President-elect Donald Trump was expected to take a victory lap in Arizona on Sunday morning, returning to a battleground he won decisively last month on his way back to the White House.
Trump was scheduled to speak at AmericaFest, a conference organized by Phoenix-based conservative groups Turning Point Action and Turning Point USA.
“We are incredibly honored that President Trump will deliver his first rally-style speech since the election at AmFest 2024 in Phoenix,” Turning Point President Charlie Kirk said in a written statement.
Trump’s remarks were scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. at the Phoenix Convention Center and will be broadcast live on azcentral.com. The appearance comes less than a month before Trump is sworn in for a second term on January 20.
Trump will appear on the final day of the four-day conservative gathering, which will include GOP stars like his son, Donald Trump Jr., former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and incoming “border czar” among more Tom Homan.
“When I talked to the president, he said he would only do it if we called it a ‘Tribute to Arizona,’ so that’s exactly what we’re doing. President Trump knows that the people of Arizona have always supported him and been loyal to him, and that they just won the biggest victory for him of any swing state,” Kirk said.
Trump won Arizona by more than 5 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election. He will be the first president to serve non-consecutive terms since Grover Cleveland.
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Trump’s victory in Arizona marked a remarkable comeback after the 2020 election, when Trump narrowly lost his re-election bid here to President Joe Biden. Trump disputed those election results for years, and one of Turning Point’s top officials was indicted for his alleged role in the Arizona fake voter case.
Sunday’s appearance comes as Trump faces the first policy battles of his second term, including the looming government shutdown and his upcoming Cabinet confirmation battle. Turning Point posted banners around the convention hall reading “GIVE TRUMP HIS CLOSET.”
At an earlier AmericaFest session on Thursday, Kirk celebrated Trump and Musk’s attempt to block a deal to avoid a government shutdown because it was too bloated. Kirk said Trump’s success in calling off the deal was partly due to Turning Point’s conservative activists online. The bill is called a continuing resolution or “CR.”
“You, everyone in this room and everyone watching online, you defeated the Washington insiders in a matter of hours,” Kirk said. ‘That CR is dead. It is dead.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trump to speak in Phoenix today: What to know
