GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Former President Donald Trump told supporters here that he "took a bullet for democracy" as he and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, made their campaign trail debut at a rally Saturday.
Trump vowed to save the country from what he described as President Biden’s dysfunctional administration.
"At this very moment, Democratic party bosses are frantically trying to overthrow the results of their own party’s primaries to dump crooked Joe Biden from the ballot," Trump said. "And as you are seeing, the Democrat Party is not the party of democracy. They’re really enemies of democracy."
Donning a tan ear patch, to cover the injury he suffered following last Saturday’s assassination attempt, Trump made a direct appeal to auto workers, and working- and middle- class voters in this crucial swing state that he won in 2016 but which Biden took in 2020.
Trump delivered a nearly two-hour stump speech fresh off the heels of the Republican National Convention, where the party stood in lock step behind its presidential nominee.
Building on that momentum, Trump painted Republicans as a party of unity.
At the same time, he railed against Democrats who are in deeper disarray over President Biden's bid for reelection.
Those attacks extended to personal insults at Biden, Vice President Harris and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Trump called Harris "nuts" — but not as "crazy" as Pelosi, who Trump said was "selling out Biden" and "turned on him like a dog." Biden’s halting debate performance against Trump has resulted in an increasing number of Democrats calling on him to withdraw from the race. Pelosi has not explicitly done so, but she hasn’t explicitly supported Biden either.
Meanwhile, Trump portrayed himself as a defender of freedom.
"They keep saying, 'He's a threat to democracy.' I'm saying, 'What the hell did I do for democracy?'" he said. "Last week, I took a bullet for democracy."
Trump also continued to spread false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. "The radical left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020 and we are not going to allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024," he said. "We’re not going to allow it."
The crowd roared, responding in unison: "U-S-A. U-S-A."
Trump and Vance are looking to build on the momentum from last week’s Republican Convention as the campaign takes aim at Democrats' key “Blue Wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Vance is a key part of that strategy.
Seeking to make a connection with working class voters, Vance spoke of his own hard-scrabble upbringing in southern Ohio, growing up with his grandmother as his mom fought addiction.
He painted Trump as a fighter and Biden as weak. He asked supporters to think about their lives during Trump's years in the White House versus Biden’s term.
"Who could possibly reject the idea that four years of President Trump has been a hell of a lot better than four years of Joe Biden, right?" he said.
Trump sought to distance himself from Project 2025
Trump and Vance both reiterated their core "America First" platform by vowing to launch the largest deportation in U.S. history of those in the country illegally, fix the Southern border with Mexico, create more jobs and place tariffs on China and other countries.
"The Trump-Vance Administration will begin rapidly reversing every single Biden-Harris disaster starting on day one," Trump said. "And when you vote for Biden you're probably voting indirectly for Harris anyway."
Trump also said he would enact laws that ban transgender students from participating in school sports, and remove federal funding to schools that maintain vaccine and mask mandates, which were imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump also tried to distance himself from Project 2025, a platform created by the prominent conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. Many of the authors of Project 2025 are key figures in Trump’s orbit.
"The other side is going around trying to make me sound extreme — like I’m an extremist. I’m not," said Trump, who has previously supported the Heritage Foundation and its work. "Like some on the right — severe right — came up with this Project [20]25."
Trump said he knew some of the people who came up with 2025, but added, "You have the radical left, and you have the radical right — and they come up with this. I don’t know what the hell it is, it’s Project [20]25."
The race to win Michigan
It’s no coincidence Trump and Vance’s first campaign stop together is in Michigan: Trump won the state in 2016, but it flipped for Biden four years later. Now, leveraging Vance’s Rust Belt background, the Trump campaign has made it clear it intends to take Michigan for the winning, along with other states in the "blue wall" that could decide this year’s election.
"This is going to be a Rust Belt election," Donald Trump Jr. said on Monday at the convention, referencing the need to win key states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. "That's [Vance's] battleground. That's his home. Those are his people."
That’s why Trump and Vance both made direct appeals to Michiganders’ vote at the rally Saturday.
"I heard some O-H's but I'm gonna respect Michigan and not respond here," Vance said in his introductory speech. "To my Ohio brethren. Guys, we gotta win Michigan. That's the most important thing this election cycle."
Trump vowed to bring more jobs in the manufacturing and automobile industries to Michigan, and said if elected, he would have Michigan be one of the major construction sites for a defense shield that would be placed over the U.S. — much like the Iron Dome in Israel.
"And it will be entirely built in the U.S.A., and much of it will be built right here in Michigan," Trump said.
NPR’s Franco Ordoñez contributed to this report.
Copyright 2024 NPR