Donald Trump Reveals First Rally of 2022 As He Plots Comeback Year
Donald Trump has announced his first rally of 2022 will be held in Arizona, in what could be another busy year for the former president.
The event, announced by his Save America's Political Action Committee, will take place at the Country Thunder Festival Grounds in Florence on January 15.
The rally will be the former president's first since he appeared at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines in October. He last appeared in Arizona at a rally hosted by Turning Point Action in Phoenix on July 24.
Trump and his supporters have considered Arizona a key focal point in their continued push of the "big lie" narrative that the 2020 election was rigged in favor of President Joe Biden.
For weeks, the state's most populous region Maricopa County was the subject of a conspiracy theory-led audit as part of attempts to overturn the election results in favor of Trump due to false claims of voter fraud.
In September, the audit not only found that Biden still won the state of Arizona by roughly 10,500 votes, but Trump had actually received fewer votes than the original count.
Trump's rally at the Country Thunder Festival Grounds in Florence will take place nine days after he is set to hold a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on January 6—the one year anniversary of the insurrection by his supporters at the Capitol—where he is expected to continue to falsely claim he lost the last election due to widespread voter fraud.
"Remember, the insurrection took place on November 3rd, it was the completely unarmed protest of the rigged election that took place on January 6th," Trump said in a statement announcing the conference.
Elsewhere, the biggest plan for Trump in 2022 could be the announcement he is set to run again for president, something he has been teasing but not given a firm answer to almost immediately since he left office in January.
Polls have frequently found that Trump is the preferred choice of Republicans of any potential GOP candidate for the 2024 election.
Trump is also hoping that he will be able to launch his new social media network by early 2022.
The Truth Social platform was announced by Trump in October after he was banned from all major social media sites in the wake of the January 6 attack. The former president's previous attempts to replace his social media presence with his "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump" blog shut down after just a few weeks due to low readership.
The launch of the new social media site could hit a roadblock as the planned merger between Trump Media & Technology Group and shell company, Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC), is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as well as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).
The investigation is reportedly looking into whether Trump's media group held talks with the special purpose acquisition company before it went public.
Upon the announcement of the merger, the value of DWAC's stock rose from around $10 to as high as $175.
DWAC said in court filings that the SEC has not concluded from its review that anyone violated the law or that the SEC has a "negative opinion of DWAC or any person, event, or security." The company said that the FINRA inquiry "should not be construed" as an indication it has found any violations.
