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By Rachel Dobkin
Weekend Reporter
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Former President Donald Trump will be in Michigan on Saturday to hold his first rally following his assassination attempt last weekend, as the official Republican presidential nominee rides high after a successful Republican National Convention (RNC), legal victories and a boost in the polls.
Ohio Senator JD Vance, Trump's newly-named running mate, will join the former president at Saturday's rally at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The rally will start at 5 p.m. local time, but there are usually a few Trump surrogates who speak before the former president appears on stage.
You can livestream the Trump-Vance rally on Election Central or Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN)and cable news networks like Fox News and Newsmax will most likely air at least part of the rally. Newsmax will also live stream the event on their YouTube channel. You can also watch the rally either on your TV or computer on C-SPAN.
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There will be additional security measures in place this time around following Trump's assassination attempt last Saturday during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The U.S. Secret Service, which has been under scrutiny for failing to prevent the shooting, will lead security. Local law enforcement such as the Grand Rapids Police Department, Kent County Sheriff's Office and Michigan State Police will assist.
While Trump is riding high going into Saturday's rally, President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party are in disarray. Over 30 Democratic lawmakers and other prominent Democrats have called for the president to step aside and let another member of the party have the nomination after Biden's lackluster performance against Trump in the first presidential debate last month. Yet, Biden has repeatedly vowed to stay in the race. Biden has also been suffering from COVID-19 as of Wednesday and is currently isolating at his beach home in Delaware.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump and Biden's campaigns via email for comment.
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RNC Run
Eric Trump, Trump's second-born son, announced his father as the GOP presidential nominee at the convention in Milwaukee on Monday after casting the votes of Florida's delegates, pushing Trump over the 1,215 delegates needed for the nomination. That same day, Vance was announced as Trump's running mate, completing the top of the Republican ticket for November.
Trump was met with loud cheers when giving his speech at the convention on Thursday night. However, it wasn't as warmly received by the media. Trump stuck to his script about unifying the country, something Biden has also called for after the recent assassination attempt, but as Trump's hour-and-a-half speech went on, he started to speak about former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and his "horrible" 2020 election loss "that we'll never let happen again."
"It seemed as if he couldn't keep up the act," CNN's Chris Wallace said on the network after Trump's RNC speech. "And so, we started hearing about 'crazy Nancy Pelosi' and cheating on elections and talking about Biden."
Assassination Attempt
At the RNC, Trump wore a bandage on his right ear after being struck with a bullet at his campaign rally last Saturday evening in what the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investing as an assassination attempt.
The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper. One rally attendee, 50-year-old former firefighter Corey Comperatore, was killed in the shooting and two more were seriously injured, according to the Secret Service.
In a show of solidarity, RNC attendees wore bandages on their right ears.
On top of the FBI's investigation, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee has launched an investigation into the shooting and asked Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to testify on July 22.
Legal Victories
The former president has had some major legal victories in the past few weeks.
On Monday, federal judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump in 2020, dismissed his classified documents case on the grounds that the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith was not properly appointed. Trump was accused of mishandling sensitive materials upon leaving the White House in January 2021 and obstructing the government's efforts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago residence. He had pleaded not guilty to all charges and claimed the case was politically motivated.
Smith plans to appeal Cannon's ruling. The special counsel's office said in a statement on Monday: "The dismissal of the case deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue that the Attorney General is statutorily authorized to appoint a Special Counsel."
On July 1, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that former presidents have immunity for official acts conducted while in office, but not for unofficial acts. The ruling was related to an argument by Trump in the federal election interference case against him.
The DOJ has accused Trump of attempting to overturn Biden's 2020 election victory, but the former president claims that he is immune from prosecution because he was in office when the alleged scheme took place. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him and claims the case is politically motivated. The former president has continued to repeat false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him via widespread voter fraud, despite there being no evidence of this.
The Supreme Court ruling is sure to delay the case against Trump, which Smith is the lead prosecutor in, as there are parts of the former president's indictment that are no longer legally sound.
Besides the federal charges Trump currently faces, he also faces charges in Georgia for allegedly conspiring to overturn Biden's 2020 election win there. He has pleaded not guilty and again, claims the case is politically motivated.
Polling Wins
Trump is also leading by a few points in the polls after being neck-and-neck with Biden for months. The two were essentially tied going into last month's presidential debate, but after a weak showing by Biden that was followed by interparty fighting among the Democrats, Trump is up by 3.2 points (43.5 to 40.3 percent) as of Saturday morning, according to poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight.
In a CBS News/YouGov poll conducted between July 16 and 18, Trump received 52 percent of the vote compared to Biden's 47 percent. The poll surveyed 2,247 registered voters nationwide and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 points.
An On Point Politics/SoCal Research poll conducted on July 17 found Trump with 51 percent of the vote and Biden with 45 percent. The poll surveyed 800 U.S. registered voters and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.
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