Former President Donald Trump on Friday night will make his first public appearance in Alabama since declaring his campaign to return to the White House, speaking at a fundraising dinner hosted by the state Republican Party.
Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl said 2,700 people are expected at the sold-out event at the Renaissance Hotel in Montgomery.
The program opened with country music artist Lee Greenwood singing “God Bless the USA.”
Congressman Barry Moore, R-Enterprise, was the first speaker. Moore called Trump “the greatest president of my lifetime.” Moore noted that he endorsed Trump in 2015 when Trump appeared at a rally in Mobile, early in the 2016 presidential campaign.
“He still loves this country. He is still in this fight, and I am still standing with him,” Moore said.
Alabama Senate President Pro Tem Greg Reed, R-Jasper, followed Moore. The audience stood while Reed said a prayer.
Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, led the pledge of allegiance.
Trump’s appearance comes one day after pleading not guilty to four felony charges related to what prosecutors say was a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden.
Trump last spoke in Alabama at an outdoor rally in Cullman in August 2021, drawing a huge crowd indicative of his overwhelming support from Republicans in a state where he got 62% of the vote in the last two presidential elections.
Wahl said Friday night’s event will raise $1.2 million for the party, breaking the record set by the Cullman event as the largest fundraising event in state Republican Party history.
The indictment announced Tuesday marks the third criminal case pending against the former president, following earlier charges related to alleged hush payments to a porn star in New York and accusations that he hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
The former president has denounced all the cases as politically motivated, and the legal problems have not derailed his status as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination.
Wahl said he was initially concerned that the indictment could affect Friday night’s event.
“I have been on pins and needles all week since that indictment broke, wondering if it was actually going to be able to happen,” Wahl said. “The Trump team has been very supportive. They said it was a priority and never wavered on him coming to the state.”
Trump’s campaign announced Friday that Sen. Tommy Tuberville and Alabama’s six Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives – Robert Aderholt, Jerry Carl, Barry Moore, Gary Palmer, Mike Rogers and Dale Strong – are backing the former president in his bid to return to the White House. Other endorsements came from Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth, Agriculture Commissioner Rick Pate, Public Service Commission President Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh and Public Service Commissioners Chip Beeker and Jeremy Oden.
President Joe Biden’s campaign on Friday blasted Trump’s appearance in Alabama as an endorsement of Tuberville’s hold on more than 260 military promotions in protest of new Department of Defense policies on abortion.
““No one is shocked to see Donald Trump endorse Tommy Tuberville’s reckless political antics that put our military readiness at risk,” the Biden campaign said in a statement to al.com.
The indictment announced Tuesday alleges that Trump knew he lost the election in November 2020 but that for more that two months after “spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won.”
“The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted, and certified,” the indictment says.
The indictment also charges Trump with trying to obstruct Congress in its certification of the election results on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol after Trump spoke at “Stop the Steal” rally.
Wahl said the indictment is an overreach by the Justice Department.
“It concerns me because I think it’s very close to stepping on the line of free speech and the freedom to have your own opinion,” Wahl said. “I don’t think anyone has the right to tell another person if they do believe something or don’t believe it. So for the Justice Department to say Donald Trump knew and that he shouldn’t believe something, I think that oversteps the bounds of good government and limited government.”
Friday night’s event is the Alabama Republican Party’s summer dinner. The state GOP sold VIP packages of $50,000, $20,000, and $5,000 that included photo opportunities with Trump and tickets to a reception. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, one of Trump’s opponents for the Republican nomination, was the Alabama Republican Party’s speaker at its winter dinner in March.
Friday night’s event comes eight years Trump’s rally at Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile accelerated the momentum that would carry him to the White House over what was then a large Republican field.
Read more: 6 memorable Trump visits to Alabama
