Alabama Republican U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville had a stark warning for the approximately 100 Utah GOP delegates who crowded into a Bluffdale warehouse to hear him speak on Friday afternoon: Malevolent supernatural forces are working to undermine America.
“I’ve traveled all over the country — all 50 states — I’ve been in good places and bad places. The one thing I saw, we are losing our kids to a satanic cult,” Tuberville, who traveled to Utah to campaign for GOP U.S. Senate candidate Trent Staggs, warned.
The former college football coach and ardent Donald Trump supporter gave his full endorsement to Staggs, one of 11 Republicans vying for the GOP nomination to succeed Sen. Mitt Romney in Washington.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A man wears a baseball hat in support of President Donald Trump during a campaign event for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Trent Staggs in Bluffdale on Friday, March 15, 2024.
Brandishing an upside-down pocket Constitution, Tuberville said the 2024 election wasn’t Republican vs. Democrat but “anti-American vs. American.”
“We’ve lost our moral values across the country. We’ve got to get back to the Constitution, and we have got to get back to the Bible. We’ve got to get God back in our country,” Tuberville said. “There’s not one Democrat that can tell you they stand up for God.”
Republican delegates ate it up as he careened from anti-transgender statements to discussion of immigration and chaos at the border to a prediction left-wing mobs are set to wreak chaos across the country this summer to help Joe Biden win reelection.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville answers a question from the crowd during a campaign event for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Trent Staggs in Bluffdale on Friday, March 15, 2024.
Tuberville even went so far as to claim the federal government has been corrupted to go after conservatives instead of criminals, which was seemingly an indirect reference to the hundreds of Trump supporters who were charged after attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“We’ve lost our Department of Justice. In most of the country, we don’t have a criminal justice system anymore. Nobody goes to jail, unless you’re an innocent person that really loves this country, then they’ll put you in jail,” Tuberville said. “We have never overcome a cult like we’re dealing with right now.”
The loudest boos from the GOP delegates on hand came when Tuberville and Staggs took swipes at Sen. Mitt Romney, who was the party’s presidential nominee just a dozen years ago.
“I’ve seen Mitt Romney make promises to Utahns that he didn’t deliver on,” Staggs said. “This is the choice you have before you. Do you want to replace Mitt Romney with Mitt Romney 2.0?”
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A member of the crowd wears a sweatshirt with a design of the American flag during a campaign event for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Trent Staggs in Bluffdale on Friday, March 15, 2024.
During a brief interview with The Salt Lake Tribune following his speech, Tuberville doubled down when asked if his references to a satanic cult were bourne from political zeal.
“They’ve basically taken God out of everything that we’re doing. I don’t know any other way to express it other than it’s some kind of cult that they’re trying to push on our kids and all Americans,” Tubervill said. “We have got to get back to our moral values. If we can’t get back to that and let the Democrats continue to push this cult on us and take God away from our country, we’re going to have huge problems.”
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Republican U.S. Senate candidate Trent Staggs speaks with the media following a campaign event for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Trent Staggs in Bluffdale on Friday, March 15, 2024.
Staggs is attempting to position himself as the most pro-Donald Trump candidate in the race. That effort has helped him attract support from several political figures in Trump’s orbit. Along with Tuberville, Kari Lake has endorsed Staggs, who claims her loss in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race was due to election fraud. She is currently a GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona. Tuberville has endorsed Lake’s candidacy.
Staggs recently attended an event at Trump’s Mar a Lago resort in Florida, where he was praised by Roger Stone, whom Trump pardoned after Stone was convicted for lying to Congress as part of special counsel Robert Muller’s Russia investigation. In 2022, former Utah GOP congressional candidate Jason Preston hired Stone and several members of the far-right Proud Boys militia to work on his campaign. Preston is a supporter of Staggs’ campaign for Senate.
In addition to campaign events with Staggs on Friday, Tuberville will be the main attraction at a $6,600 per couple fundraiser for Staggs in Lehi on Saturday. After that, he will head to Arizona to campaign with Lake.
