There were many theatrical speakers who took to the stage on behalf of former President Donald Trump in Fort Dodge, Iowa, on Jan. 15, just ahead of the first-in-the-nation Republican caucus in 2024.
But even against your Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and your Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greenes (R-Ga.), former Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) stood out as colorful and charismatic.
The auctioneer began his remarks by walking away from the stage to a nearby window, where he mimed looking around.
“There’s a towing company. I think it said DeSantis towing on the side of it,” he said, drawing laughter from a pro-Trump audience at ShinyTop Brewing.
He soon got the crowd engaged in a chant directed at President Trump’s rivals: “Who Cares!”
Mr. Long was equally entertaining at a rally in Indianola, Iowa, earlier this week, at the invitation of President Trump.
At President Trump’s request, he presided over the auctioning off of an American flag that had flown over the U.S. Capitol.
“Don’t you love this guy?” President Trump quipped.
“Everybody thought I was nuts,” he recalled onstage.
Afterwards, Mr. Long spoke with The Epoch Times about his early confidence in then-candidate Donald J. Trump. He recalled predicting Mr. Trump would win the general election as early as August 2015.
He explained why he and many others find President Trump so impressive in one-on-one interactions. He is, in a word, present.
“He’s the most engaging guy in the world,” Mr. Long said.
“You go into a meeting with him, and there’s two things that will never happen. The meeting will never end until Donald J. Trump is ready to end the meeting, and he'll never look at his watch during the meeting,” he added.
Mr. Long recalled meeting President Trump for the first time in 2011 while participating in a charity golf tournament. The future president took the time to speak with him at length about the upcoming 2012 election.
“I’m a no-name, nothing congressman, first term congressman from Missouri, nobody knows me,” Mr. Long said.
He also rejected talk that the Trump White House was uniquely “dysfunctional” in characteristically colorful terms.
“One of the most dysfunctional White Houses ever was Bob Dole’s White House. That was really dysfunctional. And then another one was John McCain’s White House. You remember John McCain’s White House? ... And then the most dysfunctional White House of all time was Mitt Romney’s White House,” he said, before roaring out the punchline: “They never got elected!”
In making his pro-Trump pitch, the former lawmaker from the “Show-Me” state laid emphasis on what he argues President Trump has demonstrated: for Republicans seeking national success, their electability shows.
