(AFP) – Under the chandeliers and gilt ceilings in the ballroom of his palatial Mar-a-Lago home, Donald Trump was feted by family and would-be courtiers Tuesday as he moved ever closer to clinching the Republican presidential nomination.
The audience at the Florida residence-turned-private-club was rapt as the former president took the stage, with Trump focused on his impending coronation as the man to take on Joe Biden in November’s general election.
“This is an incredible group of people,” he told the crowd of supporters, donors and party officials. “We have some tremendously talented people in this room, including political people that have helped me right from the beginning.”
The guests roared with joy as their leader — currently dethroned, but only temporarily, they hope — said there had “never been anything so conclusive” as the primary results.
It’s the King Trump show, both in the ballroom and on the TVs tuned to news channels showing the Republican frontrunner’s seemingly nonstop Super Tuesday wins.
The dress code included ball gowns and suits, the famous — or infamous — “Make America Great Again” baseball caps, and even biker vests.
“I don’t think that the other Republican candidate has a chance. She should step away,” said April Culbreath, amid an atmosphere of drinks, canapes and cheers interrupting the conversation every time Trump won another state.
“The other candidate” — also known as former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley — won only Vermont, denying Trump a clean sweep but hardly stopping his rise.
“We Trump supporters know he’s the only candidate,” added Culbreath, a local Republican Party chair.
For Greg Aselbekian, of the group Veterans for Trump, the ex-president’s previous reign provided ample evidence of how a second term would unfold.
“People are sick of what’s going on: the inflation, the wars, the woke stuff,” he told AFP.
“They just want their cheap gas prices and cheap food, they just want to have a great economy again, and a safe country again,” he said.
And Trump? “He’s the guy for that.”
– Gerard MARTINEZ
© 2024 AFP
