NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump alluded to “bad things” that happened in the wake of the 2020 election, and quipped about politics being a “dangerous business,” as he returned to the campaign trail Tuesday for the first time since the apparent assassination attempt over the weekend.
After speaking briefly by phone with Vice President Kamala Harris, who told him she was grateful he was safe, Trump answered questions from supporters at a town hall-style event in battleground Michigan, promising to quash immigration and boost the fossil fuel industry.
“On day one we’re gonna do two things: closing the border and drill, baby, drill,” Trump said in answer to a question on his plans for the border and the economy.
He briefly mentioned both recent assassination attempts before declaring he won the 2020 election and going on to blame the Biden-Harris administration for everything that happened afterward — from inflation to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
Then, making the gathering more “Michigan-centric,” Trump promised to restore the state’s automotive industry to its former glory.
“You used to be the capital of the world in cars. Today you’re an afterthought in cars,” he told the cheering crowd, blaming the industry’s downturn on the United Auto Workers union.
When he’s elected, he promised, “You’re gonna be as big or bigger than 50 years ago.”
Throwing shade at the “fake news” for reporting he was rambling, Trump said, “That’s not rambling. That’s genius, when you can connect the dots.”
The event featured stepped-up security after authorities opened fire on a man they say planned to try to shoot Trump as he played golf at his Florida club in West Palm Beach on Sunday.
Suspect Ryan Routh remained behind bars on weapons charges tied to the incident, which came a few weeks after a troubled teenager shot and wounded Trump at a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania.
Authorities described the latest incident as an attempted assassination, although Routh, 58, was unable to shoot at Trump. While they have not revealed a motive, Routh had been a vocal supporter of Ukraine’s effort to repel Russia’s invasion.
The Tuesday evening event in the heavily Democratic city of Flint, Michigan, came as Trump has fallen behind Harris in polls of both battleground states and the entire nation.
Voters told pollsters that Harris won last week’s debate decisively and most polls show her opening up a wider lead in recent days. It’s too early to say if Trump may get a sympathy boost from the latest alleged assassination attempt.
Trump heads to Long Island on Wednesday for a rally at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale.
Even though Trump has significant support in suburban Long Island, the event has political operatives scratching their heads because he has no realistic chance of winning New York or New Jersey and Connecticut, the other states in the metro area.
Trump boasted that the arena will be “packed with patriots.”
“We have a real chance of winning, for the first time in many decades, New York,” Trump claimed on his social media site.
Most analysts on both sides of the political aisle advise the presidential candidates to devote as much of their time as possible in the seven swing states that will likely determine the winner of the White House race.
The Trump campaign is also still dealing with fallout from its controversial effort to amplify false racist claims that Haitian immigrants have been stealing and eating pets of neighbors in the small city of Springfield, Ohio.
Trump and vice presidential nominee JD Vance have made no apologies for spewing the false attacks on Haitians, even though Vance admitted he “created” them to exploit fears about increased immigration in the heartland.
Several public schools, libraries and other facilities have been forced to close after being targeted by bomb threats that authorities blame on the hateful campaign of anti-Haitian lies.
Vance hit the campaign trail in western Michigan and battleground Wisconsin on Tuesday. Democrat Tim Walz was stumping in North Carolina and Georgia.
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