'She can't talk': Trump-Vance Atlanta rally rife with dog whistles

Former President Donald Trump came to Atlanta Saturday to deliver a sharp rejoinder to Vice President Kamala Harris’ high-energy rally four days prior — and to attack popular Georgia elected Republicans.

“Your Governor, (Brian) Kemp, and (Secretary of State Brad) Raffensperger, they’re doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for Republicans to win,” he said. “What are they doing? I don’t know. They’ve got something in mind, you know, they’ve got a little something in mind. Kemp is very bad for the Republican Party.”

Trump’s speech at Georgia State University’s downtown convocation center marks his fourth visit to Georgia this year – the last one was to participate in the CNN debate, where President Joe Biden’s poor performance started the chain of events that led to the current president’s decision not to seek re-election and Harris’ ascension as the Democrats’ presumptive nominee.

That decision, made last month with just over 100 days left before the election, upended the race as Democrats’ celebrated a swell of enthusiasm and Republicans scrambled to recalibrate their attacks on Harris instead of Biden.

Trump sought to tie Harris to Biden Saturday and paint her as an extreme leftist, attacking her positions on the southern border, guns and public safety.

“She was the worst border czar, she was the worst czar in history,” he said, referring to an informal and unofficial title. “Kamala’s radical ideas belong in a San Francisco commune filled with far left freaks, but they do not belong in the White House. They do not belong in the United States of America. This November, Georgia is going to tell Kamala that we will not let her turn America into a communist country.”

He also insulted Harris’ intelligence, calling her “dumb” and “low IQ.”

More debate fallout

Democrats have been cranking up the pressure on Trump to debate Harris after the former president backed out of a debate originally planned when Biden was still seeking another term.

The Democratic National Committee unveiled a confrontational digital ad campaign in battleground states, starting in Atlanta, to press Trump to debate Harris. When Harris was in Atlanta Tuesday, she challenged Trump to bring his criticisms of her to the debate stage and “say it to my face.”

Trump announced Saturday morning on social media that he has proposed an alternative debate arrangement that would move the debate from ABC to Fox News and be held before a live audience. The Harris campaign has been trying to hold Trump to the original debate plan.

“We’re doing one with Fox — if she shows up, I don’t think she’s going to go,” he said Saturday. “She can’t talk. She can read a teleprompter, I’d give her about a six on a scale of 10. Six. For talking, I’d give her less than a one. We need people that can talk.”

But Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who is a Dallas Democrat known for verbal sparring with Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, told reporters in Atlanta Saturday that she thinks Trump is all bluster and has no intention of debating Harris.

“When you think about it, the scariest thing for Donald Trump is to deal with any prosecutor, especially a Black woman prosecutor,” Crockett said, referring to Harris’ background as a San Francisco district attorney and California state attorney general.

There’s also the new age contrast in the race, with Harris’ rise to the top of the ticket enabling Democrats to flip the script on Republicans who questioned Biden’s mental fitness. Harris is about two decades younger than Trump.

“Now we get to focus in on all your crazy rants about Hannibal Lecter or sharks or whatever it is you that want to talk about. You end up being the crazy old uncle on the stage,” Crockett said. “So, I just don’t think that he’s going to do it. I think that he knows that he can’t talk about policy. When he does talk about policy, he loses.”

Trump has also attempted to paint Harris as a dishonest opportunist, but his recent comments casting doubt on her racial background were widely panned as racist at a recent convention for Black journalists.

Harris’ father is a Jamaican-American Black man, and her mother was an Indian-American woman. Trump has cited that Harris has been referred to as both Black and Indian-American throughout her political career in what many see as an attempt to paint her as disingenuous with the Black voting community.

A Trump party

A line of Trump supporters decked out in red MAGA hats and shirts bearing the former president’s face stretched for blocks outside the downtown Atlanta venue. Some wore shirts with the iconic photo of Trump after last month’s attempt on his life with the slogan “Fight, fight, fight.”

Among the crowd was Jajuan Moore, a truck driver originally from Los Angeles who now lives in College Park just south of Atlanta.

Moore, who is Black, said Trump’s comments about Harris’ race don’t bother him, and neither do statements about immigrants taking “Black jobs.”

“Donald Trump, he may say some things, but I don’t care. I’m glad he’s a proud white man, he should be a proud white man of his race, like I’m a proud Black man, and there ain’t nothing wrong with that.”

Moore said one of his favorite of Trump’s accomplishments during his first term was the COVID-19 stimulus checks.

“He was the first politician to give me something when I needed it the most,” he said. “I was struggling so bad. And you know what? He came through for the American people. He said I’m going to do what’s right. I’m going to do what I can, and he did what he did.”

Two stimulus checks came during Trump’s administration, totaling $1,800 per income tax filer and $1,100 per dependent child. A third payment came through Biden’s American Rescue Plan, paying out $1,400 per taxpayer and $1,400 per dependent child.

As Moore spoke from a crowded curbside, passersby cheered and chanted. The weather was hot but the mood was festive as merchants set up stalls or roamed the crowds offering all kinds of Trump shirts, hats, buttons, plushies, drinkware, lanyards and commemorative coins.

Zoe Simmons, a Gainesville University of Georgia student, stood in line with her parents and two sisters for over two hours before the doors opened. She said it was her fourth Trump rally, and she was there for the culture and atmosphere.

“Everyone is excited to be here. Everyone loves America, and it’s just like, as a young person, that’s nice to see. You don’t see that a lot on college campuses anymore,” she said.

