by WorldTribune Staff, July 22, 2024 Contract With Our Readers
"I stand before you only by the grace of the almighty God,” GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump told a massive crown on Saturday during a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “Something very special happened.”
Those urging a risk averse campaign one week to the day after the failed assassination attempt did not prevail. Fear and inhibition were not the operative terms to describe Trump and the crowds who waited in line for hours to hear him speak.
Trump's wounded right ear, grazed by a would-be assassin's bullet last Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, was sporting a smaller bandage than the one he wore at the Republican national convention.
Even after the assassination attempt, many on the Left continued to label Trump as somehow a "threat to democracy."
But a defiant Trump countered in Grand Rapids: “Last week I took a bullet for democracy.”
Trump has said several times since June's debate that the huge pressure campaign from the media and leading Democrats to get Joe Biden to drop his re-election bid would probably succeed.
He was right again, as Biden announced on Sunday he was dropping out of the race.
On Saturday, Trump asked the crowd in Grand Rapids who they would prefer he run against. The consensus was Biden, but Trump also got in a shot at Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who many on the Left would like to place at the head of the Democrat ticket.
Referring to Whitmer as a "terrible governor." Trump said: "Whitmer.....I'd like to run against her actually," he joked.
Trump's full speech:
