Trump says a Trump-Vance administration will rapidly reverse “every single Biden-Harris disaster”, starting from day one, if he is elected.
He says he will end the “inflation nightmare”, that he will “crush migrant crime”, that he will give people an additional tax cut and that energy prices will be brought down “very quickly”.
America’s enemies will fear us. The United States will again command the respect that it deserves.
He says “something beautiful” will happen, and that he will bring back the American dream, and that it will be “bigger, better and bolder than ever before”.
Trump says Democrats have been trying to make him sound “like I’m an extremist” but says that he is actually a person “with great common sense”.
He says he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025. “I don’t know what the hell it is,” he says.
They keep saying [I’m] a threat to democracy. I’m saying: what the hell did I do for democracy? Last week, I took a bullet for democracy. What did I do against democracy?
Trump says he will “never stop working to deliver a magnificent future for our people”, as he notes that the upcoming November election will be the “most important election in the history of our country”.
We will fight, fight, fight and we will win, win, win.
Trump says there are other things he could be doing that would be “a lot easier”, although he says he would rather be campaigning today than “sitting on some gorgeous beach watching boring waves”.
Trump then talks about the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, saying there has never been a convention with so much “unity and love”.
“There’s never been anything like it,” he says, noting that it was “really an amazing thing to see” with “so many great people”.
Trump, still referring to the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, says it was an “incredible” time.
Nobody’s seen anything like it, and hopefully they never will again.
He thanks Texas representative Ronny Jackson, his former physician, who has been treating him since the attack. Trump calls him an “outstanding” doctor, saying: “I love that guy.”
Donald Trump says he wants to thank Americans nationwide, including those attending today’s campaign rally, for their “extraordinary outpouring of love and support” in the wake of the “horrific” event last weekend.
He says the assassination attempt took place “exactly one week ago today, almost to the hour, even to the minute”. “What a day it was,” Trump says.
I stand before you only by the grace of almighty God. I shouldn’t be here. Maybe JD or somebody else would be here, but I shouldn’t be here right now.
Trump says he wants to thank everyone at Butler memorial hospital and the citizens of Butler, Pennsylvania.
Donald Trump begins speaking at the campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he appears to no longer be wearing the large white bandage on his injured ear from last Saturday’s assassination attempt.
“This is like a Michigan football game over here,” Trump said, before thanking his running mate, JD Vance, whom he says will be a “fantastic” vice-president.
Trump says he chose Vance “because he’s for the worker”.
Ohio senator JD Vance is back on stage at the campaign rally at Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he makes a brief speech to supporters before introducing Donald Trump.
Vance says Trump was a great president who “knew instinctively what this country needed and how to put the interests of the citizens of this country first”.
“We had a hell of a four years with President Donald J Trump, didn’t we?” Vance says before Trump walks on to the stage.
Standing in line, Isaiah White, a 25-year old from Hudsonville, Michigan said he was “very excited” for another chance to see Donald Trump. The last time Trump came to Van Andel Arena, White got in line too late and had to watch on the jumbotron outside the venue.
Betsy Gatchell Goff, who came to Van Andel Arena from her home town of Benton Harbor, Michigan, said she thought Trump was “a unifying figure for our country.” Gatchell Goff hoped that with Trump back in office, “we’ll have a president who does more than sleep all day,” a disparaging reference to Joe Biden.
Joe Attard, a worker at a factory that makes sheds, made the drive from Southgate, Michigan, to Grand Rapids hoping to catch a glimpse of Donald Trump, who was appearing in the crucial battleground state after being formally anointed as the Republican presidential candidate and hitting the campaign trail with his new running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance. Attard said:
There’s a real feeling of community here, everybody in the same mind. It’s a great feeling.
Other than a lone man across the barricades holding a Deport Trump sign, Attard seemed to be right. There were few people around without some kind of Trump-branded apparel.
Perhaps in keeping with a party that has fully unified around Trump after the shocking attempt on his life, most people seemed excited to be at the rally.
A man in an army baseball cap pointed people towards the ADA-accessible line. People waved and cheered for the Secret Service officers and mounted police patrolling the street.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
