DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Donald Trump confidently predicted on Sunday that he would emerge victorious in Iowa’s Republican presidential caucuses in January. Despite his advisers’ caution against setting high expectations, Trump disregarded their advice and expressed his certainty while addressing his audience in the elegant Orpheum Theater in Sioux City, Iowa.
Trump stated, “I go around saying of course we’re going to win Iowa. My people said you cannot assume that.” He also highlighted the economic benefits for farm states resulting from the tariffs his administration imposed on China, confidently asserting, “There’s no way Iowa is voting against Trump.”
However, when Trump took the stage, he unintentionally greeted the audience by mentioning a city across the state line, Sioux Falls, more than 80 miles north. He quickly corrected himself several minutes later.
This campaign event marked Trump’s eighth appearance in Iowa in a little over a month. It is part of his intensified fall schedule leading up to the first-in-the-nation caucuses in January.
The speech took place in Sioux City, located in western Iowa, a region with a strong Republican presence. Trump has been actively campaigning across the state, focusing on both eastern and central Iowa over the past month. Compared to his 2016 campaign, where he lacked familiarity with the process, Trump’s team has made an effort to run a more organized campaign this time.
While Trump has been criticizing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for months, he intensified his criticism of former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley on Sunday. Haley, a member of Trump’s Cabinet, has recently garnered curiosity among Iowa Republicans and experienced a surge in polls. Trump mockingly referred to Haley as “bird brain” and labeled her “a highly overrated person.” Moreover, he suggested that he appointed Haley to his Cabinet to support Henry McMaster’s bid for governor of South Carolina, which he considered a smart strategic move.
Haley’s critique of Trump’s praise for foreign strongmen and her warning about his style of “chaos, vendettas, and drama” being dangerous served as the backdrop for Trump’s sharper criticism of her. Although Haley has been subtly criticizing Trump without mentioning him by name during her campaign in early-voting states, Saturday saw her most direct condemnation of the former president as she addressed the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual meeting in Las Vegas.
Before Trump took the stage in Sioux City, he received an endorsement from Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon who ran for the 2016 GOP nomination and later served in Trump’s Cabinet as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Carson’s endorsement holds significance considering that some members, including Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, resigned from Trump’s administration following the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, citing Trump’s actions on that day as the reason for their departure.
