Trump wrapped up his speech with a familiar message: “We are one movement, one people, one family, and one glorious American nation. So with the help of everyone here today and citizens all across our land. We will make America powerful again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again, and we will make America great again. Thank you, Michigan. God bless you all.”

The former president is ending his speech with classical music playing in the background, and a silent crowd watching eagerly.

Trump took aim at his rival of the evening: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Removing Whitmer, a Democrat, from office, according to Trump, is “the first step to restoring public safety.”

Focusing on her COVID-19 pandemic response, Trump said: “Don’t forget the only one that benefited was her husband. Her husband was a big beneficiary. Gretchen Whitmer is one of the most radical most sinister governors in America, you know that she cruelly impose the most brutal lockdowns in the entire country causing Michigan to lose more jobs than any other state in the union.”

Trump repeated a story he’s told at many rallies before, of how he asked Chinese President Xi Jinping why his country did not have a drug problem, to which he replied that his nation had the death penalty for drug dealers. Trump also quoted Xi as telling him that China did not offer due process protections to defendants, so alleged drug dealers were given “quick trials” that delivered guilty verdicts.

“If we did that in our country- they do it in Singapore, they do it in other countries, every crime, every country that does it has no drug problem. They don’t have drug problems in Singapore and others. And it sounds horrible using that term. The death penalty…But you have to have the death penalty and if you don’t do that, you’re gonna have crime, it’s gonna go through the roof.”

“If you have a meaningful death penalty, meaningful and fair and all of that,” Trump said, offering a difference in policy from Xi by providing due process. “If you have a meaningful death penalty for drug dealers and traffickers, but if you have a meaningful death penalty, crime in our country will go down 80 to 85% in one day.”

Trump poked fun at Vice President Kamala Harris for mistakenly touting the U.S. “alliance with the Republic of North Korea” while speaking from Korea’s Demilitarized Zone this week.

He made the comments after touting his rising poll numbers in the wake of the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in August, saying: “We have we got up a lot. But we’re leading against all Republicans by more than 50 points, every one of them you know, you hear about different Republicans. We’re beating Biden by five points or more. And we’re beating Kamala Harris, the North Korea sympathizer. She’s a sympathizer. We’re beating her by 10 points.

“Now she likes North Korea and I think that was one of the worst mistakes of all. Can you imagine?” he continued, noting what occurred. “They’re standing on the border, North Korea’s over there shooting off missiles as she’s speaking. They shut out two missiles.”

He added that his administration “got along great with Kim Jong Un.”

Harris made the gaffe at the start of her remarks Thursday, and did not correct herself to say South Korea instead. She did, though, go on to celebrate the U.S.’s “ironclas” commitment to the defense of South Korea amid threats from the North.

Trump pulled no punches when talking about the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in August and the coinciding Justice Department investigation into his handling of classified documents.

He began by pointing out how “they lie to the FISA court. They lied to Congress. They illegally broke into, in my opinion, illegally broke to my home in Florida in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Can you imagine that?”

He also accused “dozens and dozens of armed FBI agents” of “violating the Presidential Records Act and so much more.”

Those agents “violated,” he said, “very simply, the Presidential Records Act.

Offering a new excuse, he claimed that prior U.S. heads of state had also mishandled documents but faced no legal ramifications from DoJ.

“You have to see, Bush had a warehouse, Bush Sr. had a warehouse. Crooked Hillary Clinton deleted 33,000 emails, many of which were classified. Hillary Clinton [and] Bill Clinton lost a lot of stuff. Obama- didn’t they say 33 million pages of stuff? God where is it? What happened?”

Despite the scores of investigations into himself, his handling of his 2020 election loss, and his businesses, Trump argued the probes were a net positive for his political fate.

“Yet with all of the persecution and prosecution that we’ve gone through — we, I say we, all of us together — we are leading everyone in the polls by a lot more than ever before.”

Trump told the crowd he would like to “thank a great woman named Ginni Thomas” for standing strong against the Jan. 6 House select committee and maintaining that she believes the 2020 election was stolen through widespread voter fraud.

Trump praised Thomas, who spoke to the House committee this past week, “for her courage and strength,” and for telling the panel “that she still believes the 2020 election was stolen.”

“She didn’t say, ‘Oh, well, I’d like not to get involved. Of course it was a wonderful election,'” the former president continued, “It was a rigged and solid election. She didn’t wait and sit around and say ‘Well, let me give you a maybe a different answer that I’ve been saying for the last two years now.’ She didn’t wilt under pressure, like so many others that are weak people and stupid people because once they wilt, they end up being a witness for a long time. She said what she thought, she said what she believed in. Too many Republicans are weak, and they’re afraid and they better get strong fast.”

Taking aim at Democrats, Trump argued that the Left is “waging a full scale assault on the most sacred rights and liberties of the American people. They’re trying to wipe out free speech, crush religious liberty, confiscate your guns, indoctrinate your children, criminalize dissent, and even put their political opponents in prison. I think they’d like to see me in prison. Can you imagine?”

“The Biden administration is completely corrupt, jailing political opponents just like the Soviet Union, now Russia,” he continued. “Think of it: we’re being compared to that by many, many people because of what’s happening with the criminal justice system. I think it’s the criminal injustice system.”

The former president has taken the stage in Warren, Michigan to kick off his Saturday evening rally. He began his speech offering his condolences and support for the state of Florida after Hurricane Ian.

“Before we begin,” Trump said. “I want to send profound sympathy and our immense support to everyone back in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, who were struck by this brutal wrath of the hurricane.”