Former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker gave Donald Trump his endorsement for the 2024 race for the Republican presidential nomination, as did other key GOP figures as the former president campaigned in Davenport, Iowa for the first time as a candidate for next year's election, Newsmax reported on Tuesday.
Whitaker told Newsmax's "Wake Up America" that many of the announced candidates, and others who are considering running, have made appearances in Iowa.
He added that "Iowa's first in the nation caucus once every four years is a good way to test your political mettle. ... are people interested in you, are you able to handle their questions."
Whitaker said that Trump performed very well during his campaign stop and his popularity in the state means that he could do that type of event in many of the major cities in Iowa.
He said that "Trump gave a speech, then he took questions from the audience and then he went down on the rope line and shook hands, gave autographs, and took selfies with everyone who wanted to."
When asked about a recent AP report that Trump has become the more establishment Republican candidate because he is the former president, Whitaker said that he disagreed with that assessment.
He said that Trump is "the gravitational force within the Republican Party. He is the North Star. If you are going to build a deck, do you hire the person who has already built a deck and has successfully done the job, or do you choose somebody who watched you build the deck and thinks he can do the job?"
Whitaker was also asked about Trump's Stormy Daniels hush money case. The former attorney general was adamant about the subject, saying that "simply put ... the fact that the state of New York is now trying to do this is vindictive prosecution. Ultimately, the president is going to prevail, because there is no legal violation on this set of facts."
He added that he knows this because he was attorney general at the time of the case and was briefed on it.
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Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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