‘We’re going to take back America’: Trump in Miami again hints at 2024 presidential run

Former President Donald Trump is underway holding a pre-election rally Sunday afternoon in Miami. He walked out and waved to his fans to “God Bless the U.S.A.,” launching into his speech by lauding his home state.

Trump told people to vote for Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., as well as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who he called “America-first Republicans.”

He said, “Just two days from now, the people of Florida are going to re-elect the wonderful, the great friend of mine Marco Rubio to the United States Senate. And you’re going to re-elect Ron DeSantis as your governor …”

Later during the rally, Trump again hinted at another run for office. ‘We’re going to take back America!” he said. “We’re going to take back that big, beautiful, magnificent White House.”

Two days before Election Day, Trump was rallying support for Republicans on Sunday during the event at the Miami-Dade County Fair and Exposition.

Within minutes of taking the stage, the crowd was chanting “Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up!” at Trump’s mention of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Trump blasted President Joe Biden for inflation, a “wide open” southern border and Democrats who are “indoctrinating our children.”

Voting for Republicans “up and down the ballot” needs to be done to crack down on crime and drugs and enact stricter border patrol policies, Trump said. Trump also resorted to his long-debunked claims of a rigged 2020 election, and the crowd cheered, “Trump Won!”

“By a lot. By a lot,” Trump said back to the crowd. “And we have to be very careful. We have to be very careful because they view the vote counter as far more important than the candidates.”

“This Tuesday, you have to crush the communists at the ballot box,” Trump said before turning his direction to the Hispanic community in the audience.

“Many Hispanic Americans have their roots in nations that have been destroyed by these vile ideologies,” Trump said as the crowd started cheering “We Love You!” in response.

Trump said his Hispanic supporters approved of his border-patrol policies in his past campaigns.

About 30 minutes in, Trump made a reference to the United States House Select Committee on the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, calling it the “unselect committee” and bashed fellow Republican and vice chair of the committee U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney.

Trump took a break in his speech to play a video compilation of Biden stuttering.

“We put that up and some people laugh and they smile and they snicker, but honestly it’s not a funny thing. It’s a very dangerous situation for our country,” Trump said once the crowd stopped chanting.

Trump hinted at running for president in 2024 after claiming he won “millions and millions” more votes in his failed 2020 run than he did in 2016.

“And now in order to make our country successful safe and glorious, I will probably have to do it again but stay tuned …” Trump said.

In one of the warmup speeches at Trump’s pre-election rally Sunday, the president’s eldest son said Biden has “mush for brains.”

Donald Trump Jr. used the same terminology, “mush for brains,” to describe John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, who suffered a stroke in May.

He also referred to Fetterman as “the brain-dead potential senator,” and said Democrats don’t think it’s necessary to “have a working brain.”

“You guys ready to take back your country? Have you guys had enough of the crap? Did any of the garbage that they’ve been selling you in the media and the Democrat Party actually work?” Trump Jr. said. “If you were trying to destroy America from within, what would you do differently than today’s Democrat Party? Absolutely nothing.”

In the final lead-up to the 2022 midterms, the former president is grabbing the political spotlight.

At a Saturday night rally in Pennsylvania, Trump pointed to poll numbers showing him with a big lead over DeSantis and other potential Republican candidates — then applied a nickname “Ron De-Sanctimonious” — to DeSantis. Trump famously applied negative nicknames to rivals in the 2016 primaries, including “Liddle Marco” Rubio and “Lyin’ Ted” for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas.

Also on Saturday night, Trump delivered a not-too-subtle hint that he’d soon make an announcement that he’s running again. “I promise you, in the next very, very, very short period of time, you’re going to be so happy,” he said.

[ RELATED: Biden calls DeSantis ‘Donald Trump incarnate’ as he campaigns in South Florida for Crist and Demings ]

“If these people stay in power, they will destroy the greatest country in the history of the world, and we will not allow it. We will not allow it. And I know of no community in America that understands that better than this one, for this is a community of men and women, many of whom lost their country to Marxism, to socialism, to leftism, to the failure and the evil that it always is. And there’s no way in the world that they’re going to stand by and lose this country,” Rubio said Sunday at the rally.

“These people don’t just need to lose. They need to lose by a lot. They need to get the message. We will never be a socialist country. We will never be led by crazy people. You will not take us down the road of Marxism. You will not destroy America,” Rubio said.

At Sunday’s rally at the Miami-Dade County Fairgrounds, warm-up speakers praised Trump and urged voters to re-elect Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is on Tuesday’s ballot but not participating in the Miami rally. The governor is holding his own rallies, in Hillsborough, Sarasota and Lee counties.

State Sen. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, asked the Miami audience if it missed Trump as president and led chants of “Run Trump Run. Run Trump Run.”

“He’s transformed our country. He’s not done yet,” Gruters said.

Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson, the Republican nominee for state agriculture commissioner, called Trump “America’s president.”

“I stand with President Trump for the return of Marco Rubio to Washington. We need to stop the Pelosi-Biden-Harris radical agenda until we can return a real conservative fighter to the White House in 2024.”

[ RELATED: Florida Republicans register 9 new voters for every 1 new Democrat in months leading to midterms ]

Simpson didn’t say who that “conservative fighter” should be.

When U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, a southwest Florida Republican, invoked the name Pelosi, the audience responded with a chorus of boos then began chanting, “Lock Her Up, Lock Her Up.”

People began lining up to get into the Trump event well before noon, even though Trump wasn’t scheduled to speak until at least 5 p.m.

Many more signature red baseball caps with Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan. Some occasionally chanted “Lets Go Brandon,” a phrase Republicans use to express a negative, and obscene, view of President Joe Biden.

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Panhandle Republican, was met with chants of “USA! USA!” when he walked onto the stage.

Speaker after speaker at the Trump rally predicted a red wave in Florida and nationally would defeat many Democrats.

Gaetz and several others said that Miami-Dade County, where Democrats outnumber Republicans in registered voters, would go Republican in the midterms.

As of Sunday afternoon, more Republicans in the county have voted than Democrats, Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections data shows.

“We are going to turn what once was reliably blue Miami-Dade County blood, MAGA red,” Gaetz said.

As of Sunday morning, almost 4.6 million Florida voters had already cast their midterm election ballots.

The Republican advantage over Democrats has continued to grow, with 337,185 more of the party’s registered voters casting ballots through Saturday. Four days earlier, the Republican advantage was 176,895 ballots cast.

DeSantis, Crist, Rubio and Demings likely have the vast majority of votes from their respective parties’ registered voters. The biggest unknown are the leanings of the 897,251 ballots cast by no party affiliation/independent voters and people registered in minor parties.

Rubio told the crowd that the red shift would go far beyond Florida, citing the lunar eclipse and a blood moon, in which it appears red on Election Day. “The moon is going to be red on Tuesday. Even the moon is going red on Tuesday,” Rubio said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @browardpolitics