Trump speech today now: Ginni Thomas thanked for supporting election lies as Trump breaks silence on hurricane

Weeks after paying a respected Florida defence attorney a $3m retainer to represent him in dealings with the Department of Justice following the 8 August search of his home, former president Donald Trump is reportedly ignoring the attorney’s advice in favour of tactics that are far more combative but place him at greater legal risk.

Sources close to Mr Trump told theThe Washington Post that Chris Kise remains on the ex-president’s team but is likely to have “a less public role” in the Mar-a-Lago documents matter because Mr Trump “seems … to be heeding advice from those who have indulged his desire to fight”.

Read more from The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg:

Former President Donald Trump ended his rally Saturday evening touting the ongoing Maga movement as he continues to clearly set himself up for a 2024 presidential run.

The de facto leader of the GOP called the Maga right “one movement, one People, one family and one glorious American nation” before his fans mouthed along with his vow to “make America great again”.

The rally ended at just about 9pm est on the dot.

Donald Trump winded down his rally with a vow that the GOP would retake the White House in 2024, while being careful to not say that it would be he himself that would run.

And he once again lashed out at his supporters’ Democratic political opponents, blasting them for creating a “failing nation”.

“This nation does not belong to them. It belongs to you,” he told his cheering supporters.

Claiming that “we don’t have a choice”, Donald Trump spoke at length at his rally on Saturday about the supposed need for the US to implement a draconian policy of punishing convicted drug dealers with the death penalty.

Mr Trump spoke about his conversations with China’s Xi Jinping and called for “quick trials” for accused drug dealers, which he quipped had a “100 per cent conviction rate”. And he then spoke about how any American who sells a controlled substance of any kind should be put to death, which he said would be necessary to scare off other criminals.

It’s hard to imagine most natonal Republicans signing on to that idea, which would likely be unconstitutional given the requirements for proportionate punishments in the US justice system.

During a rally in Michigan on Saturday, Donald Trump continued his attacks on a forthcoming book about him from New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.

“I had a story the other day that I wanted to fire my daughter Ivanka, that didn’t happen,” he told the crowd, calling the story “disgusting.”

“No, but how do you how do you call your daughter and explain this?” he added, as the audience laughed.

Read more from Josh Marcus:

Former president Donald Trump on Saturday offered a shout-out to the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for continuing to parrot his lies about the 2020 election in an interview with the House January 6 select committee.

Mr Trump praised Ms Thomas during remarks at his most recent political rally in Michigan, calling her “a great woman” who is the wife of “a great man”.

Read more from Andrew Feinberg:

The ex-president played a video attacking the credibility of New York Attorney General Letitia James’s civil lawsuit against him, his family and company during his rally Saturday evening.

His video came after a diatribe attacking Ms James as “racist” and describing her as “one of the worst” AG’s in the country.

The former president’s comments on Hurricane Ian on Saturday were his first since the storm made landfall in his new home state.

The devastation in Fort Myers and other cities in Florida has been evident for days, but elicited nothing until now from the West Palm Beach complex of Mar-a-Lago where Mr Trump has taken up residence.

Read more from Andrew Feinberg:

Donald Trump’s first significant shout-out of the night went to Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right congresswoman from Georgia and rising star on the Maga right.

Mr Trump spoke to his rallygoers about Ms Greene’s visit with January 6 defendants in the Washington DC jail, where he said that accused rioters were being treated horribly in “filthy” conditions.

Calling the accused rioters “political prisoners”, he noted: “Somebody who did go there [to see them] was Marjorie Taylor Greene. She went there, she went there”.

Donald Trump’s first attack aimed at Joe Biden on Saturday was perplexingly over his use of the Strategic Oil Reserve to alleviate soaring energy prices, which are resulting from the war in Ukraine and other factors.

The ex-president fumed that the oil reserves were “not supposed” to be used to alleviate surging demand amid low supply — it should only be used for “wartime”, or other emergencies, he insisted.