In Wildwood, Donald Trump makes false claim about Penn protests, blasts Chris Christie and Larry Krasner

Following Donald Trump's speech, Sally Payano, 46, said she chose to come to his Wildwood rally instead of going to her 3 and 5-year-old children’s dance performance.

“If we don't fix this country, my kid won’t have a future,” she said, sporting a pink Trump hat. “So I had to come here and support President Trump so when my 5 year old, 3 year old, and 6 year old get older like me they will have America. A free America, a healthy America, and a great America like it's supposed to be.”

Payano, who traveled from Monroe, New Jersey, has also been to Trump rallies in Pennsylvania, Miami, and two in Washington, D.C. She said she legally immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 1989 when she was 12, and cared most about Trump's comments about closing the border and deporting undocumented people.

Donald Trump wrapped his speech in Wildwood a little before 8 p.m., more than 90 minutes after taking the stage.

The sun had started to set and the crowd had thinned by the time he left the stage.

Trump closed by saying "the great silent majority is rising like never before....we are one movement, one people, one family and one glorious movement under God."

Donald Trump pledged to give members of law enforcement ‘immunity’ so they don’t ‘get sued and lose their families, lose their homes, lose their pensions.’

It’s unclear how he would go about that but Trump has made the pledge since December, seeming to promote a model of policing in which officers can take strong actions without worry of being held liable for their conduct.

Trump also took aim at Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a favorite villain of the GOP.

The crowd that stretched to the back fences of Donald Trump's beachfront rally is beginning to noticeably thin around 45 minutes after he took the stage.

Rallygoers held up MAGA signs as they exited the area.

Trump briefly mentioned how his crowds pulled more people than Bruce Springsteen.

During his rally in Wildwood, Donald Trump once again repeated a common but apparently false message he's shared on the campaign trail – that he's been indicted more than mobster Al Capone.

Trump is facing four indictments – two federal, two state, including a New York business fraud case currently on trial in Manhattan.

Capone was indicted at least six times, Capone author A. Brad Schwartz told CNN. Capone also faced criminal charges not involving an indictment.

Donald Trump asked the Wildwood crowd if anyone liked former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the crowd roared “No!”

Trump followed by saying he heard someone call him a “fat pig,” drawing laughs from the audience. Some broke into a chant of “fat pig!”

Christie, once a supporter of Trump, has become a vocal critic.

Donald Trump falsely claimed there were riots at the University of Pennsylvania, where the school called in police to end an encampment set up by pro-Palestinian protesters.

"I went to school in Pennsylvania," Trump, a 1968 Wharton graduate, told supporters in Wildwood Saturday. "They're rioting in front of my school all the time. What's going on here?"

There were no major incidents at Penn during the 16 days protesters occupied College Green on Penn's Philadelphia campus. Police disbanded the encampment Friday morning, arresting 33 protesters – including nine Penn Students.

After standing for hours and expecting Donald Trump at 5 p.m., attendees were antsy during a narrative-heavy speech by retired British soldier Christian Craighead’s speech around 6 p.m.

Early on in the speech, the crowd clapped and chanted “USA!” while he spoke.

Craighead let out a laugh after someone in the crowd shouted an expletive about Joe Biden, but he largely talked past them as they got more rambunctious.

Kicking off Saturday's rally is North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who has emerged as an "unlikely candidate" to become Donald Trump's running mate, as Politico put it this week.

Burgum's own presidential run was short-lived – he dropped out of the Republican primary in December after garnering very little support. But he endorsed Trump way back in May 2016 and again in January.

Among the other candidates Trump is reportedly considering for VP are South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

Trump was expected to speak at 5 p.m., but the the stage remained empty at 5:30 p.m.

Attendees have been on their feet for hours, with the venue opening at noon.

Around 5:30 p.m., a state police helicopter flew overhead near the boardwalk. Roads started to closed down along Atlantic Avenue and people milled about as a motorcade went by. 

Ahead of his Wildwood rally, a Donald Trump campaign staffer handed out a printout of a March Truth Social post by the former president calling for a debate with Joe Biden. The post was distributed to members of the media and projected on the screens at the rally.

A voice recording played of Trump speaking, starting off by saying he’s ready to debate and ranting about Biden.

