Former President Trump met with his former press secretary and Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders at a town hall event in Michigan on Tuesday, marking his first campaign appearance since the weekend's assassination attempt.
Trump met with Sanders, a popular spokesman for the former president, at an event in Flint, the heart of a key battleground state.
Here are five takeaways from the event.
Trump returns to campaigning after latest assassination attempt
Tuesday marked Trump's first appearance on the campaign trail since Sunday when Secret Service agents engaged an attempted assassin who held a gun against a fence outside Trump's golf course.
This is the second time since July that President Trump has been targeted by a gunman, following an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“Only presidents who matter will get shot,” Trump said Tuesday.
The former president praised the Secret Service for “doing a fantastic job” and also had unusually kind words for President Biden and Vice President Harris, saying they had separate “very lovely” calls to ask how he was doing following the recent incident.
There is no indication that the assassination attempt on President Trump will have any impact on the presidential election. President Trump is scheduled to hold rallies in New York on Wednesday and North Carolina on Saturday. Senator Harris is scheduled to visit Pennsylvania on Tuesday and Michigan and Wisconsin before the weekend.
Trump stoks fears about auto industry
The former president made hyperbolic claims that thousands of jobs would be lost across the country if he did not win the November election, and offered a gloomy forecast for what would happen to the auto industry.
“If I don't win, within a couple of years the auto industry will be gone. It'll all be gone,” Trump argued.
He later called Michigan “an afterthought when it comes to automobiles.”
“If a tragedy occurs and we don't win, there will be zero auto jobs, zero manufacturing jobs, everything will be gone from here,” he added.
The former president warned that a Biden administration's push to encourage automakers to build electric vehicles would devastate the industry. Trump has been open to some electric vehicles because of Tesla CEO Elon Musk's support.
Trump's solution was to increase drilling and gasoline production and impose steep tariffs on competitors who import cars into the United States.
From the data Bureau of Labor Statistics According to the report, the auto and parts manufacturing industry lost about 8,800 jobs during President Trump's first term, but has created about 128,000 jobs under the Biden administration.
Leadership of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union has endorsed Vice President Harris in the November election.
Trump rejects label of 'incoherent'
Trump's rallies and speeches are often marked by lengthy, off-topic and scripted remarks, and during last week's presidential debate, Harris came under fire after urging viewers to attend one of his rallies to hear him talk about Hannibal Lecter and complain about Trump's problems.
On Tuesday, President Trump gave a lengthy response in which he spoke about withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan. He seemed confused. During a visit to Bagram Air Base, home to oil reserves in Alaska, President Trump spoke briefly about the recent assassination attempt on him and threatened to impose a 200% tariff on cars imported from Mexico.
In concluding his response, Trump argued that it was more “productive” than anything Harris said during her campaign.
“The fake news loves to say, 'Oh, he was rambling on.' No, it wasn't rambling on. It was genius,” Trump said of his remarks. “It's when you can connect the dots. Sarah, if you couldn't connect the dots, you're in trouble. But all the dots were connected. And there was a lot of story being told in that one little sentence.”
President Trump mocks climate change
The former president has long cast doubt on the impact and reality of climate change, and he did so again at Tuesday night's event.
Trump asserted that the greatest threat to the nation was not climate change, which Democrats view as an existential issue, but nuclear war, which could destroy civilization.
“It's not like sea levels are going to rise an eighth of an inch in 400 years, but it's going to create more land along the coast,” Trump said. “I said, 'Is that a good thing or a bad thing?' Is it a good thing to have a little bit of land along the coast? A little bit more land, a little bit more sea.”
President Trump pushed back against experts and lawmakers who are now calling what was previously known as “global warming” “climate change.”
“I don't know if these people are real,” Trump said, “but even if they aren't, they've cloaked themselves in the language of climate change. If it gets hot, that's good. If it gets hot, that's good. Global warming hasn't worked that well.”
Sanders takes center stage in campaign
Tuesday's event marked a notable moment for Sanders, the Arkansas governor who served as press secretary during Trump's first term.
Sanders remains popular among Trump's supporters and had a key speaking platform at the Republican National Convention, where he sought to portray the former president as a good boss who supports his female employees.
The Arkansas governor introduced Trump by talking about her own children and how they “humble” her.
“Unfortunately, Kamala Harris has no humility whatsoever,” Sanders said. “You'd think that after four straight years of failure, she'd have a little bit of humility. Unfortunately, she doesn't.”
Sanders then said being a mother is “probably the only job harder than being president of the United States” and vowed that American women were “going to do our part to put Donald Trump back in the White House.”
The Arkansas governor's appearance at Tuesday's event could be a sign of how the campaign plans to use high-profile surrogates to appeal to key voting groups, such as women, in the final stages of the race.
