Former President Donald Trump held his first outdoor rally in Asheboro, N.C., on Wednesday since narrowly surviving an attempted assassination in Pennsylvania last month, speaking for over an hour on foreign policy and arguing “the world is on fire, and Kamala and Biden have marched us to the brink of World War III.”
“Every dictator, tyrant and terrorist on the planet knows that they can get away with murder under Kamala and crooked Joe,” Trump said, blaming the current White House for the deadly Afghanistan withdrawal and wars between Russia and Ukraine and between Israel and Hamas.
“If we win, I'll get that thing settled before I take the office. I'll get it settled as president-elect. I'll get that war stopped with Russia, yeah, we'll get that stopped, Ukraine and Russia,” Trump continued. “We're going to get it stopped and quickly. It'll be done before I get to office. Would not have happened if I was president.”
Trump also claimed, as he frequently has during the campaign, that the war between Israel and Hamas “would have never happened” if he had remained president.
“You're not going to have any Third World Wars. Every American was safer under President Trump. In fact, the entire world was safer when I sat behind that beautiful Resolute desk in the Oval Office,” Trump said in between asides about how people don’t want to see President Joe Biden in a bathing suit and how he says Biden copied him talking about the Resolute desk and “doesn't even know what the hell the Resolute desk is.”
Trump's podium at the North Carolina Aviation Museum & Hall of Fame was surrounded by panes of bulletproof glass that form a protective wall across the stage — part of ramped-up security measures aimed at keeping Trump safe after his narrow escape from a Pennsylvania gunman on July 13.
Storage containers were stacked around the perimeter of the space to create additional walls and block sight lines. Snipers were positioned on roofs at the venue, where old aircraft sat behind the podium and a large American flag was suspended from cranes.
Trump briefly left the stage during his remarks to greet and hug a woman who required medical attention. At another point he welcomed local sheriffs and officials onto the stage, joked about their weights — specifically singling out North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the GOP nominee for governor — and the stage potentially collapsing, and then said “we’ve had bigger risks than this.”
Otherwise, he didn’t discuss the attempt on his life by a 20-year-old gunman at a rally last month in his return to outdoor campaigning. But earlier on Wednesday, speaking with right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump said the shooting resulted in a more robust Secret Service protection and that he tried not to think about it.
“I don't want to think about it, because you don't want to change. You have to do what. You have to do, whatever it is. It's a dangerous profession… Being president is a dangerous job, I can tell you,” Trump said.
His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, did mention it in his introductory remarks in North Carolina later in the day, blaming it on their Democratic rivals.
“They couldn't beat him at the ballot box, so they tried to bankrupt him. They failed at that. So they tried to impeach him. They failed at that, so they tried to put him in prison, and they even tried to kill him,” Vance said. “But as sure as that beautiful flag still waves behind me in the American sky, Donald Trump still stands ready to fight, ready to win, ready to make America great again.”
The FBI and other agencies investigating the attempt on Trump’s life have yet to determine a motive for the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was killed by a Secret Service counter sniper after he shot Trump in the ear, killed one rallygoer and wounded two others. But the FBI has said Crooks acted alone and was researching the assassination of President John F. Kennedy prior to his attack on Trump. There is no evidence publicly available that he was personally connected to or motivated to violence by Democratic figures.
The North Carolina event was part of Trump's weeklong 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 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 Trump, calling him out repeatedly by name.
"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," Michelle Obama said of Trump in a rousing speech.
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 Trump's obsession with his crowd sizes and called Trump "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.
Trump briefly responded to the Obamas' remarks in North Carolina on Wednesday.
“Did you see Barack Hussein Obama last night? Take those shots? 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,” Trump said, later adding “He was very nasty last night. I try and be nice to people, you know, but it's a little tough.”
He then joked his advisers “are fired now” for encouraging him not to resort to personal attacks.
Reflecting the importance of North Carolina in this year's election, the trip is Trump's second to the state in just the past week. Last Wednesday, he appeared in Asheville, N.C., for a speech on the economy. Harris made a stop in Raleigh, N.C., for an economic speech of her own on Friday -- her eighth visit to the state this year — to unveil her economic agenda if elected. It was her first major policy proposal rollout since becoming the nominee.
Trump won North Carolina by a comfortable margin in 2016, but he only narrowly won it in 2020, his closest margin of victory in a statewide race. It's once again considered a key battleground in 2024.
Before Trump arrived, his plane did a flyover of the rally site. The crowd erupted into cheers.
Harris' campaign, meanwhile, made clear in a memo on Wednesday ahead of Trump's event that they view the Tar Heel State as a “true toss-up.”
North Carolina has only voted for a Democratic candidate for president once since 1980 — going for Obama in 2008 — but a recent poll by New York Times/Siena College showed the vice president leading Trump in the state and Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, a closely watched election forecaster this week moved the state from “leans Republican” to “toss-up.”
Harris’ team has its sights set on flipping the Tar Heel State and pledged in Wednesday’s memo to “do the work” to make it happen. The campaign said it has 23 offices open on the ground in the state with three more set to open this week. It noted more than 12,000 new volunteers have signed on to help with efforts since Harris became the nominee.
The campaign is also touting a boost in registered Democrats in the state. According to statistics from the North Carolina State Board of Elections, there are about 2,500 more registered Democrats as of Aug. 17 than one day before President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid. Republicans have nearly 7,000 less people registered with the party in the state as of Aug. 17 compared to July 20.