Donald Trump on Saturday appeared at his first campaign rally since last weekend’s assassination attempt, alongside his new running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio.
The pair were greeted by an excited crowd at an indoor arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Here’s what happened:
New Vice Presidential Candidate: “It’s still a little weird to see my name on that billboard, to be honest with you,” Vance said, referring to campaign literature from Trump and Vance fluttering behind him in the audience.
Vance defended his loyalty to the US after Vice President Kamala Harris said he was “only loyal to Trump, not to our country.”
Prior to becoming vice president, Harris served as San Francisco’s district attorney, California’s attorney general and a member of the California House of Representatives.
Vance later reappeared and introduced Trump to a cheering crowd.
Regarding shootings at rallies: “I took a bullet for democracy,” Trump said, wearing a small beige bandage over his ear.
The former president, who spoke for about two hours, thanked the staff at Butler Memorial Hospital, where he was taken minutes after the shooting at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Former White House physician Rep. Ronny Jackson said Saturday that Trump is “recovering as expected” from a gunshot wound to the ear. Investigations into the shooter at the rally and the response of security at the venue continue.
In his first joint interview with Vance, Trump said people at the rally last weekend noticed someone on the roof before the assassination attempt.
Support from Musk: Trump said he spoke with tech billionaire Elon Musk before coming to the Grand Rapids rally, and the former president said he did not mention a Wall Street Journal report that Musk donates about $45 million a month to a pro-Trump super PAC.
About World Leaders: Trump said he received letters from Chinese President Xi Jinping and other world leaders after the assassination attempt. “I’ve had a very good relationship with President Xi. He’s a great guy,” he said, insisting he could get along with them even though they understood his “plan to use the U.S. on the world stage is over” while he was president.
Biden campaign response: President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign slammed Trump’s comments at the rally, saying he was “only focused on himself.”
“He is spreading the same lies, waging the same campaign of revenge and retaliation, touting the same failed policies, and, as always, focusing only on himself. The only unity we saw today was between Donald Trump and J.D. Vance and their Project 2025 agenda,” Biden campaign spokesman Amaal Moosa said in a statement.
Project 2025 is a policy blueprint created by a conservative think tank. Democrats have clung to some of the document’s controversial, right-wing proposals, but President Trump has sought to distance himself from the platform, even though dozens of people from the previous administration helped write it.
