Trump returns to Atlanta, encourages 'hardworking patriots' to make it to polls in final campaign stretch
Former President Donald Trump returned to Atlanta on Monday, holding his rally in a location familiar to his campaign and promising to defend the “hardworking patriots who built this country,” who he said could “save” the nation if they turned out for him at the ballot box.
“We will never give up, we will never back down, we will never surrender,” Trump said to the crowd. “November 5 will be the most important day in the history of our country.”
Trump spoke for just over an hour. The raucous crowd had begun thinning out just before the former president finished his remarks.
Trump rebukes Nazi comparisons and calls Harris ‘a fascist’
Trump dismissed claims that he or his supporters were comparable to Nazis.
“I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi,” Trump told the crowd assembled at Georgia Tech. “Now the way they talk is so disgusting and just horrible.”
After his Sunday evening rally at Madison Square Garden drew widespread criticism from opponents for crude and racist remarks from several speakers, the event drew comparisons to a 1939 Nazi rally in the same venue.
“My father — I had a great father, tough guy. He used to always say, never use the word Nazi. Never use that word.”
He criticized Harris for “using the f-word.” Following comments from Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly saying the former president met the definition of a fascist, Harris said she agreed with the assessment.
Trump said of Harris: “She’s a fascist, okay? She’s a fascist.”
Trump lashes out at Michelle Obama
Taking the stage at his Atlanta rally, the former president quickly took aim at the former first lady.
“You know who’s nasty? Michelle Obama,” Trump says at his Atlanta rally. “That was a big mistake that she made.”
“I always tried to be so nice and respectful,” Trump said, claiming that she had “opened a little bit of something,” without further explanation.
Obama spoke at a political rally with Harris over the weekend. She will headline an Atlanta rally for her nonpartisan voter engagement group on Tuesday.
Trump returns to a defining location on the 2024 campaign trail
Trump’s Atlanta rally on Monday was held at McCamish Pavilion, across the street from the CNN studios where Trump and President Biden had their campaign-defining debate just four months ago.
McCamish housed thousands of credentialed media that night, along with the “spin room” floor where surrogates come to insist their candidate won. The spin room turned out to be no contest that night, though, after Biden’s whispering, disjointed performance highlighted the 81-year-old president’s age and led ultimately to him dropping out of the race.
Trump’s top aides were on McCamish floor that night crowing about what happened on the debate stage and predicting a romp over Biden, only to have Democrats opt instead for nominating Vice President Harris.
Trump praises Christians but negs them as not ‘very solid voters’
During the rally, Trump talked about his experience with faith and fatherhood at the National Faith Advisory Board summit. Trump recounted his upbringing in New York, saying that he at times enjoyed religious ceremonies but broadly sidestepped questions of his own faith.
Trump praised conservative Christians as a key part of his administration and said that a revamped office of faith would have a direct line into the Oval Office. He also promised to repeal the Johnson Amendment, which bars 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations from supporting or opposing political candidates.
“I shouldn’t scold anyone, but Christians aren’t known for being very solid voters,” Trump said to the crowd.
“We have to save religion in this country. No, honestly religion is under threat,” he warned.
Greene mangles New York City history, pushes back on ‘fascist’ and ‘Nazi’ labels
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia congresswoman and Trump loyalist, employed quite the exaggeration to brag on Trump at the Georgia Tech rally.
Having returned from Trump’s rally in New York City, she described Trump as “the man who built that city.”
Trump’s first real estate development projects, with his father’s company, came in the 1970s. He opened Trump Tower in 1983. Many of NewYork City’s signature skyscrapers predate this era, including the Woolworth Building (1913), the Empire State Building (1931) and the World Trade Center (dedicated in 1973).
Greene also pushed back at Donald Trump’s harshest critics.
“We are fed up being called Nazis and fascists,” Greene said at Trump’s rally on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta. “Those are absolute lies, and we’re not going to take it anymore.”
Greene suggested Trump supporters file a class-action lawsuit against media and others that have circulated those labels about the former president and his supporters in the 2024 election. She did not mention that Trump has many times referred to Harris as a “communist” and “fascist.”
She blasted Harris and all Democrats as incompetent, arguing their policies don’t work “and neither did their stupid vaccine” to combat COVID-19. Greene is among the loudest anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists.
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