GRAND RAPIDS, July 21 — Donald Trump commanded the stage for nearly two hours yesterday in his first rally since a gunman tried to kill him last week, with a fiery, rambling speech to thousands of passionate supporters. Here are five takeaways from the vision painted by the Republican presidential nominee for the United States: ‘Shovelling ballots into wheelbarrows’ Last week’s Republican National Convention notably downplayed Trump’s persistent lie that the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, was stolen from him. But when Trump returned to the campaign trail Saturday night he did not hold back.
“The Radical Left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020 and we’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024,” he said, in just one of his references to voter fraud. “We want a landslide that is too big to rig,” he added later. He warned those who voted early to “follow your vote” and insisted that 2020 saw some states “shovelling ballots into wheelbarrows, moving them around”.
And the crowd cheered as he called on them to “Fight, fight, fight”. That evoked both the moments after his attempted assassination last Saturday — when, bloodied and surrounded by Secret Service agents, he raised a fist in the air and shouted “fight” — and his comments before the 2021 Capitol riot, when he warned supporters “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” ‘I’m not a.