Donald Trump said he’s rebounded from an assassination attempt on July 13 and appeared on Friday night without a bandage on his right ear.
“As you can see, I’ve recovered well and in fact just took the last bandage off my ear,” he said in West Palm Beach, Florida, at an event hosted by Turning Point USA, an organisation that fosters young conservatives.
The former president suffered the ear wound when a would-be assassin opened fire on him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. One bystander was killed, and two others hurt in the attack. Earlier this week, Secret Service Chief Kimberly Cheatle resigned amid unrelenting criticism from lawmakers of both parties over failures in protecting Trump.
Congress will establish a bipartisan task force to investigate.
Friday’s speech was part of a burst of Trump campaign activity in the past week, as the Republican nominee pivots to confront a new opponent after President Joe Biden’s sudden departure from the presidential race last Sunday. Trump has gone on the offensive against Biden’s choice to replace him, Vice-President Kamala Harris.
Polls have shown the race tightening as Harris wins over the support of Democratic voters and donors. The Trump campaign sought to play down the shift, conceding in a memo this week that it expects to lose ground in the polls amid the excitement around Harris, but adding that the trend wasn’t likely to last.
Yet Harris has scrambled an election year in which large numbers of voters have told pollsters for months that they didn’t like either candidate. As the first Black and Asian female vice-president, nearly two decades younger than Trump, Harris threatens the inroads the former president has made with younger, diverse voters.
Friday’s speech was held indoors at an arena. The campaign has yet to schedule outdoor rallies since the shooting.
In an address lasting just over an hour, Trump assailed Harris as a “radical liberal,” “incompetent” and a “bum” but steered clear of the belittling nicknames he’s used in the past. Some Republicans have warned in recent days against attacks based on her race or gender, fearing they could backfire.
Speaking to the cheering Turning Point crowd on Friday, Trump appealed to Christian voters to come to the polls in the fall.
“If you vote, we will win in a landslide,” he said.
Trump celebrated his nominations of conservative judges, including some of those who struck down the Roe v. Wade decision that had guaranteed abortion rights. But he didn’t use the word “abortion,” an issue that’s become a major political weakness for Republicans.
In a statement responding to the speech that was posted on X, the Harris campaign said “America can do better than the bitter, bizarre and backward looking delusions of criminal Donald Trump. Vice-President Kamala Harris offers a vision for America’s future focused on freedom, opportunity and security.”
