Donald Trump held his first outdoor campaign event since the assassination attempt on Wednesday, making derogatory comments about his emerging Democratic rival Kamala Harris from behind bulletproof glass at a rally in the battleground state of North Carolina.
Speaking against a backdrop of vintage warplanes at an aviation museum, Trump, 78, called Harris the “most radical left-wing person” ever running for the White House and claimed millions of jobs would “disappear overnight” if she wins in November.
“Your life savings will be completely gone,” the Republican candidate told the crowd, one of several horrific scenarios he painted during his speech.
“Our adversaries around the world knew that when I was your commander in chief, America could not be taken lightly,” Trump said. “If Comrade Kamala wins this November, World War III is a near certainty.”
With Harris drawing enthusiastic crowds since replacing Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket, the Asheboro event was a chance for Trump to reclaim his longtime dominance in staging splashy rallies.
It was his first major outdoor event since he was slightly injured in a similar open-air assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, a month earlier.
One rally participant was killed in the attack, while the 20-year-old gunman was killed by a Secret Service sniper.
The Secret Service suggested Trump stick to more easily controlled indoor events, such as sports arenas. He has held about a dozen indoor events since then.
The Secret Service does not comment publicly on security operations and did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday’s preparations.
Bulletproof screens could be seen around the stage where Trump and his vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, addressed the crowd in Asheboro.
At one point during his speech, Trump left the stage and walked into the crowd to see an attendee who was suffering from a medical problem.
The crowd is integral to Trump’s political brand, with the right-wing billionaire seeking to portray himself as an outsider and a man of the people.
Even as president he continued a regular schedule of election-style rallies, often drawing at least 10,000 people in sports arenas.
He has used these displays of power as a key weapon in his plan to render ineffective the 81-year-old Biden, whose own public events have generally been low-key and relatively small in scale.
– Trump’s strategy backfires –
However, Trump’s strategy backfired on July 21, when Biden abruptly abandoned his re-election effort and endorsed his 59-year-old vice president as the future of the Democratic Party.
The immediate surge in Democratic support for Harris has stunned the Trump campaign.
Nowhere is this change in momentum more evident than in Harris’ ability to draw crowds to the field.
She routinely fills venues with more than 10,000 people. On Tuesday night, her supporters thronged the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, while she held a massive rally in Milwaukee.
In an apparent dig at Trump, he noted that his event in Milwaukee took place at the same venue used by Republicans for their convention in July.
North Carolina is one of a handful of states expected to determine the outcome of the Nov. 5 election.
US presidential elections are decided not by an overall national vote but state-by-state, with each state having a different amount of Electoral College votes. The winning candidate needs to win a majority of the Electoral College.
Most states lean either heavily Republican or heavily Democratic, and there are only seven states that are truly competitive—and where candidates spend the most time and money on their campaigns.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