Her father, Courtney Simmons, who works in education, said winning Georgia against Harris will be more difficult than defeating Biden.

“She’s certainly more, I wouldn’t say qualified, but she’s more aware of what’s going on,” he said. “She’s younger, she’s a person of color. I think those are all the things that Democrat voters are looking for. Hopefully moderate voters aren’t looking for that, but they may be. I think there’s also an undercurrent of anti-Trump.”

Courtney Simmons said he was almost as excited to see Trump’s new running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, as he was to see Trump.

“I love his story. I mean, I think that is the American dream. That’s the American story.” he said. “So hopefully that’ll resonate with that demographic, that impoverished mountain demographic that probably doesn’t vote as often. Maybe they will.”

The speech marked the first Georgia campaign stop for Vance, who sought to set the stage for Trump with his own criticism of Harris.

Trump, Vance attack Harris on immigration

Vance said that Harris put a halt to construction of a wall along the southern border, a project that Trump famously began during his presidency. However, he assured the audience that immigration would be addressed swiftly under a Trump-Vance administration.

“If you’re in this country illegally, start packing your bags, you go home in six months!” Vance declared.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a conservative firebrand and one of Trump’s fiercest allies, also sought to tie Harris with immigration, maintaining that immigration at the U.S-Mexico border is a failure of the Biden-Harris administration. Greene argued there was peace under Trump, highlighting the February murder of 22-year-old college student Laken Riley in Athens, Georgia. A Venezuelan man who entered the country illegally has been charged with her murder.

“Laken Riley is one name and face that is a victim murdered by an illegal alien, but there are many Americans that are victims from illegal alien crime, rape, and murder. She’s just one name that we know here in Georgia,” Greene said.

“Loyalty is protecting Laken Riley, not allowing an illegal immigrant to take her life,” Vance said in an effort to acknowledge that Riley’s death was not quickly forgotten among Georgians.

Trump also evoked the killing of Riley.

“Kamala is responsible for the death as though she was standing there watching it herself,” he said.

Trump pledged to “begin the largest deportation operation in American history” on the first day of his second term if re-elected.

Dredging up the past

Trump narrowly lost Georgia to Biden in 2020 after years of Democratic gains in metro Atlanta, winning with less than 12,000 votes. He has continually asserted without evidence that his loss was the result of foul play, as he did from the stage Saturday.

A Fulton County trial of Trump and 14 remaining co-defendants over alleged election interference has ground to a halt amid efforts to boot District Attorney Fani Willis over a romantic relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade and a Supreme Court decision establishing a new standard for presidential immunity.

Trump criticized Gov. Brian Kemp, First Lady Marty Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a social media post even before the rally. Kemp and Raffensperger, who are Republicans who resisted Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the 2020 election results, pushed back on X.

“Georgia’s elections are secure,” Raffensperger wrote in a post Saturday. “The winner here in November will reflect the will of the people. History has taught us this type of message doesn’t sell well here in Georgia, sir.”

Kemp encouraged Trump to focus on the future instead of the past.

“My focus is on winning this November and saving our country from Kamala Harris and the Democrats – not engaging in petty personal insults, attacking fellow Republicans, or dwelling on the past,” Kemp said. “You should do the same, Mr. President, and leave my family out of it.”

A Trump-endorsed GOP candidate, former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, challenged Kemp in 2022, but Kemp ended up beating Perdue by 52 percentage points. Kemp went on to beat Democrat Stacey Abrams to secure a second and final term as governor.

Trump’s comments about Kemp in particular were widely panned by notable Georgia Republicans who quickly took to social media to voice their dismay.

“The Trump rally in Atlanta makes it more likely Kamala Harris wins. He’s his own worst enemy,” said conservative radio host Erick Erickson.

Battleground Georgia

Georgia Democrats said Harris has the momentum to chalk up a repeat presidential win in the Peach State.

Georgia Congresswoman Nikema Williams, an Atlanta Democrat who chairs the Democratic Party of Georgia, said Georgia Democrats are working to turn the new energy on their side into action on the ground. Williams and Crockett spoke to campaign volunteers in downtown Atlanta who were being trained on door-to-door canvassing.

“Our vice president is fighting for our freedom to vote. She’s fighting for economic freedoms. She’s fighting for our reproductive freedoms. And those are the conversations that matter to Georgians on the ground, and that’s what we’re going to do for the next 90 days here in battleground Georgia,” Williams told reporters Saturday.

Next week, Harris is scheduled to make her 16th visit to Georgia since being sworn in, stopping by Savannah as part of a swing state tour with her yet-to-be-announced vice presidential pick.

Polls still show Trump with an advantage in Georgia, though Harris’ position has improved over that of her boss and the presidential race in Georgia is seen as competitive.

Real Clear Politics’ polling average showed Trump with a 3.8% lead over Biden in Georgia ahead of Biden’s withdrawal late last month. Against Harris, Trump’s advantage drops to 2% in the average, which includes polls from July 9 through 30.

“After Texas, Georgia is on my mind,” Crockett told Harris campaign volunteers Saturday.

“We understand that our collective freedoms are running right through Georgia,” she added. “I need y’all to understand that while I know Democrats say every election is the most important election of our lifetime, I’m here to tell you that this is absolutely the most important election of our lifetime.”

Georgia Recorder Deputy Editor Jill Nolin contributed to this report.

Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on Facebook and X.