Former President Trump started off his first official 2024 campaign rally on Saturday in Waco, Texas, with a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” sung by a group of inmates that are incarcerated for their role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The song, called “Justice For All,” features the defendants, who call themselves the “J6 Choir,” singing a version of the national anthem and includes Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance over the track. Trump stood with his hand over his heart as the song played and as images from the Capitol riot, in which Trump supporters stormed the complex to overturn the 2020 election, played on a screen.
The song topped some iTunes download charts after its release earlier this month.
At the Waco rally, Trump railed against his political adversaries and law enforcement – who he deemed more dangerous than Russia and China – against the backdrop of Trump last week saying he would be arrested in one of several probes into the former president.
Trump once again targeted Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is investigating a hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election — an investigation he is expected to be indicted in though there’s no official indication of if or when that might be.
“When this election is over, I will be the president of the United States,” Trump said at an airport tarmac in Waco, Texas. “You will be vindicated and proud, and the thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system will be defeated, discredited and totally disgraced.”
The former president took aim at the various prosecutors investigating him in New York, Georgia and Washington, D.C., decrying “prosecutorial misconduct” and telling a crowd of his supporters that “our enemies are desperate to stop us.”
Trump framed his 2024 campaign as a broader fight against what he said is a corrupt system, telling supporters at the rally that this election cycle is “the final battle.”
“And 2024 is the final battle, it’s going to be the big one,” Trump said. “You put me back in the White House, their reign will be over and America will be a free nation once again.”
Trump also went after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is widely expected to jump into the race for the White House in the coming months and is seen as one of the main rivals against Trump in the GOP primary.
At one point, Trump recounted DeSantis coming to him for a gubernatorial endorsement with tears in his eyes.