Donald Trump Holds First Campaign Rally Since Raid

Former United States President; Donald Trump and the rest of the Republican Party changed course to general election mode on Saturday night during the former president’s first rally since the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago club.

He called the raid “one of the most shocking abuses of power by any administration in American history” and “a travesty of justice”.

“They’re trying to silence me and more importantly they’re trying to silence you. But we will not be silenced, right?” Mr. Trump said in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Investigators recovered thousands of documents in the search of his Florida property, including more than 100 with classified and top secret markings. Mr. Trump’s endorsed picks won many Republican primaries this summer, but many of the candidates he backed were inexperienced and polarising figures now struggling in their November races.

That is putting Senate control — once assumed to be a lock for Republicans — on the line.

Mr. Trump’s picks include Dr. Mehmet Oz, a television personality and Republican Pennsylvania candidate, author JD Vance in Ohio, venture capitalist Blake Masters in Arizona, and former football star Herschel Walker in Georgia.

“Republicans have now nominated a number of candidates who’ve never run for office before for very high-profile Senate races,” said veteran Republican pollster Whit Ayres.

While he is not writing his party’s chances off just yet, he said: “It’s a much more difficult endeavour than a candidate who had won several difficult political races before”.

The stakes are particularly high for Mr. Trump as he lays the groundwork for an expected 2024 presidential run amid a series of escalating legal challenges.

This past week, President Joe Biden gave a prime-time speech in Philadelphia warning that Mr. Trump and other “Maga” Republicans — the acronym for “Make America Great Again” — posed a threat to US democracy.

Mr. Trump repeatedly attacked Mr. Biden — saying at one point “above all this election is a referendum on the corruption and extremism” of Mr. Biden and Democrats — and gave a brief spotlight to Mr. Oz and Doug Mastriano, the GOP nominee for governor of Pennsylvania.