Thirty years ago, federal agents were in the midst of a 51-day siege of a compound occupied by cult leader David Koresh and his anti-government followers. The siege ended on April 19, 1993, after Attorney General Janet Reno ordered the FBI to attack the compound.
On Saturday, former President Donald Trump, who has made political art of railing against government-run conspiracies to rob him of power and freedom, will hold his first major rally of the 2024 presidential election cycle here.
With the physical backdrop of this small town on the Brazos River, within a three-hour drive of Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin, Trump is surrounded by the prospect of impeachment in Manhattan, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C., with questions about Alleged secret money payments to a porn star, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and the January 6 Uprising at the US Capitol.
“Donald has a rally in Waco this Saturday,” wrote Mary Trump, the former president’s niece and his outspoken critic, on Twitter. “It’s a ploy to remind his cult of the infamous Waco siege of 1993, where an anti-government cult battled the FBI. Scores of people died. He wants the same violent anarchy that shielded him from justice.”
Trump has been railing against government officials investigating him, with increasingly dire warnings about what will happen if he accuses them.
But while it is impossible to overlook the obvious spectacle of an anti-establishment candidate rousing thousands of his supporters at the site of a demonstration between federal agents and anti-government conspiracy theorists, there are more traditional political reasons for Trump choosing Waco. The launch point for a new round of his trademark rallies.
As he seeks the GOP presidential nomination for a third consecutive term, Trump and his team understand well the importance of Texas in distributing delegates to the Republican National Convention. The state is second only to California in the number of delegates available, and it will matter more to the final count than the first four opening states – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina – combined.
“It’s guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser for him and I think that’s part of the success he can have going into red states,” said a former Trump campaign aide. “It’s intimidating. It’s a show of force. There’s 10, 15,000, whatever, people in a room, and nobody can do it.”
It also fits their original pattern of choosing sites that are outside major cities but accessible to them.
“President Trump is holding his first campaign rally in the state of Waco on Super Tuesday, Texas, as it is centrally located and close to all four of Texas’ largest metropolitan areas,” said Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung. “It is the ideal place where more and more supporters from all over the state and neighboring states can attend this historic rally”.
Trump aides dismiss the possibility that holding a Waco rally during the 30th anniversary of the siege could show sympathy for anti-government voters.
A Trump aide said, “It sounds like what people in New York or D.C. who have never been to Texas would say.”