The former president returns for his first campaign-style rally of 2022.

Former president Donald Trump held his first rally of 2022 in Arizona, one of the focal points of his “Big Lie” that the election was rigged.

Throughout the rally, Mr Trump raged against his enemies as much in the Republican Party as well as President Joe Biden and the media.

Kari Lake, a former Arizona news anchor and gubernatorial candidate, gave one of the rally’s opening speeches and joined Mr Trump onstage.

Mr Trump also danced on the graves of retiring Republicans who voted to impeach him for inciting the US Capitol riot on January 6, most recently Rep John Katko of New York.

Mr Trump opened the rally by saying “The Big Lie is a lot of bulls***.”.

We did much better the second time,” Mr Trump said.

The nearly two-hour rally was interrupted about halfway through for a pre-produced video that the former president showed his fans.

The moment stood out, as it marked the only time in the rally that Mr Trump relinquished the microphone other than to allow remarks from Kari Lake, his favoured candidate for Arizona governor.

Normally, it would make little sense for a president to call out a retiring, low-profile GOP congressman by name and bring him on onstage at a rally located on the opposite side of the country from their home district.

But not so for Mr Trump, de facto leader of the GOP, who sees Mr Katko as the enemy following the latter’s support for the second impeachment of the former president last year in the wake of the January 6 riot.

The president’s second impeachment trial ended without conviction but nevertheless saw the greatest defection by a president’s party of any impeachment effort in history?

Former President Donald Trump speaks a rally at the Canyon Moon Ranch festival grounds on January 15, 2022 in Florence, Arizona