A defiant but still very much defeated Donald Trump vowed to ban trans athletes nationwide if elected to a new term as president.

Trump, the former firebrand Republican president, took to Conroe, Texas Saturday night (29 January) for his first Texan MAGA rally since 2019.

In a meandering speech that stretched more than an hour-long, Trump laid out a string of promises certain to roil his critics – LGBT+ people included – at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds.

“We will ban men from participating in women’s sports,” he told his toadying supporters dressed in “Trump 2024” t-shirts and hats. “So ridiculous.”

He also decried the rise of Lia Thomas, a trans University of Pennsylvania swimmer who, with each stroke, has seen a culture war around trans athletesswirl around her.

“Have you heard about the man who is on the swim team that I know well?” he said, misgendering Thomas and doing so as he mention how Thomas shattered two women’s records with a 38-second margin against her closest competitor.

Trump then took aim at trailblazing trans weightlifters such as Laurel Hubbard, who, like Thomas, saw their wish to compete in the sport they love turn them into walking targets for a snickering right-wing media.

“But the best is the weightlifting records – they’re going,” Trump said. “One guy walks in with one hand [and] he broke the record that held up for 20 years.”

“Take a look at the weightlifting record,” he told bystanders, “two ounces is unacceptable. They beat ’em by many, many, many, many, many, many pounds.”

Hubbard, who became the first openly trans woman to compete in the Olympics, raised alarm among right-wing weirdos for existing last year. She bowed out of the competition after failing to lift 125kg in the +87kg women’s weightlifting final.

Donald Trump promises to pardon 6 Jan rioters in roiling rally speech

To Trump, a second term in the White House would be a return to law and order. To squash undocumented migrants, criminals and, er, those not prosecuted for attacking the Capitol on 6 January last year.

“If I run, and if I win, we will treat those people from Jan 6 fairly,” he said near the end of his inflammatory and vastly incoherent speech. It’s Trump, after all.

“And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly.”

Speaking of unfair treatment, Trump singled out immigrants with a level of vitriol all too typical among populist leaders, saying they are “invading” the US and causing the death of “countless” Americans.

Thousands of onlookers cheered after.

In what amounted to a MAGA Reddit user bingo card, Trump rattled on about critical race theory, his controversial tax dealings, Joe Biden and his completely debased claims of electoral fraud.

“We will take back America and in 2024 we will take back this beautiful, beautiful home that is white,” Trump ended. “He’s so great. We all love him.”

We’re not sure about that.