Donald Trump addresses the crowd during a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, Wednesday. | Getty Trump uses stage time to re-litigate his controversies Despite Clinton showing weakness, the GOP front-runner talks about 6-pointed stars and Saddam.

Donald Trump blasted Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server in a speech in Ohio on Wednesday night but spent almost as much time revisiting the controversies that have dogged his campaign and distracted from his opponent’s legal woes.

Just moments after the Justice Department said it would not pursue charges against the Democrat, Trump went on stage and called Clinton a “dirty, rotten liar” and questioned how seriously the FBI investigated her emails.


“I don’t think they looked too hard,” he said at one point, referring to emails the FBI says were deleted.

But Trump, speaking largely off the cuff, was quick to veer off topic and return to comments and campaign tactics that are making his Republican allies cringe.

He said he regretted removing a tweet that was widely criticized as anti-Semitic for containing an image of Clinton in front of a pile of money with a six-pointed star next to her, the text reading, “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” Many observers recognized the Star of David, a symbol of the Jewish faith.

“It’s a star! And it actually looks like a sheriff’s star!” Trump said. “It could’ve been a star for anything.”

Appearing with possible vice-presidential pick Newt Gingrich, Trump blamed the media for the uproar.

“When they told me the Star of David I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding, how sick are they?’ They’re the ones with the bad tendencies when they think that way,” Trump said. “These people are sick, folks. I’m telling you, they’re sick.”

The tweet was removed from Trump’s twitter account and replaced with an image that, instead of the star, had a circle containing the text.

“[We] shouldn’t have taken it down,” he said. "He should’ve left it up. I would have rather defended it.”

Trump also defended a statement he made Tuesday that cast Saddam Hussein as effective in combating terrorism.

“I was talking about terrorism and I said Saddam Hussein is a bad man,” Trump said Wednesday. “He was really good at killing terrorists, he didn’t wait around, you think he gave the terrorists trials that lasted 18 years?”

“He was good at one thing, he killed terrorists,” Trump added. “I don’t love Saddam Hussein, I hate Saddam Hussein, but he was damn good at killing terrorists.”

Trump’s attacks on the media have become a standing feature of his rallies and speeches.

“We have a crooked system, we have a rigged system, we have a dishonest press,” Trump said. “I love talking about how dishonest they are.”

On Wednesday evening, he called NBC host Chuck Todd “this really stupid guy,” declaring CNN “dishonest as hell” and labeling the press “bad people.”

Punctuating his policy positions on trade and immigration, Trump touted celebrity endorsements from boxer Mike Tyson, golfer Jack Nicklaus and basketball coach Bobby Knight.

Trump also fueled speculation about who he might pick as a running mate, lavishing praise on Gingrich as the crowd chanted “Newt!”

“In one form or another, Newt Gingrich is going to be involved with our government, that I can tell you,” Trump said. “He’s going to be involved. He’s smart, he’s tough, he gets it.”

Trump wouldn't say whether Gingrich would join the ticket, but he argued the one-time conservative icon would perform well if he were on the 2016 vice-presidential debate stage.

“I'm not saying it’s Newt, but if it’s Newt, nobody’s going to be beating him in those debates, that’s for sure, right?” Trump said. “Nobody. Nobody’s beating Newt in the debates.”

“He says I’m the biggest thing he’s ever seen in the history of politics,” Trump added.

Trump seemed to revel in the winding nature of the speech, noting how much more interesting it was than reading from a prepared text. And he knew how to provoke a roar from the crowd, from declaring his intent to build a wall on the southern border to pledging to care for military veterans.

Meanwhile, Clinton tweeted a link to the livestream of Trump’s speech. “Newly discovered footage that could destroy Donald Trump’s campaign if everyone saw it.”