“The American people have the right to know,” he said at the end of the recording. “Anytime, anyplace, let’s go Joe, let’s debate.”

New Hampshire natives Jack Currier, an engineer, and his wife, Kelly Carter-Currier, a retired teacher, both 62, came to the Wildwood boardwalk Saturday to show support for Donald Trump and hoped to listen to his speech apart from the rally crowd, rather than spend a lot of time standing around.

Currier was wearing a rubber ducky zip-tied to his hat, and his wife, Carter-Currier was prominently displaying a neck piece that featured a New Hampshire license plate emblazoned with “TRUMP.”

It’s the plate they use on their boat, which dons Trump Jr.’s signature. Her home-made head piece read “I’m proud to be an American.”

Donald Trump signs haven't been in short supply in Wildwood since the 2016 election, but Saturday's rally took the sloganeering to another level.

Two supporters draped in a black flag walked arm in arm toward Trump's beachfront gathering around 2 p.m. Their sign read: "I'm just glad to be on the side that believes in God, has the most guns, and knows which restroom to use."

Some rallygoers wore shirts with misogynistic expletives describing Vice President Kamala Harris, or chiding those who use trans or non-binary pronouns. Others were clad in the traditional red MAGA hats and American flag-covered apparel.

Couples and families wearing Trump apparel are easy to spot on the Wildwood boardwalk, with some supporters opting to travel the Shore town in golf carts.

One man walked down the boardwalk shouting, “Biden sniffs children.”

A Trump merchandise store is all decked out with flags, while the Blue Water Grill features a Trump cutout that was swiftly put back up after it fell over in the wind. A giant banner saying “Wildwood welcomes Trump” hangs outside the restaurant and supporters were seen taking photos in front of it.

Former President Donald Trump will return to Wildwood, N.J. today to hold a political rally a little less than six months ahead of the 2024 election.

Trump held a huge rally in Wildwood in January 2020, and was accused by then-mayor Pete Byron of not reimbursing the town for costs associated with the event. This time around, Trump's campaign has already paid $54,000 upfront to cover law enforcement support, according to current Wildwood Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr.

Parts of Trump's rally will likely air on cable news channels like Fox News and CNN, but the only cable network that plans to air the former president's speech in its entirety is C-SPAN, beginning at 5:45 p.m.

After a long week in court, Donald Trump is heading to the Jersey Shore. And his campaign says he’ll be joined by “tens of thousands” of his friends.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, expects to draw what his team is calling a “mega crowd” to a Saturday evening rally in the southern New Jersey resort town of Wildwood. It will be held 150 miles south of the New York City courthouse where he has been forced to spend most weekdays sitting silently through his felony hush money trial.

The former president’s extraordinary legal woes, which include three other unrelated criminal cases, have emerged as a central focus of the campaign.

U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat who represents parts of northern New Jersey, said she expects a lot of people at Donald Trump's rally in Wildwood Saturday will be coming from elsewhere because of the former president's reputation in the Garden State.

“Jersey is not going to be a welcoming place for Trump,” she said in a press call with President Joe Biden’s campaign on Friday.

She said Trump’s “failed promises” across the country are “felt deeply here in Jersey,” like his multiple casino bankruptcy filings in Atlantic City, which is 40 miles up the shore from Wildwood. The failed casinos left contractors unpaid and thousands of workers out of jobs.

On a bitterly cold January day in 2020, former President Donald Trump packed the Wildwood Convention Center with supporters at one of his biggest rallies of the last presidential campaign.

Four years later, Wildwood Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr. learned Trump wanted a reprise but the old venue was unavailable. He offered another idea:

“I said, well, we’ve got a beach,” Troiano, said.

The last time Donald Trump came to Wildwood, Pete Byron, a Democrat, was the newly elected mayor. Byron said he was banned by Rep. Jeff Van Drew from attending the Trump rally, despite supporting it as an economic driver for the town then.

Byron’s election seemed to represent a shift away from Trumpism and Troiano, who had been mayor for 19 years. But Byron resigned in September 2023 after he was sentenced following his guilty plea for to tax fraud in federal court.

Ernie Troiano Jr., a Republican, became mayor again by a vote of the Wildwood Board of Commissioners in January.