Trump says there is “no way” Iowa will vote against him because he falsified the city’s name during a campaign stop in the state

Donald Trump has predicted he will win the Republican presidential primary in Iowa in January – disregarding his advisers’ warning not to overstate expectations.

The former president’s confidence on Sunday came despite the fact that he greeted his Iowa audience in Sioux City with the wrong name. He named the place “Sioux Falls,” which is actually a city in South Dakota.

“I go around saying, ‘Of course we’re going to win Iowa.'” “My people said you can’t assume that,” Trump told his audience at the lavish Orpheum Theater in Sioux City, Iowa.

“There is no way Iowa is going to vote against Trump,” he said, citing the economic benefits to agricultural states from the tariffs his administration imposed on China.

Former President Donald Trump dances on stage during a campaign rally on October 29, 2023 in Sioux City, Iowa

The audience reacts as former President Donald Trump leaves the stage after a campaign rally. Donald Trump has predicted he would win the Republican presidential primary in Iowa in January, brushing aside warnings from his advisers not to overstate expectations

And yet, as Trump took the stage, he warmly greeted a city more than 80 miles north and across the state line from South Dakota. He said, ‘Hello to a place where we did very well, Sioux Falls.’ Thank you very much.’

A few minutes later he noticed the faux pas and corrected himself.

It was Trump’s eighth campaign rally in Iowa in just over a month and part of the former president’s accelerated campaign program ahead of the nation’s first caucuses in January.

Trump’s speech in Sioux City, the heart of Republican-heavy western Iowa, followed last month’s events in eastern and central Iowa, where he drew thousands of people as his team tried to mount a more organized campaign than in 2016.

At the time, Trump — a prominent real estate mogul — was unfamiliar with the process.

While Trump has been attacking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for months, the former president on Sunday intensified his criticism of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, a member of Trump’s Cabinet, as she sparked new curiosity and a surge in Republicans in Iowa polls have aroused.

Trump mocked Haley, who is also a former governor of South Carolina, for saying after leaving office at the United Nations that she would not run for president if Trump also did so in 2024.

It was Trump’s eighth campaign rally in Iowa in just over a month and part of the former president’s accelerated campaign program ahead of the nation’s first caucuses in January

Crowds listened to Trump’s speech on Sunday

Trump’s speech in Sioux City, the heart of Republican-heavy western Iowa, followed last month’s events in eastern and central Iowa, where he drew thousands of people as his team tried to mount a more organized campaign than in 2016

Merchandise can be seen in a sales tent outside a Trump campaign rally

He used the derogatory nickname “Bird Brain” for her and described Haley as “a greatly overrated person.”

Trump went on to say that one reason he appointed Haley to his Cabinet while she was still governor was to help Henry McMaster, then the lieutenant governor of South Carolina and a staunch Trump supporter, become governor become.

“I liked it,” Trump said. “I got two for the price of one.”

Trump’s more pointed criticism of Haley, focused not on her performance in his Cabinet but on her disloyalty to him, came a day after she criticized him for praising foreign strongmen and warned that his style of ” Chaos, vendettas and drama” would be dangerous.

Although Haley has for months voiced implicit criticism of Trump while campaigning in early voting states without mentioning him by name, her sharpest criticism of the former president came Saturday when she addressed the annual meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas.

Before Trump took the stage in Sioux City, he was joined by Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon who unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination in 2016 but later served in Trump’s Cabinet as secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

As a member of his Cabinet, Carson’s support may not seem particularly noteworthy. However, some members resigned from Trump’s administration following the siege of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, including Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Both officials cited Trump’s behavior on the day of the violent attack as the reason for their resignation.

In August, Trump made a grand entrance at the Iowa State Fair — outshining Ron DeSantis and other Republican presidential candidates who sought to counter the former president’s power.

Supporters wait to attend a rally for former President Donald Trump in Sioux City, Iowa

Charles Hibbs of White River, South Dakota, carries a flag before a Trump rally

Trump, who is leading DeSantis, his closest rival, by double digits in the polls, told DailyMail.com that the Florida governor should drop out of the race.

“He didn’t let a lot of people come,” Trump said of DeSantis. ‘This is not good. He is doing very poorly in the polls. Very very bad. And I think he will leave the race soon, I think.”

Asked if he would debate DeSantis, Trump replied: “He really should give up the race.”

The former president arrived with the greatness that only Trump can bring.

Trump Force One flew low over the fairgrounds so the crowd could see. The Secret Service directed a long line of people waiting to get into Steers & Steins to see the former president. Mobs followed him around the fairgrounds, chanting his name.

As he spoke to his supporters, Trump mocked the other candidates at the convention that day – alongside DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy were also campaigning in Iowa.

And then in early October, Trump promised again in the state at a jubilant rally in Iowa that if re-elected in 2024, he would allow gasoline engines but ban “child sexual mutilation.”

“Under a Trump administration, gasoline-powered engines will be allowed — but child sexual mutilation will be banned if you agree to it,” he told the crowd.

As with his other recent trips to the GOP-held state, Trump campaigned in an area that used to support Democrats.

Trump headlined an afternoon event in Ottumwa that drew 2,500 people to the event space at the Bridge View Center.

In late September, a ban on gender-affirming care went into effect in Iowa, which Trump described as “child sexual mutilation.”