Former President Donald Trump is doing his first rally since an assassination attempt. President Biden is still off the trail, recovering from COVID.
ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
Tonight, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump returns to the rally stage for the first time since the assassination attempt on his life exactly one week ago. The former president is campaigning in Grand Rapids, Mich., a crucial swing state that he won in 2016 but lost in 2020. NPR’s White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez is there. We’ll talk to him in a bit. But first, I want to check in with NPR political reporter Elena Moore. She’s in Rehoboth Beach, Del., where President Biden is recovering from COVID. Hi, Elena.
ELENA MOORE, BYLINE: Hey, there.
LIMBONG: All right. So the president has been isolating in Rehoboth Beach. How’s he doing?
MOORE: His doctor says the president’s health is improving. He’s taking the antiviral Paxlovid, and we’re getting regular updates from his staff. But having to isolate right now comes at a really bad time for Biden’s campaign. He’s been trying to push back on concerns from leaders within his own party that he’s up for this reelection campaign, you know, after that poor debate performance about three weeks ago. So you know, we saw Biden really amped up on the campaign trail, doing lots of stops. He headed out to a number of swing states over these past few weeks and held these big events. But that all got cut short because he tested positive for COVID. So now we are here in Delaware, and, you know, the calls from elected leaders to exit the race just keep coming.
LIMBONG: And yet, President Biden has been pretty insistent that he’s staying in the race. Who are some of the most notable people to come forward, at least publicly, this weekend, asking him to change his mind?
MOORE: Yeah. Well, last night we saw Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio come forward, and he’s in a really competitive race this fall. And he argues that the speculation around Biden’s political future is actually taking away from the messaging around issues that he is trying to use to keep his seat, you know. And, you know, he was actually the fourth senator to call for Biden to step aside. And there’s been more than two dozen elected House Democrats who have said the same thing. And yesterday, the statements kind of just piled up. You know, there were four influential members, part of some key groups within the House, the Black, progressive and Hispanic caucuses. And they sent a letter to Biden urging him to drop out.
LIMBONG: All right. And so, like, if he were to drop out, who would be stepping in as the candidate?
MOORE: I mean, it’s really unclear right now, and there’s just not a lot of time. But the obvious front-runner would be Vice President Kamala Harris. She’s already on the ticket with Biden. And actually, interestingly enough, today we heard new support coming from Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. She was speaking on MSNBC, and she didn’t actually call for Biden to exit the race. But she did say Harris would be ready to step up and, you know, take on Trump. So Harris has very much stayed out of this conversation. But, you know, she’ll be out campaigning this week. She’s in Massachusetts today and will make a stop in Milwaukee. So we’ll be sure to keep seeing her.
LIMBONG: And how has the Biden campaign been responding to all of this speculation?
MOORE: Well, on a call this morning with reporters, Biden campaign spokesman Michael Tyler said that the president would be back out campaigning next week once he gets that green light from his doctor. But Tyler wouldn’t say when exactly or where the president might go first. And despite the campaign’s full-steam-ahead message right now, Biden’s future remains very unclear, and Democrats really don’t have a lot of time. Their convention is a month away.
LIMBONG: All right. Thanks, Elena. Now I want to turn to Franco Ordoñez, just outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Franco, this is former President Trump’s first rally since the Republican National Convention. What are you going to be watching for?
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: Yeah, it’s not only the first rally since the convention, but it’s also the first rally since the shooting last Saturday. I mean, I’m curious if he’ll talk about unity or how much he’ll talk about unity. Trump went into the convention in Milwaukee talking a lot about unity and gave a little bit of a taste of that at the beginning of his speech Thursday. He said he wanted to be the president for all Americans, not half of Americans, but he kind of abandoned that message rather quickly. Most of his speech actually was meandering and filled with grievances and tax, such as partisan witch hunts and invasion at the border, accusing Democrats of using COVID to cheat on the election, which, of course, there’s no basis for. You know, Trump also claimed that he had handed Biden a perfect country and that Biden ruined it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: Our opponents inherited a world at peace and turned it into a planet of war. We’re at a planet of war.
ORDOÑEZ: Not much of a unity message there. So, you know, I really want to see which message gets more time here in Michigan.
LIMBONG: And it’s also going to be the first rally Trump will hold with JD Vance as his running mate. What are you looking for there?
ORDOÑEZ: Yeah. We’re going to see Trump and Vance on stage together. I mean, we got to watch them in the VIP box at the convention. This is an opportunity to see their chemistry on stage, I mean, how they interact in front of a big audience. Vance is 39. Trump is 78. So he’s pretty much half of Trump’s age. And since age is such a big factor in this year’s election, we’re going to see how that dynamic plays out.
LIMBONG: Yeah. And Vance is also kind of a key strategy – right? – to Michigan.
ORDOÑEZ: Yeah. That’s right. He’s going to play a big role in the campaign’s appeal to working-class voters across states like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania. Vance is obviously from Ohio, but he mentioned the importance of Michigan several times during his speech on Wednesday. And Michigan is a battleground state. Trump won Michigan in 2016, but Biden flipped it four years later. Trump is really eager to win the state back, and this is also a state where former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley won 27% of the vote in the primary against Trump. She did endorse him at the RNC and urged her supporters to back him. So this visit to Grand Rapids is also a good opportunity for Trump to appeal to her voters here in Michigan.
LIMBONG: That’s NPR’s Franco Ordoñez in Michigan and Elena Moore in Delaware. Thanks to you both.
ORDOÑEZ: Thanks, Andrew.
MOORE: Thanks, Andrew.
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