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Donald Trump will appear alongside JD Vance for a campaign rally on Saturday, the pair’s first joint appearance since the Ohio senator was unveiled as Trump’s running mate at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The campaign event will take place at 5pm local time in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a crucial swing state that Trump won in 2016 and Biden clawed back in the 2020 presidential election.
Beyond just a campaign event, the rally is the latest public event for Trump after narrowly surviving an assassination attempt.
The former president’s security will be on high alert, especially given reports that would-be assassin Thomas Crooks managed to fly a drone over the Pennsylvania fairgrounds where Trump later spoke hours before the rally.
Today’s rally follows Trump’s high-profile appearance Thursday at the RNC, where he gave a rambling 93-minute keynote speech.
Ahead of the event, JD Vance, in a post on X, called on Biden to resign from the White House.
Watch the rally here, via Independent TV.
Key Points
- JD Vance makes surprise first appearance at Trump rally
- JD Vance calls on Biden to resign presidency
- Trump recounts assassination attempt in great detail during record-breaking RNC speech
- Trump got post-assassination attempt bump in the polls
- Key moments from Trump’s RNC speech as he formally accepts presidential nomination
- Former Secret Service officials say agents shouldn’t have let Trump pump fist on stage
JD Vance makes surprise first appearance at Trump rally
JD Vance made a quick appearance on Saturday to warm up the crowd ahead of a Trump campaign rally planned for this evening in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The US senator for Ohio confessed that seeing his name on campaign signs was still “a little bit weird,” but seemed to slot into the Trump campaign’s signature issues easily.
“We’ve gotta shut down that border, shut down the fentanyl, and make America safe for American citizens again,” he said.
He framed the election as a rare chance to compare candidates head-to-head, after four years of Trump then four years of Biden.
“Who could possibly reject the idea that four years of Trump has been a hell of a lot better than four years of Joe Biden?” Vance added, to cheers from the crowd.
He’s expected to appear onstage again when the full rally kicks off at 5pm ET.
Josh Marcus20 July 2024 21:04 1721505623Former White House doctor says Trump ‘doing well’ after assassination attempt
Donald Trump is “doing well” after a would-be assassin wounded the former president in a shooting last week, according to former White House physician and current Texas congressman Ronny Jackson.
“He is recovering as expected from the gunshot wound sustained last Saturday afternoon,” Jackson said in a statement.
The Texas congressman said he perosnally checked on Trump the night of the shooting, and described the former president suffering a 2 cm wide wound to the ear, which caused “significant bleeding” and “marked swelling of the entire upper ear.”
Trump got an initial CT scan of his head at a Pennsylvania, and will continue with a further battery of tests with his personal physicians, including a hearing exam, Jackson added.
Josh Marcus20 July 2024 21:00 1721504737How to watch Trump and Vance’s first campaign rally together
Donald Trump and JD Vance are appearing for the first time together at a campaign rally in Michigan today.
Watch the event live here via Independent TV on YouTube.
Josh Marcus20 July 2024 20:45 1721504123VIDEO: Trump lands in Michigan
We’re just hours away from the Trump-Vance campaign’s first joint rally in Michigan.
You know it’s official because the Ohio senator’s name has been added to the decorations on the fleet of Trump campaign planes.
Here’s video of the Republican nominees touching down in Michigan.
Josh Marcus20 July 2024 20:35 1721502996Trump rally shooter flew drone to scope out event site hours before opening fire: report
The 20-year-old who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump last week flew a drone over the Butler, Pennsylvania rally site hours before the former president took the stage.
Thomas Matthew Crooks sent the drone over the site the morning of July 13, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing law enforcement officials briefed on the shooting.
He used a pre-programmed flight path, which officials said may mean he used the drone more than once to scope out the area, according to the Journal.
Crooks also received several packages labeled as containing “hazardous materials” and performed Google searches for Trump rally dates as well as for President Joe Biden and next month’s Democratic National Convention, the Journal reports.
Katie Hawkinson has the details.
