Trump leans into divisive rhetoric in first rally since assassination attempt

One week after a bullet nearly took his life, former President Donald Trump delivered a speech filled with divisive rhetoric that was largely in line with his usual tone.

Despite Trump having told reporters that he would pivot to a message of unity, the former president used his Saturday speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to call President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris names, refer to Biden’s allies as “thugs,” argue without evidence that Democrats cheated in the 2020 election, and characterize migrants as coming from prisons, jails and mental institutions.

The bombastic, expressive intonation that has defined his political career returned, as well as his penchant for name-calling, referring to Biden as “Crooked Joe,” “feeble old guy,” “low IQ” and “stupid,” and Harris as “Laughin’ Kamala,” “crazy” and “nuts.”

He referred to Democrats as “enemies of the democracy” and bemoaned the “grossly incompetent people running our country.”

Trump railed against migrants, arguing that the U.S. was a “dumping ground” for the world, which is “laughing at us.” He called for a “big deportation” to “get them the hell out.”

The former president has long claimed without evidence that Democrats committed fraud in 2020, a false message that he reiterated on Saturday.

“That’s the only thing they’re good at,” he said, adding later that “they have no shame whatsoever.”

The name-calling and divisive rhetoric came just days after Trump said in his Republican National Convention acceptance speech that “the discord and division in our society must be healed.”

Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa slammed Trump’s rally in a statement.

“We were promised a new Donald Trump who would unite the country — instead all we saw tonight was the