Donald Trump rallied against vice president Kamala Harris’ approach to national security in North Carolina in his first outdoor rally since narrowly surviving an attempted assassination in Pennsylvania last month.
“The world is on fire, and Kamala and Biden have marched us to the brink of World War III,” Mr Trump said, blaming the current White House for the deadly Afghanistan withdrawal and wars between Russia and Ukraine and between Israel and Hamas.
Mr Trump spoke from a podium surrounded by panes of bulletproof glass at the rally at the North Carolina Aviation Museum & Hall of Fame.
Storage containers were stacked around the perimeter of the space to create additional walls and block sight lines, and snipers were positioned on roofs at the venue, where old aircraft were sitting behind the podium and a large American flag was suspended from cranes.
The event, billed as being focused on national security issues, is part of Mr Trump’s week-long series of counterprogramming to the Democratic National Convention, which is underway in Chicago.
Allies have been urging him to focus on policy instead of personal attacks as he struggles to adjust to running against Vice President Kamala Harris after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
On Tuesday night, the convention showcased a double dose of Obama firepower, as the former president and former first lady assailed Mr Trump, calling him out repeatedly by name.
Michelle Obama said of Mr Trump: “His limited and narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who happen to be Black.”
She also referenced a comment he made in a June debate, asking: “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’?”
Barack Obama mocked Mr Trump’s obsession with his crowd sizes and called the former president “a 78-year-old billionaire who hasn’t stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago”.
“It’s been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that’s actually gotten worse now that he’s afraid of losing to Kamala,” the former president said.
Mr Trump briefly addressed the criticism, asking the crowd if they’d seen the speech by the man he continues to call “Barack Hussein Obama”.
“He was taking shots at your president. And so was Michelle. You know, they always say, ‘Sir, please stick to policy. Don’t get personal’. And yet they’re getting personal all night long, these people,” he said, asking: “Do I still have to stick to policy?”
Mr Trump was joined on Wednesday by his running mate, JD Vance, who cast Ms Harris as a candidate selected by power brokers instead of voters and lambasted her vice presidential pick, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz before Mr Trump took the stage.
That included continuing to hammer Mr Walz for, at times, mischaracterising his service record as an Army National Guard member, as well as his retirement from service before his unit’s deployment to Iraq.
“What won’t Stolen Valour Tim Walz lie about?” Mr Vance, who served four years as a Marine, asked the crowd.
The former president has spent the week visiting battleground states in his busiest week of campaigning since the Republican primaries.
Reflecting the importance of North Carolina in this year’s election, the trip is Mr Trump’s second to the state in just a week.
Last Wednesday, he appeared in Asheville, North Carolina, for a speech on the economy.
Mr Trump won North Carolina by a comfortable margin in 2016. The state delivered the former president his closest state-wide margin of victory four years ago and is once again considered a key battleground in 2024.
Before Mr Trump arrived, his plane did a flyover of the rally site and the gathered crowd erupted into cheers.
Lisa Watts, a retired business owner from Hickory, North Carolina, who was attending her fifth Trump rally, said she’s feeling “very positive” about the race.
“A month ago they never spoke her name and now she’s like, quote quote the ‘saviour for the country,’” Watts said of the vice president. “I don’t think that her record proves that she is ready to run this country.”
Ms Watts said she does not think Mr Trump’s chances of winning are much different now from when Mr Biden was the Democratic nominee.
“I think the Democrats are going to try to do everything they can to keep her up on that pedestal,” she said, predicting the hype around Ms Harris will fade.
