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Donald Trump made his first campaign appearance on Saturday since surviving an assassination attempt, sharing the stage with newly selected running mate JD Vance.
Exactly one week after one shooter’s bullet Despite nearly hitting Trump in the head at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the former president appeared relaxed as he rallied thousands of supporters Saturday night in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
“I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here,” Trump said on Saturday, arguing that God had saved his life. “But something very, very special happened, let’s face it.”
Trump was introduced on stage by Vance, the 39-year-old Ohio senator he formally picked as his vice presidential running mate on Monday, at the start of the four-day meeting. Republican National Convention dominated by the aftermath of the shooting.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a convention where there’s been so much unity and love,” Trump said on Saturday. “The fake news even talks that way. I want to be kind.”
Trump formally accepted his party’s presidential nomination for the third time at the convention in a lengthy speech calling for national unity in the wake of the shooting. But the former president soon went off script, and his record-breaking 92-minute speech was filled with divisive rhetoric that appealed to his supporters but risked alienating swing voters. He stepped up those attacks on Saturday, hurling insults at President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Trump’s decision to choose Vance as his running mate was widely seen as part of an effort to win over white, working-class voters in key Midwestern swing states, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Vance rose to national prominence in 2016 with the publication of his memoir The Elegy of the Mountain Peopleabout his poor childhood in nearby Ohio.
“You know, I chose him because he represents the working people, the people who work very hard, and maybe are not treated as they should be,” Trump said on Saturday.
The Trump campaign has so far provided little information about the former president’s health following the shooting. At this week’s Republican convention in Wisconsin, Trump was seen wearing a bandage over his right ear every night.
Trump appeared on stage in Grand Rapids with a smaller bandage on Saturday.
Hours before the Michigan rally, Texas congressman Ronny Jackson, Trump’s White House physician, released a letter saying he had been assessing and treating Trump daily since the shooting.
Jackson said the assassin’s bullet was “less than a quarter of an inch away from Trump’s head” and “hit the top of his right ear.”
The MP added that “the bullet had created a 2cm wide wound extending down to the cartilage surface of the ear” and that “there was initially significant bleeding, followed by marked swelling of the entire upper part of the ear”.
Jackson said the swelling has gone down and the wound, which did not require stitches, is starting to heal. But he added that because there is “still intermittent bleeding,” Trump will continue to wear a bandage for the time being.
Trump’s return to the campaign trail comes at a time when the former president has unprecedented polling power, opening up a lead in national and swing-state polls in Bidenhis Democratic opponent. Betting markets this week put Biden’s re-election odds at an all-time low.
Biden’s campaign has been in decline for more than three weeks, since the 81-year-old president’s disastrous debate performance raised questions about his fitness to hold office. Democratic lawmakers, influential donors and party staff have been working behind the scenes and increasingly publicly to pressure the president to abandon his reelection bid.
Biden, who has not been seen in public since Wednesday and is at his Delaware home recovering from Covid-19, has insisted he is still in the race for the White House. But his defiance has not dampened speculation about who might replace him at the top.
On Saturday night, Trump took a poll at the Grand Rapids arena and asked, “Who would you most like to run against if you were us, if we wanted to win?” That question drew boos from the crowd when the former president asked about Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris.
“[Democrats] “There are a couple of problems,” Trump said with a laugh. “First of all, they don’t know who their candidate is, and neither do we.”
