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HOWELL, Mich. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump pledged Tuesday to “Make America Safe Again" while campaigning in Michigan as the Democrats who gathered in Chicago to nominate Kamala Harris branded him a career criminal.
As part of a battleground campaign swing designed to counter the Democratic National Convention, Trump stood alongside sheriff’s deputies in the city of Howell and labeled Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, as the “ringleader” of a “Marxist attack on law enforcement” across the country.
“Kamala Harris will deliver crime, chaos, destruction and death,” Trump said in one of many generalizations about an America under Harris. “You’ll see levels of crime that you’ve never seen before. ... I will deliver law, order, safety and peace.”
Trump has sought in recent weeks to blunt the enthusiasm that Harris has attracted since President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign and endorsed her. That has involved both dark predictions about what electing Harris would mean for the country and efforts by Trump's advisers to set up events where he can try to draw specific policy contrasts. On Tuesday in Michigan, the subject was crime and public safety.
“Our policemen and women have the backs of law-abiding citizens every day,” Trump said. “When we go back to the White House, you’re going to see support the likes of which you haven’t seen, certainly in four years.”
In excerpts released before his speech, Trump's campaign also said he would call for the death penalty for child rapists and child traffickers; he did not mention that during his remarks.
A campaign official who was not authorized to speak publicly said after Trump’s appearance that the former president will make those additional formal policy announcements after the Democratic convention, when the campaign expects they can get more attention.
Trump's event Tuesday was his latest billed as focused on a specific issue. But on these occasions, Trump has spent considerable time attacking Harris personally and taking shots at Biden, and the same was true after their appearances Monday at the Democratic convention.
“I watched last night in amazement as they tried to pretend everything was great,” Trump said, singling out inflation and the U.S.-Mexico border as topics Democrats glossed over. “We have a fool as president,” he said of Biden.
Trump presented a bleak portrait of life in the U.S. and the threat of a Harris presidency, though he was short on specifics and heavy on hyperbole.
“It's just insane,” Trump said. “You can't walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot, you get mugged, you get raped, you get whatever it may be. And you've seen it, and I've seen it, and it's time for a change.”
Trump making such claims, surrounded by supportive law enforcement officers, stood in stark contrast to the Democrats' convention. Speaker after speaker found ways Monday night in Chicago to remind Americans that Trump is the first former president ever convicted of felony crimes, has been found civilly liable for sexual assault, and still faces multiple indictments, including for his efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat to Biden.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas skewered Trump on Monday night as “a career criminal, with 34 felonies, two impeachments and one porn star,” a reference to his payments to an adult film actress at issue in his New York conviction for business fraud.
As the crowd roared, Crockett kept going, hailing Harris as a former prosecutor who “has a resume” while Trump “has a rap sheet.”
The derision reached its peak as Hillary Clinton, whom Trump defeated in 2016, stood back from the podium and smiled as delegates chanted: “Lock him up! Lock him up!" — a turnabout from Trump supporters' chants about Clinton eight years ago despite the former secretary of state having never been charged with any crime.
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Barrow reported from Atlanta. Associated Press reporter Michelle L. Price contributed from Charlotte, North Carolina.