Trump blames Biden for violence in Israel at Wolfeboro rally

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WOLFEBORO, NH — Speaking before a jam-packed Kingswood Arts Center Monday, former President Donald Trump blamed President Joe Biden for conflict in Israel that erupted over the weekend.

“The attack on Israel would never, ever have happened,” Trump said. “We are in very, very grave danger of having a World War III, and this will be a war of obliteration.”

Trump painted Biden as diplomatically flimsy, stating the “peace through strength” approach he had undertaken during his own presidency had been abandoned.

Trump also folded recent events into his historic stance on migrants as a security threat.

“People pouring into our country, and we have no idea from where they come, the same people, in many cases, the same people that just attacked Israel.”

Over the course of his 90 minutes on the stump, Trump alighted on issues with relevance in the Granite State  — energy prices and substance abuse. For the former, he criticized moves toward renewable energy and offshore wind and championed the American fossil fuel industry, saying he would be “the American energy president.” For the latter, he emphasized his longstanding call to give all drug dealers the death penalty.

Staple issues for Trump since his rise to political prominence still earned him raucous applause from attendees. His reading of Al Wilson’s “The Snake” — which he has used as a dark and unsubtle metaphor for his view of immigration since his first campaign in 2016 — saw phone screens across the crowd recording video.

The 850-seat venue and its lobby were packed with supporters, and most of those who had lined up to see the Republican frontrunner speak were turned away after it filled. While many who attended were either from the area or staying with relatives who live here, others came from across the country to see the rally.

Alan Gottlieb — a Bronx, New York, resident who said he has been to more than 30 Trump rallies, including several in New Hampshire — remarked that the fewer than 1,000-seat capacity auditorium was the “coziest” venue he had ever seen the former president in.

Gottlieb, with his service dog Anarchy at his hip, was anxious to hear what Trump had to say about the violence in Israel.

“This wouldn’t be happening if Trump were president,” Gottlieb said, nearly word-for-word matching Trump’s later remarks. Gottlieb called Trump a peacemaker, and predicted he would take a more amplified approach to governing if elected again. “He was bamboozled the first time around” by establishment politicians who tried to talk him out of his goals, Gottlieb said.

Ohioan Emma Elliott, sporting a “Wanted for a second term” Trump mugshot T-shirt, cited half a dozen times she had attended Trump rallies in the past, two of them in the Granite State.

She was most excited to hear Trump speak about immigration and the southern border. She was not sure what he would have to say about the violence in Israel, but was confident in the solutions he would propose.

“I don’t know what he’s going to say,” Elliott remarked. “But what has happened is horrendous.”

The rally opened with introductions made by Trump’s state campaign manager and former state GOP Chair Steve Stepanek, current GOP Vice Chair Ryan Terrell and former U.S. Sen. Bob Smith. Karoline Leavitt, the unsuccessful GOP nominee for New Hampshire’s first congressional district seat in 2022 and a former Trump staffer, sat in the front row and received several callouts from her former boss during his remarks. The appearance in Wolfeboro Monday was one of a few Trump has made in the northern half of the state in this campaign.

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