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Donald Trump was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Wednesday for his first campaign rally in the swing state since he came within inches of being killed by a would-be assassin’s bullet earlier this month.
“As you know, this is my first rally since Butler,” Trump told the indoor rally. “We’re going back to Butler, by the way.”
The former president spoke just hours after a confrontational interview with the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago.
During the interview, Trump insulted his likely 2024 opponent, Kamala Harris, and falsely accused her of lying about her race — stating that she recently “became Black”. Harris, who is biracial, is Black and Indian-American.
At the evening rally, Trump remained largely tied to his prepared remarks and attacked Harris for supposedly wanting to “destroy” Pennsylvania’s economy.
He lamented that he had spent so much time attacking Biden, quipping that he did not know who Harris was before she became the presumptive Democratic nominee with the withdrawal of the president from the race.
“Kamala”, the former president remarked onstage, pronouncing the vice president’s name correctly after previously failing to do so. He them commented, mockingly: “Beautiful.”
Before he took the rally stage on Wednesday, a projector flashed images of news articles noting that Harris was the first Indian-American senator from California, a fact that does not change her biracial identity.
But Trump did not dive back into the topic of race following his outrageous remarks earlier in the day. On Wednesday afternoon in Chicago, Trump falsely claimed that Harris’s Indian-American heritage meant that she was lying about being Black. His remarks were met with jeers from the audience.
“I didn’t know she was Black,” he told the journalists’ event. “She happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black? ... I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t, because she was Indian all the way and all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person.”
Polls indicate that Harris is quickly making up ground against Trump, despite having only been in the race just over a week. In Pennsylvania, however, she continues to trail the ex-president by four per centage points, according to a Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday.
In Harrisburg, Trump recalled the shooting in Butler on July 13 to the crowd. His event in Harrisburg was held indoors, following a recommendation from the Secret Service that he hold such rallies at indoor venues. But he pledged onstage to continue holding outdoor events in the future.
Trump was wounded in the ear during the attack before he raised a fist to the crowd and yelled, “fight!” and was led off the stage by Secret Service agents.
Gunman Matthew Crooks was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper. One rallygoer, retired fire chief Corey Comperatore, was killed, two others were wounded.
“Corey is a hero to all of us,” Trump said on Wednesday, provoking a chant of “Corey!” from the crowd. He asked for a moment of silence, remarking afterwards: “That is the most quiet I have ever heard an arena.”
In a bizarre moment, Trump invited the campaign aide who created a chart for his Butler rally to the stage. The chart, which illustrated rates of illegal immigration in the US, has been credited by Trump as having “saved his life” after he turned his head to look at it miliseconds before the bullet whizzed past his head. The young woman joined Trump momentarily onstage, where he kissed the side of her head.
Trump publicly thanks the woman who put the chart up on the screen which saved his life on J13 🇺🇸🙏🏼🥹
— TONY™ (@TONYxTWO) July 31, 2024
“She saved my life!” pic.twitter.com/bSQB4ZAtZ3
“I love that chart. I’m gonna sleep with that chart for the rest of my life,” he said.
Secret Service agents were in charge of the former president’s security on Wednesday as the agency faces bipartisan condemnation for the assassination attempt.
The director of the agency resigned after a heated congressional hearing last week, and her acting successor has said that he is “ashamed” of the security lapses which led to a roof of a building being unsecured, allowing suspect Crooks to scale the building and fire several shots with a rifle.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for the city of Harrisburg told a news station that Secret Service agents were “overseeing everything” at Wednesday’s rally, adding: “after that, it becomes a Pennsylvania State Police detail and because the farm show is a state-owned building, [Pennsylvania] Capitol Police are involved as well.”
