Former President Donald J. Trump announced his latest attack on frozen supporters at a Michigan rally on Saturday night, a day after a New York judge imposed a fine of about $355 million on him, plus interest in a civil fraud case. He spoke out about his legal defeat.
Mr. Trump, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, denied conspiring to manipulate his assets, but Judge Arthur F. Engoron found him responsible in the ruling, ruling that Mr. He acknowledged that his entire cash stockpile could disappear. .
“This judge is a lunatic,” he said during the opening salvo of a rally inside an airport hangar in Oakland County, about 30 miles from Detroit.
Trump used a similar attack against New York Attorney General Letitia James, whom he accused of exaggerating his wealth in a long-running lawsuit. Mr. Trump, barred by a judge from holding top jobs at New York companies, including parts of his own Trump Organization, for three years, has denounced the judicial system and said he is being persecuted.
Trump's visit to Michigan coincided with the first day of early voting in the state. For the first time in the state, the Republican Party is using both primaries and caucus-style conventions to select delegates.
At the rally, the Trump campaign set up large signs urging supporters to vote early.
“You can do that, or you can wait a little bit,” Trump tweeted to his supporters. Many of the supporters stood in line for hours in the low single digits to low teens to participate.
Michigan played a big role in Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, but he lost the state to Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020.
Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan's Democratic governor and Trump foil, on Saturday painted the former president as a divisive extremist ahead of her visit to the state.
“Michigan didn't buy what Donald Trump was selling in 2020, and we won't buy it in 2024,” she said in a statement released through the Biden campaign.
Mr. Trump's embrace of early voting was in contrast to previous campaigns that disparaged early voting, baselessly claiming that it was a source of voter fraud.
“If we win Michigan, we win the election,” Trump said at the rally. He continued to spread falsehoods about voter fraud in the state. “We have to look at Detroit. They had more ballots than voters.”
The state Republican Party is in turmoil, with two rival factions moving forward this week with plans to hold dueling conventions on March 2, one in western Michigan and the other in Detroit.
Both groups have declared fierce loyalty to Trump, who, like the Republican National Committee, has made it clear who he wants to lead the party in key states: former ambassador to the Netherlands; Former Congressman Pete Hoekstra.
“I said, 'Can we get Hoekstra?'” Trump said of his support for the role.
But Christina Karamo, the Trump-style election denier who has led the Michigan Republican Party for almost a year, is clinging to power. She said the Jan. 6 vote by a group of state party leaders to remove her from office was unfair, contrary to the RNC's recognition of Hoekstra as her duly elected successor on Wednesday. she claims.
The infighting has generated unwanted headlines and headaches for Republicans in Michigan, where Mr. Trump had an average lead of about 60 points over his last remaining rival in the nomination race, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. .
Mr. Trump's relatively smooth path to the nomination ignores the storm of legal setbacks surrounding him, both in the four criminal cases and other civil cases pending against him.
Perhaps the largest yet was the civil fraud penalty imposed on Friday, which could exceed $450 million, including interest. It also tarnished Trump's relentlessly curated business empire, personal fortune, reality TV stardom and image that helped him become president in 2016.
The verdict, along with a recent $83.3 million jury verdict in a defamation suit brought by author E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of decades-old rape, adds to the former president's cash hoard. It is possible to use up all of the (A jury previously found him responsible for the sexual assault of Ms. Carroll.)