(Elias Irizarry, Headline USA) ASHEBORO, N.C.–As the Democratic National Convention in Chicago sought to bring Vice President Kamala Harris’s pop-up presidential campaign to the forefront, former President Donald Trump has undertaken a counterprogramming effort that added new levels of on-message discipline and policy emphasis to his discursive oratorical style.
Even so, it was an impromptu hug with an elderly rallygoer on Wednesday that may have had the most enduring impact.
Although it sent Secret Service scrambling, the moment offered a poignant visual contrast to the heightened security measures Trump now faces following a July 13 assassination attempt.
The rally at North Carolina’s Aviation Museum & Hall of Fame was Trump’s first to be held outdoors since the fatal shooting in Butler, Pa., which killed audience member Corey Comperatore and left two others critically injured.
Taking the podium behind a bullet-proof panel, Trump championed his first term’s national security accomplishments, as well as laying out what a future administration’s policies would look like.
🚨 Donald Trump speaks behind bulletproof glass in his first outdoor rally since surviving the assassination attempt. pic.twitter.com/QL7WaK4oXU
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 21, 2024
The former president additionally blasted Harris for her administration’s failures regarding national security, accusing her and President Joe Biden of bringing the world to the “brink of World War III.”
He shamed the two for failing to deliver accountability for the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal that resulted in the death of 13 service members, noting that nobody had been fired for the chaos that ensued at the Kabul airport.
“Under my leadership, we were getting out of Afghanistan—but we were going to get out with dignity, pride and with strength,” Trump said. “When I left office, we had not lost a single service member in Afghanistan in 18 months, and then we had that horrible day.”
He also called for the resignation of all the commanding officials responsible for the incident, noting the importance of having intelligent and strategic military officers rather than weak ones.
While the United States may have the best military in the world, that title goes to waste if it doesn’t have strong leaders in charge, Trump reasoned.
During his first term as president, “We defeated ISIS, we killed the world’s top terrorists, we achieved energy independence, we stood up to China … and we didn’t start wars,” Trump boasted, contrasting the leaders that he had under his administration with the woke officials currently running the Pentagon.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: We defeated ISIS, we killed the world’s top terrorists, we secured our borders, we achieved Energy Independence, we stood up to China, we protected Israel, we made PEACE in the Middle East with the Abraham Accords and more, and brought our troops back home. I am… pic.twitter.com/5r3iGtfW9O
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 21, 2024
Trump additionally invited local sheriffs to stand beside him on the stage and praised them as the “reason that we’re able to be here and have a safe state—and a great state.”
Still, he struggled to reconcile his normal hands-on interaction with supporters in the audience and the security demands being foisted on him by the Secret Service.
“These are great people, but I wanna get them the hell off this stage because I guarantee, they didn’t have this in mind when they built this,” joked Trump about the ballistic wall.
SHERIFFS FOR TRUMP! pic.twitter.com/ak5ZSuWMS5
— Trump on Truth (@HashtagTrump) August 21, 2024
Efforts to rein in the GOP nominee failed, however, when Trump left his protected space to console a member of the crowd who had fainted during the rally, hugging the woman, who had been given water, after being yelled out to by members of the audience.
Secret Service descended upon the scene to surround the former president during his embrace.
President Trump leaves the bulletproof glass protecting him to check on a supporter in the crowd who passed out.
FEARLESS. pic.twitter.com/4QW1r9nmFI
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 21, 2024
Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, also spoke at the rally. While it was Trump’s third visit, at least, to the battleground state since announcing his pick of Vance, it marked the first time the two had spoken together at an event in North Carolina.
Vance criticized the Biden–Harris administration for their failure to curb illegal immigration and warned that a future Harris administration would make the Southern border look like “Walmart on Black Friday.”
“Let’s be honest, folks. Mean tweets and world peace has a pretty nice ring to it—and I think we ought to bring it back,” he said.
Despite the strict measures taken by the Secret Service, local police arrested two individuals who allegedly brought weapons to the rally, according to Newsweek.
“I can tell you that one person is apparently being charged, and no one was injured,” said Assistant Chief Jay Hanson of the Asheboro Police Department.
Local police have not yet disclosed the type of weapons brought to the rally, and those arrested have not been identified.
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