Five takeaways from Trump's first rally since assassination bid

Grand Rapids, Michigan - Donald Trump took the stage for nearly two hours Saturday in his first rally since a gunman tried to kill him last week, with a fiery, rambling speech to thousands of passionate supporters. Here are five takeaways from the vision painted by the Republican presidential nominee.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan – his first since surviving an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan – his first since surviving an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.  © REUTERS

Last week's Republican National Convention notably downplayed Trump's persistent lie that the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, was stolen from him.

But when Trump returned to the campaign trail Saturday night he did not hold back.

"The Radical Left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020 and we're not going to allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024," he said, in just one of his references to debunked allegations of voter fraud.

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Kamala Harris Kamala Harris agrees to Fox News interview as Trump blasts "very soft" choice

"We want a landslide that is too big to rig," he added later.

Trump warned those who voted early to "follow your vote" and insisted that 2020 saw some states "shoveling ballots into wheelbarrows, moving them around."

And the crowd cheered as he called on them to "Fight, fight, fight."

That evoked both the moments after his attempted assassination last Saturday – when, bloodied and surrounded by Secret Service agents, he raised a fist in the air and shouted "fight" – and his comments before the 2021 Capitol riot, when he warned supporters "if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."

Trump claims he's "not an extremist at all"

Donald Trump points while delivering remarks during a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Donald Trump points while delivering remarks during a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  © REUTERS

Trump also again disavowed Project 2025, a shadow manifesto characterized by opponents as an authoritarian, right-wing wish list.

"The other side is going around trying to make me sound extreme ... I'm not an extremist at all," he complained.

The sweeping blueprint from the hardline Heritage Foundation to remake the federal government in Trump's image was created by "the radical right... they're seriously extreme," he said, insisting, "I don't know what the hell it is."

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Politicians Nancy Pelosi gaslights Muslim voters abandoning Democrats over Gaza: "Death is sad"

The official Republican platform ratified at the Milwaukee convention is less conservative than Project 2025 in several areas, including abortion and entitlements.

But many of the more extreme proposals in the Heritage Foundation handbook are indistinguishable from Trump's remarks at his rallies and his own video statements, while Democrats say members of his inner circle have been linked to it.

Still Trump insisted the idea that he is a "threat to democracy" is "misinformation."

"Last week, I took a bullet for democracy," he said.

Trump calls Biden "stupid"

Trump also laid in to the crisis engulfing rival Biden's candidacy, as Democrats fearing that at 81 the president is too old to serve for another four years pressure him to step off the ticket.

"They have no idea who they candidate is ... Sort of interesting, this guy goes and he gets the votes and now they want to take it away. That's democracy," Trump said in Michigan.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he said, had turned on the president "like a dog."

Branding Biden "stupid" and "a low-IQ individual," he also denigrated Vice President Kamala Harris – who, if the president steps aside, is in a strong position to take over – as "crazy."

Trump says he received "beautiful note" from China's Xi

Donald Trump gestures during his speech at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Donald Trump gestures during his speech at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  © REUTERS

Trump again touted his relationships with leaders around the globe, insisting of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un that getting along had made the US safer.

"All he wants to do is buy nuclear weapons and make them," he said of Kim.

"I said, just relax, chill. You've got enough. You got, you got so much nuclear weapons, so much, I said, just relax... let's go to a baseball game."

He called Hungarian President Viktor Orban a "very powerful leader" and again insisted that, had he been US leader, President Vladimir Putin of Russia would never have invaded Ukraine in 2022.

And he said he received a "beautiful note" after the assassination attempt from President Xi Jinping of China, calling him a "great guy."

He said he had told reporters that Xi was "a brilliant man. He controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist."

Trump doubles down on anti-migrant rhetoric

Donald Trump looks on during a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Donald Trump looks on during a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  © REUTERS

Trump also unleashed a litany of threats against undocumented migrants, decrying an "invasion" over the US border and again claiming that Democrats were allowing it to happen in hope of using their votes.

On day one of his return to the Oval Office, Trump promised to launch the "largest deportation operation in the history of our country."

"When I return to the White House, we will stop the plunder, rape, slaughter and destruction of our American suburb cities," he continued.

"We're going to get the bad ones out. We're going to get them out immediately. It's not going to take long."

He promised to "crush migrant crime" and complained that countries such as Venezuela are "dumping their criminals into the United States of America, and we're not going to take it anymore."

Research does not support Trump's claims that migrants commit crimes at higher rates than people born in the US, nor is seeking asylum in the US a crime.

Cover photo: REUTERS

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