Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance were in Atlanta on Saturday night for a rally at the Georgia State University Convocation Center – the same venue where presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris held her rally on Tuesday.
Trump was unhappy with the number of empty seats in the 8,000-capacity Convocation Center, blaming GSU for not letting more people inside. Harris’ rally, which featured a performance by rap star Megan Thee Stallion, was at capacity.
“If they’re going to stand in the way of admitting people to our rally imagine what they’re going to do on election day,” Trump charged.
While Trump is running for the White House against Harris, he spent a large portion of his rambling speech disparaging Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Trump posted on his Truth Social platform earlier in the afternoon that Kemp was a “bad guy” and said he didn’t want the governor or his wife’s endorsement.
Kemp, who did not attend the rally, fired back on X with a message telling Trump his focus was defeating Harris and not dwelling on the past. “You should do the same, Mr. President, and leave my family out of it.”
During the rally, Trump boasted that he got Kemp elected and called him a “very disloyal person.” Trump then repeated the lie that he had won Georgia in the 2020 election and that Kemp, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and Attorney General Chris Carr had conspired against him.
“They want us to lose,” Trump proclaimed.
Trump went on to complain about Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her case against him for attempting to subvert the 2020 election, congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin for “another great deal” on last week’s prisoner exchange with America, and said he didn’t like Bruce Springsteen because the musician didn’t support him.
He also said the state of Georiga had “gone to hell” and described the city of Atlanta as a crime-ridden “killing field.”
As for Harris, he called her a “dumb version of Bernie Sanders” and a “low IQ individual,” blamed her for the murder of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student at the University of Georgia, and even revived the claim that Harris would end the use of the phrase “Merry Christmas” during the holidays.
Vance, who spoke before Trump, pushed back on the Democrats strategy of labeling Trump and his supporters as “weird” on social media and in speeches.
“And I think it’s especially weird when Kamala Harris comes to Atlanta and talks with a fake southern accent even though she grew up in Canada. You can’t make it up. That’s pretty weird,” he said.
