'We love the farmers.' Trump, aiming to cement support in Iowa, signs John Deere combine

OTTUMWA, Iowa — Former President Donald Trump rallied support here Sunday afternoon, the latest in a series of campaign stops in eastern Iowa as he aims to cement his lead ahead of the first-in-the-nation caucuses.

Trump, who remains the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination in Iowa and nationally, again touted his relationships in the agriculture and energy sectors. He decried President Joe Biden for waging "a nonstop war on American agriculture" and called Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his chief GOP challenger, "the sworn enemy of the American farmer."

"I fought for ethanol like no president in history," Trump told supporters, a common line about the state's marquee agricultural export as he continues to court farmers.

"Do you think Joe Biden would have even thought to give you $28 billion?" he asked, a frequent reference to his tariff payments for farmers. "They wouldn't have gotten you 10 cents."

After his speech, he visited a farm northeast of Oskaloosa, where he shook hands with a line of farmers, greeted their wives and left a large Sharpie signature on a John Deere combine.

"We love the farmers, and we appreciate the farmers," he told them. "You wouldn't want anything else, right? I don't think you'd want to do what I do."

In Ottumwa, Trump touted his administration's approval of year-round E-15 gasoline and changes to the federal estate tax, and he praised the Supreme Court's halting of the Waters of the United States rule.

But the subject that drew most of Trump's ire Sunday was electric vehicles.

He mused about whether a boat with electric batteries would "electrocute" him if it sank, saying if he had to choose between being eaten by a shark or being electrocuted, "I will take electrocution every time." He mocked recharging electric vehicles and dismissed efforts by the military to explore clean energy solutions.

"We want to have nice, clean engines, even though we're bombing the crap out of them," Trump said.

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The standing-room crowd — 2,500, according to the campaign — was almost entirely filled with Trump loyalists, many decked in his gear.

The mere mention of "other candidates" in an opening speech by Iowa Sen. Cherielynn Westrich garnered boos — after which she criticized them as pale imitators of the former president.

"They're all running on the Trump agenda," said Westrich, who has endorsed him. "There's no Trump agenda without Donald J. Trump."

The former president, whose remarks during his last Iowa visit focused mostly on his 2020 opponent in Biden, spent several minutes criticizing his most prominent rival in DeSantis — accusing him of flip-flopping on positions and mocking his position in the polls.

"He's like a very injured, falling bird," he said.

Trump's visit Sunday is his second to Iowa in just over a week in what his campaign has described as an effort to commit supporters to caucus and further enforce his lead in the state.

Previously, he made stops in Maquoketa and Dubuque — saying he would militarize the southern border and reinstate a travel ban in his second term, and continuing to advise Republicans to adopt a palatable stance on abortion for the 2024 cycle.

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Since that visit, he declined to appear at the second Republican presidential debate — instead visiting an auto plant in Detroit and lobbing attacks toward challengers and political foes on social media.

Trump called the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, a traitor who might deserve the death penalty for his contacts in China (Milley, in apparent response, said the military doesn't answer to a "wannabe dictator").

He declared that DeSantis was still "dropping like a rock" in polling. And he called candidate Nikki Haley, his former U.N. ambassador and a South Carolina governor, "birdbrain" after the second debate, with his campaign allegedly sending a birdcage to Haley's hotel room to emphasize the insult.

Rick and Nancy Anderson of Ottumwa, 79 and 71 years old respectively, said before Trump's remarks they were looking forward to hearing him talk about energy policy. They were both committed to caucusing for Trump in January and despite Trump's recent criticism of Haley, liked her as a potential vice presidential pick.

"She's already dealt with all the foreign heads," Rick Anderson told the Register. "And I don't know she don't mess around."

"The VP's we've got now never does anything," Nancy Anderson added, a reference to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Rick Anderson, who said he had served in the military, said he wished Trump and his opponents within military leadership, including Miley, could be resolved.

"I don't think that's a good deal," he said. "I think they need to get it off their chest, whatever it is. I know Trump doesn't like the one … because he thinks he's in cahoots with other people. I just wish they just worked together. But that's not gonna happen."

The Register's Iowa Poll in August found Trump leading among potential Republican caucusgoers by more than 20 percentage points, remaining the faraway frontrunner even as he fights several ongoing court battles and faces resistance from wings of the party on issues like abortion.

Jeff Kaufmann, the chair of the Iowa GOP, urged attendees Sunday to participate in the caucuses — and said that after a winner is decided in January, he and the party would rally behind them.

"I have to be neutral during the caucuses," Kaufmann said. "But the moment we've got a leader, I'm 100% on board!"

Galen Bacharier covers politics for the Register. Reach him at gbacharier@registermedia.com or (573) 219-7440, and follow him on Twitter @galenbacharier.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Trump visits southeast Iowa, signs John Deere as he courts farmers