Donald Trump was joined Saturday by his new running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, at the former president’s first campaign rally since the assassination attempt last weekend.
The two men were greeted by a cheering crowd at a sports arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Here is what happened :
New running mate: Vance, who fired up the crowd before Trump’s remarks, said, “I have to be honest, it’s always a little weird seeing my name on those signs,” referring to the Trump-Vance campaign material floating behind him in the audience.
Vance defended his loyalty to the United States, after Vice President Kamala Harris said he “will only be loyal to Trump, not to our country.”
Before becoming vice president, Harris served as district attorney of San Francisco, attorney general of California, and then as the state’s junior senator.
Vance then returned to introduce Trump to a cheering crowd.
On the set of the rally: Trump, who wore a small beige bandage over his ear, said he had “taken a bullet for democracy.”
The former president, who spoke for nearly two hours, thanked the staff at Butler Memorial Hospital, where he was taken minutes after the shooting at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Rep. Ronny Jackson, a former White House physician, said Saturday that Trump was “recovering as expected” from a gunshot wound to the ear. Investigations into the rally shooter and the handling of security at the event continue.
Trump noted in his first joint interview with Vance that people at his rally last weekend noticed there was someone on the roof before the assassination attempt.
Elon Musk’s support: Trump said he spoke to tech billionaire Elon Musk before heading to the Grand Rapids rally. The former president said Musk did not mention a Wall Street Journal report that he was spending about $45 million a month on a pro-Trump super PAC.
About World Leaders: Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping and other world leaders wrote to him after the assassination attempt. He said he “got along very well with President Xi, who is a great guy,” and said he also worked well with other world leaders, even though they had realized during his presidency that “the game was up” in terms of exploiting the United States internationally.
Biden campaign response: President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign blasted Trump’s remarks at the rally, saying Trump is “only focused on himself.”
“He is peddling the same lies, waging the same campaign of vengeance and retaliation, advocating the same failed policies, and as usual, focusing only on himself. The only unity we saw today was between Donald Trump, JD Vance, and their Project 2025 agenda,” Biden campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa said in a statement.
Project 2025 refers to a policy blueprint developed by a conservative think tank. Democrats have embraced some of the document’s controversial right-wing proposals, while Trump has tried to distance himself from the program, despite the fact that dozens of people from his former administration were involved in its creation.
