Summary of the day
Donald Trump held his first public campaign rally since a shocking assassination attempt a week ago by appearing in a crucial rust belt battleground state alongside his new running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance.
Trump, reflecting on the 13 July shooting, said: “I shouldn’t be here right now” during the Grand Rapids, Michigan, campaign rally, where the white gauze on his injured ear had been replaced by a smaller, beige bandage.
Trump launched a full-throated attack on Democratic rivals and referred to leadership chaos within the Democratic party. “They have no idea who their candidate is, and neither do we,” Trump jibed. He called Biden a “feeble old guy”.
Trump had been struck by a bullet that passed “less than a quarter of an inch” from his head and left a “2 cm wide wound” on his right ear during last week’s assassination attempt, his former physician and Texas representative Ronny Jackson said.
Joe Biden continued to endure high-profile calls to end his re-election campaign after a week of astonishing party moves to unseat the president in favor of a candidate many hope will be more likely to beat Trump.
Representative Mark Takano of California, the top Democrat on the House veterans’ affairs committee, on Saturday added his name to the list of nearly three dozen Democrats in Congress who say it’s time for Biden to leave the race.
The former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton have privately been supportive of Biden’s decision to stay in the race and have been actively encouraging donors to stay with him, according to an NBC report.
Biden is planning potential trips to Georgia and Texas in the coming days even as he recovers from Covid and Democrats continue to call on him to drop out of the race. Biden’s symptoms “continue to improve steadily”, his physician Kevin C O’Connor said in a statement on Saturday.
The Trump campaign is preparing a major attack plan on Kamala Harris if Biden steps aside, including a wave of ads focusing on her record in her current office and in California, according to a New York Times report.
Biden called Sheila Jackson Lee a “great American” and “towering figure in our politics” in a statement issued after the Democratic representative from Texas died on Friday.
Donald Trump has finished speaking at his campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, alongside his new running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance, as he returned to the campaign trail a week after surviving an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
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