Donald Trump is back to his old self. Together with his vice president JD Vance, he attacked his rivals in his usual manner during his first campaign appearance since the attack.
In his first campaign appearance since the assassination attempt on him, US presidential candidate Donald Trump dismissed concerns that he was a threat to democracy. “Last week I took a bullet for democracy,” Trump told supporters in the US state of Michigan on Saturday. “I am not an extremist at all,” the former president added. US President Joe Biden, meanwhile, had to forego further campaign appearances due to his corona infection.
At the event, Trump denied any links to “Project 2025,” a radical program of the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation for a complete restructuring of the government apparatus and a drastic conservative turn.
Donald Trump made fun of his opponents’ indecision
The Republican Party’s presidential candidate also mocked his rivals in the Democratic Party, who are currently discussing whether President Biden might not run again. “They have no idea who their candidate is,” Trump said to around 12,000 supporters. Biden won the primaries “and now they want to take it away from him,” Trump argued. The former president predicted a “monumental landslide victory” for the Republicans in the November election.
In his fiery but typically digressive speech, the presidential candidate laid out his hardline views on immigration, spread falsehoods about migrant criminality and repeated the widely debunked claim that Democrats “rigged” the 2020 presidential election he lost to Biden. He also expressed admiration for foreign autocrats, including “brilliant” Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he praised for controlling “1.4 billion people with an iron fist.”
It was Trump’s first campaign appearance after the assassination attempt last Saturday and the first after his official election as the Republican presidential candidate at the party convention this week. Trump narrowly survived the assassination attempt at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania. The 78-year-old was slightly injured in the ear by a bullet. On Saturday he wore a small, skin-colored bandage on his right ear.
“I stand before you only by the grace of Almighty God,” the ex-president told the crowd. “I shouldn’t be here right now, but something very special has happened.”
Ignoring the self-imposed restraint and calls for unity after the assassination, Trump resorted to his usual divisive rhetoric, hurling insults and abuse, calling Biden “stupid” and a “weak old man” and referring to Vice President Harris as “crazy” and “nuts.”
Trump attacks Biden, Vance targets Harris
Biden’s campaign team dismissed Trump’s speech, saying he was “peddling the same lies” and waging “the same campaign of vengeance and retaliation.”
It was also Trump’s first campaign appearance with his vice presidential candidate JD Vance. The U.S. Senator from Ohio fired up the crowd before the ex-president’s appearance and lashed out at his Democratic rival Harris. “I served in the United States Marine Corps and built a company. What the hell did you do besides collect a check?” Vance asked Harris.
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Meanwhile, pressure continued to grow on Biden to withdraw his candidacy. The incumbent has been under massive pressure since his erratic and confused appearance in the televised debate with Trump at the end of June. More than 30 members of the House of Representatives and four Democratic senators have now publicly called on Biden to withdraw.
Biden, who is now also suffering from Corona, once again rejected calls for him to withdraw from the race for the White House on Friday. He announced that he would resume his campaign activities next week after his Corona illness.
Source: Stern
