A cheer tore through the sea of attendees in bedazzled “Trump 2024” denim jackets and red MAGA hats as Donald Trump came on stage at Charlotte’s Bojangles Coliseum Wednesday night.
Some sported T-shirts with Christian imagery. Other shirts stated,“I’m voting for the felon.”
The venue reached full capacity as more supporters spilled out into the parking lot. The crowd of thousands inside chanted as words splashed across the jumbotron: “North Carolina is Trump Country.”
The rally at Charlotte’s Bojangles Coliseum was Trump’s first since President Joe Biden announced he is no longer running for reelection and is, instead, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination. She’s since secured commitments from enough delegates to win the nomination during next’s month’s Democratic National Convention.
It also was Trump’s second rally since an assassination attempt at a July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, left him wounded and one crowd member dead.
He used Wednesday as an opportunity to push back against a fact Harris has stressed since Biden stepped aside: that Trump is a convicted felon and she is a prosecutor. In his one-and-a-half-hour speech, he focused most intently on border security and support for law enforcement as priorities if he is elected.
He shed any notion that he’d be “nice” at the beginning, despite calls for unity at last week’s Republican National Convention.
“They say something happened to me when I got shot. I became nice,” Trump said. “... If you don’t mind, I’m not gonna be nice.”
What he had to say about Harris
Trump’s speech began with a video of Harris on the jumbotron, met with boos the moment her face appeared.
“Open borders. Free health care for illegals. No private health insurance. Allow felons to vote,” it read.
Those have been common Republican talking points in the lead-up to November’s election. Democrats describe the policies differently – promoting health care access for all or creating easier pathways to citizenship.
Trump also took aim at Biden’s presidency as well as his decision to bow out of the presidential race.
Just a couple hours before Biden gave an address from the Oval Office explaining why he exited the race, Trump called the decision a defeat.
“If you take the 10 worst presidents in the history of our country and put them together, they wouldn’t have done the damage this president has done,” Trump said. “If Kamala will lie to you so brazenly about Joe Biden’s mental capacity, she will lie to you about anything. She’s unfit to lead.”
For all the criticism Trump doled out to Biden, he said Wednesday that Harris is “worse.”
“Then, they bring in this one who’s worse than him,” he said. “He’s a fake liberal, but she’s a real liberal.”
Harris’ voting record in the Senate is one of the most liberal, CNN reported in 2020. Before becoming senator, she was a moderate attorney general in California who pushed for the criminalization of marijuana. She has since changed her stance.
Immigration and law enforcement
Trump repeatedly focused on border security as a priority, calling Harris “the Border Czar,” as she has been referred to by a number of conservative lawmakers, who claim she was tasked with repairing the country’s southern border.
While Harris was tasked by Biden in 2021 to examine the root causes of migration from Central America, according to The White House, this primarily involved promoting democracy and development there through diplomacy. She was never chosen to lead immigration policy. That role fell under Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Encounters with undocumented immigrants at the southern U.S. border have increased significantly under the Biden administration. However, these figures are significantly fewer than the number Trump asserted Wednesday night.
In reality, around 2.5 million people have been released into the U.S. and 2.8 million have been removed or expelled since Biden took office, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security produced in January.
Trump also asserted the undocumented immigrants entering the country are “illegal predators and rapists” and “bloodthirsty killers.”
Earlier in the rally, Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop, who is running for attorney general, referenced a shooting spree this month in Charlotte where people seemingly were shot at random. A suspect in that incident was ordered to be deported, according to The Charlotte Observer’s news partner WSOC-TV. The man and his father were released into the country after a border encounter, the TV station reported.
Trump has repeatedly claimed countries around the world are sending immigrants from “prisons, insane asylums and mental institutions,” as he did again at Wednesday’s rally. However, these claims are unsubstantiated.
He also pledged to support law enforcement.
“The Democrats have a war going with police,” he said. “We will give our police back the power, protection and respect they deserve.”
Michael McHale, president of the National Association of Police Organizations, announced at the event that the group is endorsing Trump in the upcoming election.
“NAPO is pleased to support your re-election as president, and we are confident of your continued strong support of America’s law enforcement community,” McHale wrote in a letter to Trump.
What else did Trump say?
Trump addressed a number of other campaign priorities, including reducing inflation, leaving the legality of abortion up to the states, repealing the Green New Deal and increasing election security.
He also committed to protecting certain social programs.
“I will not cut one penny from Social Security or Medicare, and I will not raise the retirement age one day,” Trump said.
He also doubled down on his previous false claims that the 2020 election was “stolen” by Biden, despite these claims having been debunked.
“They rigged the presidential election in 2020, and we’re not going to allow them to rig the 2024 election,” Trump said.
Observer reporter Joe Marusak and intern Lucy Marques contributed reporting.
