COLUMBIA, S.C.  — Former President Donald Trump kicked off his 2024 White House bid with stops over the weekend in New Hampshire and South Carolina, events in early-voting states marking the first campaign appearances since announcing his latest run more than two months ago.

“Together we will complete the unfinished business of making America great again,” Trump said at an evening event in Columbia to introduce his South Carolina leadership team.

Trump and his allies hope the events in states with enormous power in selecting the nominee will offer a show of force behind the former president after a sluggish start to his campaign that left many questioning his commitment to running again.

“They said, ‘He’s not doing rallies, he’s not campaigning. Maybe he’s lost that step,’” Trump said at the New Hampshire GOP’s annual meeting in Salem, his first event.

But, he told the audience of party leaders, “I’m more angry now and I’m more committed now than I ever was.” In South Carolina, he further dismissed the speculation by saying that ”we have huge rallies planned, bigger than ever before.”

While Trump has spent the months since he announced largely ensconced in his Florida club and at his nearby golf course, his aides insist they have been busy behind the scenes. His campaign opened a headquarters in Palm Beach, Florida, and has been hiring staff. And in recent weeks, backers have been reaching out to political operatives and elected officials to secure support for Trump at a critical point when other Republicans are preparing their own expected challenges.

In New Hampshire, Trump promoted his campaign agenda, including immigration and crime, and said his policies would be the opposite of President Joe Biden’s. He cited the Democrats’ move to change the election calendar, costing New Hampshire its leadoff primary spot, and accused Biden, a fifth-place finisher in New Hampshire in 2020, of “disgracefully trashing this beloved political tradition.”

“I hope you’re going to remember that during the general election,” Trump told party members. Trump himself twice won the primary, but lost the state each time to Democrats.

Later in South Carolina, Trump said he planned to keep the state’s presidential primary as the “first in the South” and called it “a very important state.”

In his speech, he hurtled from criticism of Biden and Democrats to disparaging comments about transgender people, mockery of people promoting the use of electric stoves and electric cars, and reminiscing about efforts while serving as president to increase oil production, strike trade deals and crack down on migration at the U.S-Mexico border.

While Trump remains the only declared 2024 presidential candidate, potential challengers, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, are expected to get their campaigns underway in the coming months.

After his South Carolina speech, Trump told The Associated Press in an interview that it would be “a great act of disloyalty” if DeSantis opposed him in the primary and took credit for the governor’s initial election.

“If he runs, that’s fine. I’m way up in the polls,” Trump said. “He’s going to have to do what he wants to do, but he may run. I do think it would be a great act of disloyalty because, you know, I got him in. He had no chance. His political life was over.”

He said he hasn’t spoken to DeSantis in a long time.

On Saturday, Trump also discussed the footage of the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols by five Memphis police officers is “horrible” and that the attack “never should have happened.”

“I thought it was terrible. He was in such trouble. He was just being pummeled. Now that should never have happened,” Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press on Saturday, a day after authorities released footage of the attack on the 29-year-old Black man after a traffic stop. Nichols died three days later.

The comments were notable for Trump, who is running for the White House again and has a history of encouraging rough treatment of people in police custody. He was president during the racial justice protests that emerged in the summer of 2020 following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. At the time, he signed an executive order encouraging better police practices but failed to acknowledge systemic racial bias.

Trump ultimately centered his 2020 reelection bid around a “law and order” message that emphasized support for law enforcement.

The newly released violent video in Memphis shows police holding down and beating Nichols for three minutes with their fists, boots and batons. The footage shows police screaming profanities at him while Nichols screams for his mother. Trump said Nichols calling out for his mother was “a very sad moment.”

“That was really the point that got me the most, to be honest with you,” he said.

Trump did not address the video in his campaign speeches in New Hampshire or South Carolina, the first stops of his 2024 presidential campaign.

A sixth Memphis Police Department officer has also been relieved of duty, officials said Monday, but his role in the beating was not revealed.

The legal team for Nichols’ family has likened it to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King.

Trump said Memphis Police were taking a “strong step” by disbanding the police unit involved in the attack, which was created to target violent offenders in areas beset by high crime.

“Look, the tape was perhaps not totally conclusive but, to me, it was pretty conclusive and it was vicious and violent and hard to believe — over a traffic violation,” he said.

The beating renewed questions about the how fatal encounters with law enforcement continue to occur after repeated calls for change and a nationwide reckoning and scrutiny of policing after Floyd’s murder. Trump condemned the killing at the time but also blasted protests that were largely peaceful, though marred by outbursts of violence.

Trump tweeted about “thugs” in the Minneapolis protests and warned, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Twitter flagged the message as glorifying violence and Trump tried to walk back the comments.

When several thousand people demonstrated at Lafayette Park across from the White House, U.S. Park Police forcefully dispersed them with tear gas and flash bangs shortly before Trump walked across the park for a photo-op near St. John’s Church, where he stood before cameras holding a Bible.