In Ohio on Saturday night, former president Donald Trump addressed a sizable and animated audience while holding a rally for J.D. Vance and himself.

With just fifty days until the midterm elections, Trump’s rally in Ohio is an effort to support Republican J.D. Vance over his Democratic opponent Tim Ryan. According to Fox News, the contest may have a significant impact on which political party has sway in the Senate next year.

“We are a country that has lost its direction…But soon, we’ll be a great country again,” said Trump. “Hardworking patriots like you helped build this country, and you’re the ones who will save it. We shall battle for America like no one has ever fought before by standing up to the extreme left lunatics and RINOS. We will thus make America…great again with the assistance of everyone present now and everyone everywhere in our country,” he declared.

In the rally’s tape, which C-Span was able to secure, Trump can be heard saying, “There’s a lot of bad news for our country, but there’s also a lot of optimism. We need optimism and competence,” he added, “since we haven’t been receiving either for the past two years.” Biden and Democrats in Congress, according to Trump, are “ripping apart” the nation and “tearing the American dream to bits,” he said.

Trump outlined the problems that regular Americans face under the Biden administration, including record-high inflation, skyrocketing oil prices, supply-chain constraints, rising crime, the “disappearing” southern border, and increasing government spending that is “pouring fuel on the inflation fire.” Trump asserted that despite this, Americans will no longer put up with it: “The thugs and tyrants assaulting our movement, and there’s never been a movement even close in the history of the United States, have no clue of the sleeping monster that they have woken,” he stated.

This is Trump’s first public appearance since the federal district judge’s denial of the DOJ’s request for access to the secret records that the FBI took from his Mar-a-Lago house last month. Trump made a passing reference to this in his address.

Trump said, “I’ve been tormented, probed, slandered, defamed, and attacked like no other President for six years straight. To make America great again is all I’ve ever wanted, and that’s all we’ve ever fought for,” he added. Trump vowed that “they will never get me to quit fighting for you, the American people” despite everything he had to go through.