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Pickens, SC Police Chief Randall Beach estimated a crowd of 50,000 showed up on a day when afternoon temperatures soared into the mid-90s
More: Videos Show 'Jaw Dropping' Crowd Ahead of Trump's South Carolina Rally
by Rob Crilly, DailyMail.com, July 1, 2023
If anyone thought Donald Trump's legals woes would eat into his public support in red state America then no one thought to tell the people of Pickens, South Carolina.
Its population of 3,300 was swollen by thousands more who crammed into its main street to see the former president hold his first rally since being being charged with mishandling classified documents.
Supporters behind him waved 'witch hunt' signs as he described how he had been charged under the Espionage Act.
'Me? the espionage act?' he said, describing how it was a an 'act for crimes so heinous' that the death penalty was needed.
'it's one of the most vicious legal theories ever put in a court of law. there's never been anything like this,' he added.
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And it brought the former president to one of the early state's most pro-Trump counties, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The tiny city of Pickens closed its streets for the former president, packing in supporters who had traveled from North Carolina and Georgia, as well as South Carolina.
They stood on Main Street, between the county courthouse and Biven's hardware store.
They heard Trump describe how as president he had 'absolute right' to declassify documents. And he said he was changing up his language because of the way he had been forced to appear in court earlier this month.
'Now the gloves are off from that standpoint, what they've done is so terrible,' he said.
'So I'll speak differently than I would have three weeks ago, because you never heard me use this kind of language. I wouldn't want to out respect for our country and for the office.
'But we really have no choice. These people are sick. They're sick people.'
And he called special counsel Jack Smith a 'thug' for the way he had been pursued.
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Supporters cheered. They had endured a wait in 90F temperatures for Trump, and hundreds left early in the brutal weather.
But those who stayed lapped it up.
'It's all B.S.,' said Rick Fisher, a retired general contractor, when asked whether the charges would undermine Trump's support. 'They can't beat him any other way. They have to cheat.'
He added that he had come simply to hear and see Trump.
'He just makes you feel better,' he said. 'Knowing what he can do for the economy.'
It showed that the charges had made little difference to Trump's bedrock of support in rural America, said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as she shuttled between TV cameras before the former president arrived.
'It shows Trump is going to win,' she said.
Trump hit his favorite themes, dinging 'crooked Hillary, accusing the Biden family of corruption, promising he would prevent World War Three in Ukraine, promising to 'drain the swamp,' and reheating his claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
He ridiculed Biden's verbal gaffe this week when he muddled Iraq and Ukraine.
'If you look at the leaders of the world, these people are at the top of their game President Xi and Kim Jong-un and I could name almost every country, but we have somebody that's not at all.... he said.'
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