridiculous.”

If Becerra makes it past Tuesday’s primary to the November runoff, his career merits careful scrutiny — and not just those years spent in the Biden Cabinet. Many voters are still getting to know Becerra, who is the likeliest candidate to be California’s next governor. Anonymous quotes, drive-by commentary and incendiary mailers may be standard campaign fare. But voters deserve better.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Politics

Trump floats replacing 250th anniversary concert with massive MAGA rally after artists pull out

Published

on

Trump floats replacing 250th anniversary concert with massive MAGA rally after artists pull out

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

President Donald Trump on Saturday floated the idea of hosting a massive MAGA rally to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary after numerous artists pulled out of a planned concert this summer.

In a lengthy Truth Social post, Trump suggested scrapping the Great American State Fair’s Freedom 250 concerts. He also took aim at a federal judge who on Friday ordered that his name be removed from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

“We should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain,” Trump wrote.

“Cancel it, just like I canceled my involvement with the failing and unsafe to be in Kennedy Center, because a Highly Conflicted, Crooked Federal Judge, said that I should not be allowed to spend my time and money in order to MAKE THE CENTER GREAT AGAIN, actually, far greater than it ever was before!” he continued.

Advertisement

AMERICA 250 EVENTS TAKING PLACE THIS SUMMER CALLED ‘ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME’ TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES

President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 3, 2025. (Alex Brandon/AP)

The comments came as several artists backed out of performing at the Great American State Fair, a large-scale national celebration planned on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., stretching from the U.S. Capitol to the Washington Monument.

The event is scheduled to run from June 25 through July 10, 2026, as part of the nation’s America 250 celebration.

Earlier this week, Freedom 250 organizers released a list of performers slated to appear at the event, but several artists later withdrew, including Martina McBride, Bret Michaels, Young MC, Morris Day and The Time, and C+C Music Factory.

Advertisement

FIVE ARTISTS PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP SHOULD CALL TO PERFORM AT FREEDOM 250 CONCERT THIS SUMMER

President Trump floats hosting a massive MAGA rally for the nation’s 250th anniversary after several artists pulled out of planned Freedom 250 concert events. (Doug Mills/Getty Images/Pool)

Other performers, including rapper Vanilla Ice, have said they are “honored” to participate.

In a separate social media post Saturday, Trump suggested he could replace the concert with a major speech after several artists got “the yips.”

“I understand Artists are getting ‘the yips’ having to do with their performance on Wednesday, so I am thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists,’ and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!” Trump wrote.

Advertisement

TRUMP CALLS ON AMERICANS TO PRAY FOR NATION AS 250TH BIRTHDAY APPROACHES: ‘ONE NATION UNDER GOD’

Vanilla Ice is “honored” to get to play during the Great American State Fair in celebration of America’s 250th anniversary of independence. (Scott Dudelson/Getty Images)

Trump said he was considering delivering the speech and holding a rally June 24 to kick off the festivities.

“I don’t want so-called ‘Artists’ that get paid far too much money, who aren’t happy,” he wrote. “I only want to be surrounded by Happy People, Smart People, Successful People, and People that know how to WIN.”

Freedom 250 later announced that Trump would, in fact, deliver a speech ahead of the Great American State Fair.

Advertisement

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

“As the visionary behind the Great American State Fair, we are excited to announce that President Trump will personally kick off this historic celebration on Wednesday, June 24 in an opening ceremony celebrating America’s 250th birthday,” Freedom 250 spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez wrote on X.

Fox News Digital’s Lori A Bashian and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending