Chesapeake, Va.—Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump took a victory lap Friday afternoon during his first post-debate rally here in blue-leaning Virginia, where he painted Biden as a failed leader and poked fun at the growing chorus of Democrats who are publicly suggesting that the party should replace the president with a new candidate ahead of their August nominating convention in Chicago.
Last night was “a big moment for people with common sense,” Trump told the crowd in Virginia, a state he lost by ten points in 2020. This year, Trump is bullish that he can flip this state that no Republican presidential candidate has carried in 20 years. “We win Virginia, the race is over.”
Friday’s event also marked Trump’s first onstage campaign appearance alongside Governor Glenn Youngkin, whom the former president characterized as “very tall” and whom he praised as a strong chief executive. “I think this is the best Trump rally ever,” Youngkin told the crowd. “Mr. President, eight years ago you left your business career and built a great America, and in Virginia, we’re going to work to elect Donald Trump back to the White House.”
After the rally, Trump told reporter Henry Graff that Youngkin is among the people he is considering for his running mate. “I have so many good people. We have such a deep bench,” he said, before confirming that Youngkin is on the list.
Trump’s Friday rally came one day after the first presidential debate in Atlanta that marked a turning point in the race. Biden appeared old, confused, and incapable of allaying voters’ concerns over whether he is fit to serve another term — even after spending an entire week leading up to the event doing debate prep with aides at Camp David. Trump appeared uncharacteristically calm and collected, a clear indication that he internalized feedback from high-profile Republicans who had urged him not to make the same mistakes he made during his 2020 debates. That interruptive Trump wasn’t onstage last night; he kept his cool even in the face of repeated provocations by Biden.
Trump turned up the heat Friday afternoon. Clearly seeing Biden’s poor debate performance as a boon to his own campaign, the former president ridiculed a handful of high-profile Democrats whose names have been floated as potential successors to the president should he make the decision to step aside.
The problem for these hypothetical candidates, Trump said, is that they poll even worse against him than Biden does. “He’s got lousy poll numbers,” Trump said of California governor Gavin Newsom, who in the spin room in Atlanta as a surrogate for the president dismissed the suggestion from reporters that he might replace Biden on the ballot. Then Trump took a swipe at Vice President Kamala Harris. “It might have been Joe Biden’s single best decision” selecting Harris as his vice president, Trump said, “because nobody wants” her in the Oval Office. Even former first lady Michelle Obama “polls very badly,” the former president continued.
Biden “polls better” than every prospective replacement, Trump said, joking that it’s “hard to believe.”
Speaking before a crowd of supporters in North Carolina earlier Friday, a relatively energetic Biden sought to play down concerns among swing voters and his own about Thursday’s disastrous debate. “I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” Biden said in Raleigh. “I don’t debate like I used to.”
“But I know what I do know,” the president continued. “I know how to tell the truth. I know how to do this job.”
On the ground in Chesapeake Friday, Trump made a play for the black and Hispanic vote, telling the crowd that “Biden migrants” will take their jobs — a new favorite talking point of his. And he threw a bone to the Teamsters union, which traditionally backs Democratic presidential nominees but is warming to the presumptive GOP nominee this cycle. “Maybe the Teamsters go with us,” Trump said.
The rally was typical Trump. “I’m being indicted for you,” he said. He praised his own administration for passing the “greatest tax cuts in history,” and the “greatest cuts in regulation.” He called the 2020 election “rigged” and said Democrats “used Covid to cheat” — an amusing contrast to the “swamp the vote” signs behind the podium earlier in the rally urging Republicans to make a plan to vote early and by mail.
And, twisting the knife, he polled the crowd twice to see which nickname rally-goers preferred for his Democratic opponent: “Crooked Joe” or “Sleepy Joe.”