Former President Donald Trump seemed entirely unbothered by the second alleged assassination attempt on his life as he kicked off a town hall on Tuesday night in Flint, Michigan.
Trump took the stage alongside Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and immediately launched into his signature stream of speech. The GOP presidential nominee jumped from car makers to COVID-19–which he called the “China virus”–to his “very nice” call with Vice President Kamala Harris. But first, he seemed to address the presumed assassination attempt at his golf course in Florida.
“It’s a dangerous business being president,” said Trump, addressing the audience.“It’s a little bit dangerous.” He then went on to brush off the number of assassination attempts against him with a boast.
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“That’s OK,” he said about the presidency being “dangerous business.” He added, “Only consequential presidents get shot at.”
On the subject of another attempted assassination, Trump did take some time out of his speech to thank President Joe Biden and VP Harris for checking in.
“President Biden called me yesterday. It was very nice. We had a very nice conversation,” said Trump. “I appreciated that he called about, you know, what happened the other day.”
Trump then addressed his call with “Kamala” earlier in the day. When the crowd started to boo, he responded, “No.” He added: “It was very nice. It was very nice. It was very very nice and we appreciate that,” he said.
After earlier in the day accusing the Democrats of participating in “rampant cheating and skullduggery” in his 2020 election loss, Trump leaned heavily on voter fraud in his remarks. He again alleged that he won the election against President Biden, despite recently admitting that he did in fact lost.
“We ran in 2016 and it was amazing. We won,” he said. “We then ran in 2020, and we did much better than we did in 2016. People don’t like to hear, you know. [They say], ‘Oh, he’s a conspiracy theorist.’”
He added, “We got millions and millions more votes. It wasn’t even a contest.” Trump said what happened in 2020 “should never be allowed to happen again” while warning that there won’t be an automobile industry for the car makers in the state.
If he had won the 2020 election, Trump once again claimed there would be no Israel-Hamas War, and Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have attacked Ukraine.
In fact, Trump spent the majority of his time on stage talking about foreign affairs–including the pull out from Afghanistan– over problems at home in the United States, or even in Flint, which is still recovering from its 2014 water crisis.
Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for a campaign event, his first since a man carrying a rifle was arrested Sunday near where Trump was playing golf at his club in Florida, in the Dort Financial Center on September 17, 2024 in Flint, Michigan.
Scott Olson/Getty ImagesWhen Sanders, serving as moderator, began taking questions from the audience, he focused on immigration and energy, connecting them all to rising food costs.
In response to an audience question about the major challenges facing Michigan’s autoworkers, he named “nuclear weapons.”
“We have other countries that are hostile to us, they don’t have to be hostile to us. I always say if you have a smart president, you’ll never have a problem with China, Russia or any of them,” he said. “But you essentially have five countries, and you’re going to have more whether you like it or not, it’s the single biggest threat to the world. Not only Michigan. And you’re not going to care so much about making cars if that starts happening.”
Before the roughly hour-long town hall was finished, Trump said his habit of jumping from one topic to another wasn’t rambling, but the workings of a “genius.” He also gave Elon Musk a shoutout for being a “great guy” and giving him the “strongest endorsement,” and thanked the Secret Service for foiling Sunday’s assassination plot. “They did a hell of a job,” he said.
