Donald Trump appeared at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina on Saturday, his first time in the state since CNN reported that Trump-backed gubernatorial nominee, Mark Robinson, made lewd and divisive comments — including calling himself a “black NAZI,” expressing support for reviving slavery, and admitting to enjoying porn featuring trans performers — on the pornographic website “Nude Africa” more than a decade ago.
Trump recognized a number of Republicans while completely sidestepping any mention of Robinson during his rhetoric-and-racism-filled rally, which included his typical unsubstantiated rants that migrants are ruining our country, this time claiming they are “attacking villages and cities throughout the Midwest” and that “every job” created in the U.S. in the last two years has gone to migrants. He also touched on his obsessions with crowd size, saying this one went back “as far as the eye can see” to open the rally and later denying that he and J.D. Vance are “weird.”
He said women will be better off should he be reelected, claiming “Women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free. You will no longer be thinking about abortion because it is now where it always had to be, with the states,” despite 63 percent of U.S. adults in a Pew Research Center survey saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases. He also made the unsubstantiated claim that Democrats are demanding “execution of a baby after birth, which is what they want.”
His claim was eloquently refuted earlier in the month during his debate with Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris. Yet, he added on Saturday, “I will protect women at a level never seen before. They will finally be healthy, hopeful, safe, and secure. Their lives will be happy, beautiful, and their lives will be great again.”
Meanwhile, as abortion has been in the hand of states, a disinformation campaign against a ballot measure to restore abortion rights in Florida has taken hold as providers say the state’s abortion ban has doctors afraid to do their jobs and is putting patients at risk.
Trump’s rally comes ahead of running mate J.D. Vance’s appearance as a special guest of the Tucker Carlson Live show in Hershey, Pennsylvania also on Saturday. Trump’s next rally will be held in Indiana, Pennsylvania on Monday.
