ROCKY MOUNT, N.C.—“We’re running a campaign of solutions to save America, an America which they have virtually destroyed,” former President Donald Trump said of the Biden-Harris administration at a Wednesday afternoon rally here.
To elect Vice President Kamala Harris as president “would be to gamble with the lives of millions and millions of people,” Trump said, adding that Harris “would get us into World War III because she is too grossly incompetent to do the job.”
The former president spoke at Rocky Mount Event Center, which holds about 4,000, on the edge of Nash County, North Carolina. Joe Biden won the county by only 120 votes over Trump in 2020.
Trump focused most of his remarks on the border crisis and the economy, two of the issues of most concern to voters, but also pledged to keep men out of women’s sports, “restore free speech,” and protect the Second Amendment.
The crowd’s response is going to have “an impact on my hearing for the rest of my life,” Trump joked after asking rallygoers if they “want to give up” their guns.
“NO!” came a unified shout from the audience.
Trump seemed to enjoy the crowd’s energy, at one point saying, “I like this audience,” as rallygoers cheered and occasionally shouted insults at Harris and Biden.
Like many other rallygoers, Daniel Seda was wearing “MAGA” garb. He told The Daily Signal he is voting for Trump because “he’s upfront.”
“I’m a performer, girl, so the more upfront you can be the better I feel,” quipped Seda, who said he is gay.
“We are voting for freedom, not just for Trump,” Seda said. “It is freedom over communism, and I know it may sound strange, but that is really what’s going on. Freedom over Marxism,” he said.
Seda, who lives in Nashville, North Carolina, said he doesn’t “feel that Joe and Kamala [are] really representing the LGBTQ community in a positive light.”
“It’s almost as if they’re just pushing certain agendas,” he said.
Trump has said he would ban transgender medical procedures for minors without parental consent. Asked about this, Seda said, “We have just gone too far down the rabbit hole.”
“I’m actually getting emotional because it’s like you can’t do that to children. It’s too much,” he said, adding that an individual should be at least 18 before being permitted to get such a procedure.
Like others at the rally, Seda said he is just a “normal” person concerned about issues such as “the border … inflation, gas—the typical, normal things.”
Debbie Merritt and Pam Jones have been friends for 40 years. If Trump is elected again, they both said, on Day One they hope he will “close the border.” And “the other thing is to stop our taxes on Social Security,” Merritt added.
Wearing a black hat emblazoned with “Make America Great Again,” 31-year-old David Russ said he already had cast his vote for Trump because he is “looking to see some changes made in the country.”
As a “devout Christian,” Russ said, he has “enjoyed” Trump’s abortion policies, adding: “I feel like he’s gotten a little bit softer on that, but that being said, I do love the judges that he put into place the last time he was in.”
Anthony Daming’s wife is from Colombia. She and her family “did it the right way” when they emigrated to the U.S., Daming told The Daily Signal while waiting in line to enter the Trump rally.
Daming, 27, owns a small trucking company. He said he voted for Trump in 2020 and supports him again in part because of his immigration policies.
“I’m not into personality politics,” Ben Joyner, 22, told The Daily Signal, “but I do like that when you listen to Trump it’s genuine.”
Joyner said he also likes Trump’s “team.”
“He’s bringing in Elon Musk, probably the smartest man on the planet, Robert Kennedy—it really seems like he has a lot of smart people around him,” Joyner said.
After the rally in North Carolina, Trump headed to Green Bay, Wisconsin, to hold a rally Wednesday night with Brett Favre, former star quarterback for the NFL’s Green Bay Packers.