Trump rally shooter flew drone to scope out site hours before opening fire: report
The 20-year-old may have flown the drone near the event site multiple times
Josh Marcus20 July 2024 20:16 1721499900JD Vance roadblocked dozens of US diplomats while he obsessed over their views on gay rights
Before he was Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate, JD Vance was known, at least in the State Department, for grilling nominees with a questionnaire about LGBTQ+ rights, Pride flags, diversity and inclusion, and other so-called “woke” issues,” part of a series of holds he placed on Biden nominees that delayed the confirmation of more than 30 diplomats to senior positions until this April.
“The publics of many of our allies, and those countries we seek to build stronger relationships with, have traditional Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu moral values,” reads one section of the questionnaire, which was obtained by The Washington Post. “If confirmed, how would you explain to them what the United States’ promoting ‘human rights for LGBTQ people’ would look like in their country?”
Another asks potenital nominees how they respond to a 2021 Biden administration directive allowing the State Department to fly the LGBTQ+ Pride flag over US embassies, after the Trump administration forbid the practice.
“Where, if anywhere, do you believe it is not appropriate to ‘celebrate and prominently support local and regional Pride celebrations’?” Vance asked.
More details in our full story.
JD Vance roadblocked dozens of US diplomats as he obsessed over views on gay rights
Questions from Ohio senator held up nominations for months
Josh Marcus20 July 2024 19:25 1721498644Trump campaign already preparing for a battle with Kamala Harris
So far, despite intense pressure from his own party to move aside, Joe Biden remains the Democratic candidate for 2024.
That hasn’t stopped the Trump campaign from preparing for a battle with Kamala Harris if she ends up taking the top spot on the ticket.
The Trump campaign is reportedly preparing to go to war with the vice-president and former US senator for California, compiling opposition research and drafting plans for attack ads, according to a report in The New York Times.
For the moment, however, Biden is still in the top spot, weighing criticisms from his fellow Democrats and recovering from a case of Covid, as Katie Hawkinson reports.
Pelosi reportedly against Harris coronation as Biden faces mounting calls to quit
If president does drop out, the Democrats could hold an open convention to nominate a new ticket
Josh Marcus20 July 2024 19:04 1721496067JD Vance calls on Biden to resign presidency
Many high-profile Democrats are calling on Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential campaign and yield the stage to someone else, but Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance took things one step further on Saturday.
The senator from Ohio argued in a post on X that if Biden is unfit to run again, he should also leave the White House immediately.
“Everyone calling on Joe Biden to *stop running* without also calling on him to resign the presidency is engaged in an absurd level of cynicism,” Vance wrote. “If you can’t run, you can’t serve. He should resign now.”
Josh Marcus20 July 2024 18:21 1721494046Trump got post-assassination attempt bump in the polls
Donald Trump may have been wounded, but his campaign seems not to have missed a beat since he survived an assassination attempt last week.
According to a survey of eligible voters in swing states Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania from The Telegraph, 53 percent think Trump will win in November, up almost three points since a similar pollon July 10, before the shooting.
Josh Marcus20 July 2024 17:47 1721491823ICYMI: White nationalist bodybuilders and liberal elites: Here’s who JD Vance is following on X
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance follows several accounts on X that espouse far-right and white nationalist views, according to an analysis by The Independent.
The 39-year-old Ohio senator, who rose to fame with his best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy and was named as Donald Trump’s running-mate this week, follows 1,132 people on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Among them are two of the most popular figures in the Right Wing Bodybuilders scene — an online community in which many share a worldview that combines white nationalist ideas with anti-globalism, weight-lifting and nutrition.
One of them is Raw Egg Nationalist, an account that has shared Adolf Hitler memes, quoted Mein Kampf and promoted the ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy — a theory positing that Western elites are intentionally replacing White populations with migrants — to its 200,000 plus followers.
Read more from Richard Hall and Isaac Lozano.
JD Vance is following white nationalists on X
JD Vance, who was chosen as the Republican vice presidential nominee this week, follows accounts on X that promote white nationalist views.
Josh Marcus20 July 2024 17:10 Newer1 / 6OlderDisclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
