Former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, holding his first campaign rally since surviving an assassination attempt, on Saturday rejected concerns that he is a threat to the US’ democratic system, triumphantly telling the crowd: “I took a bullet for democracy.”
“I’m not an extremist at all,” he said at the rally in swing state Michigan, dismissing his reported links to Project 2025, a shadow manifesto from figures close to him that has been characterized by opponents as an authoritarian, right-wing wish list.
Trump, 78, also mocked the Democratic Party, roiled by unprecedented pressure for US President Joe Biden, 81, to abandon his re-election bid amid concerns over his age and fitness to serve, if re-elected, until 2029.
Photo: Bloomberg
“They have no idea who their candidate is... This guy goes and he gets the votes, and now they want to take it away. That’s democracy,” Trump told the 12,000-strong crowd.
In a fiery, but typically rambling speech, Trump riffed on his hardline immigration views, espoused falsehoods about migrant crime and repeated his baseless claim that Democrats “rigged” the 2020 election.
He also expressed admiration for foreign autocrats, including China’s “brilliant” President Xi Jinping (習近平), who he praised for controlling “1.4 billion people with an iron fist.”
He said that Xi wrote him a note after his ear was shot in the assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.
Xi “wrote me a beautiful note the other day when he heard about what happened,” Trump said.
Trump spoke of the note while discussing his economic policy toward China during his presidency, adding: “I got along very well with President Xi.”
Trump also evoked the seconds after a gunman tried to kill him, when, bloodied and surrounded by US Secret Service agents, he raised a fist and yelled for his supporters to “fight.”
The crowd in Grand Rapids chanted the word back to him multiple times, although some appeared to tire of the lengthy address after 90 minutes and began heading to the exits.
Trump hurled insults and invective, calling Biden “stupid” and a “feeble old” man, and branding US Vice President Kamala Harris “crazy” and “nuts.”
The Biden-Harris campaign dismissed the speech as Trump “peddling the same lies [and] running the same campaign of revenge and retribution.”
Additional reporting by Reuters
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