Ex-president touched upon a range of topics from crime to immigration in his speech with mostly made-up statistics<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Donald Trump addressed a fully-packed venue in downtown Atlanta on Saturday, with thousands of people waiting in the Georgia heat outside to enter, or to protest his appearance in a city he has condemned repeatedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His remarks were consistent with the tenor and comportment of restraint and probity Atlantans are used to hearing at this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe happens to be a really low IQ individual. We don\u2019t need a low IQ individual,\u201d Trump said of the vice-president Kamala Harris. \u201cThey love dealing with low IQ individuals \u2026 She\u2019s Bernie Sanders but not as smart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump highlighted a handful of recent murders in the city, saying \u201cAtlanta is like a killing field, and your governor should get off his ass and do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump rattled off a set of crime statistics in Atlanta that bear no resemblance to the actual change in crime over the last two years. Crime spiked in Atlanta in the last year of Trump\u2019s term and peaked in 2022. It has subsequently fallen back to 2019 levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But crime \u2013 and particularly crime involving immigrants \u2013 has been central to his appeal to Republican voters. Trump invoked the murder of Laken Riley, a college student murdered on the campus of the University of Georgia<\/a>. Police have charged an undocumented immigrant with her murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLaken\u2019s blood is on Kamala Harris\u2019s hands,\u201d Trump said, \u201cas though she was standing there watching it herself.\u201d Trump is trying to tie this to Harris\u2019s role as \u201cborder czar\u201d early in the Biden administration. \u201cHarris should not be asking for your votes. She should be begging Laken Riley\u2019s family for forgiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump made a point of highlighting the work of three Republican appointees to Georgia\u2019s board of elections, who have been entertaining changes to election rules that critics say are setting the stage for a legal contest in case of a Trump loss in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of President Joe Biden and the debate that led to his withdrawal from the race, Trump said \u201cHe was choking like a dog! He was choking. And that was the end of him \u2026 they did a coup, but he doesn\u2019t know it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump said, without any evidence, that \u201c40 or 50 million illegal aliens\u201d will enter the United States if Harris wins, he said, claiming that suburbs will be overrun with \u201csavage foreign gangs\u201d. He also claimed, falsely, that Harris wants to replace all gas cars with electric cars, to ban meat, to increase taxes by 70 to 80% and more claims that can only be taken as hyperbole because they are so far divorced from fact. He also reiterated claims that the 2020 election was stolen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump repeatedly called Harris a \u201clunatic\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u2019s appearance in Atlanta is at the same venue Harris filled on Tuesday in her first Georgia rally since Biden\u2019s dramatic withdrawal from the race and her ascension as the presumptive Democratic nominee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The contrast between Trump and Harris in the space was stark. Harris\u2019s multiracial crowd Tuesday was peppered with the pink and green of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sisters. Red Maga hats and Trump mug shots \u2013 or the now-iconic shot of his fist in the air after the assassination attempt \u2013 dominated the mostly white sea of support for Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump opened up his appearance in Atlanta lying about the Harris event in the same place, falsely claiming that people left the event early and that there were empty seats. Both events packed the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Notably, the upper stands began to empty out about an hour into Trump\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The refrain, repeated by speaker after speaker at the rally, was that Trump took a bullet for Republican voters, and they should return the favor with powerful turnout in Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe took a bullet for you, and in that moment, we found out who Donald Trump is,\u201d said Marjorie Taylor Greene<\/a>, a representative, in a speech before 10,000 Trump supporters at the Georgia State Convocation Center. \u201cHe stood up, put his fist in the air and said \u2018Fight! Fight! Fight!\u2019 And that\u2019s what we will do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n