Trump campaigns to 'make America safe again' as Democratic convention targets his criminal record

HOWELL, Michigan (AP) — Former President Donald Trump pledged to “make America safe again” during his campaign rally in Michigan on Tuesday, while Democrats gathering in Chicago to nominate Kamala Harris branded him a career criminal.

As part of a campaign rally targeting the Democratic National Convention, Trump appeared alongside sheriff's deputies in the town of Howell and denounced Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, as the “leader” of a “Marxist attack on law enforcement” across the country.

“Kamala Harris will bring crime, chaos, destruction and death,” Trump said in one of many generalizations about a Harris-led America. “You will see levels of crime like you have never seen before. … I will bring law, order, security and peace.”

Trump has sought in recent weeks to tone down the enthusiasm for Harris that he has generated since President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and endorsed her, offering both dire predictions about what Harris' election would mean for the country and attempts by Trump's advisers to organize events where he can try to draw concrete policy contrasts. Tuesday's event in Michigan was about crime and public safety.

“Our police officers stand behind law-abiding citizens every day,” Trump said. “When we return to the White House, you will see a level of support that you have not seen in four years.”

In excerpts released before his speech, Trump's campaign team also said he would call for the death penalty for child rapists and child traffickers, but he did not mention this in his remarks.

An unauthorized campaign official said after Trump's appearance that the former president would make these further formal policy announcements after the Democratic National Convention because the campaign believed they would receive more attention then.

Trump's appearance on Tuesday was the last to be focused on a specific topic, but on those occasions, Trump spent a lot of time attacking Harris personally and taking swipes at Biden, as he did after her appearances at the Democratic National Convention on Monday.

“I watched in amazement last night as they tried to pretend everything was great,” Trump said, citing inflation and the US-Mexico border as issues the Democrats were glossing over. “We have a fool for a president,” he said of Biden.

Trump painted a grim picture of life in the United States and the threat posed by a Harris presidency, but he did not confine himself to details and instead resorted to too many exaggerations.

“It's just crazy,” Trump said. “You can't walk across the street to get a piece of bread. You get shot, you get robbed, you get raped, you get whatever it is. And you've seen it, and I've seen it, and it's time for a change.”

That Trump made such claims, surrounded by supportive law enforcement officials, stood in stark contrast to the Democratic National Convention. On Monday night in Chicago, speaker after speaker found ways to remind Americans that Trump is the first former president ever convicted of serious crimes, found civilly liable for sexual assault and still faces multiple charges, including for his efforts to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden.

Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett on Monday night denounced Trump as a “career criminal with 34 felony convictions, two articles of impeachment and a porn actress,” referring to his payments to a porn actress who is at issue in his conviction for white collar fraud in New York.

As the crowd cheered, Crockett continued, praising Harris as a former prosecutor who had “a resume,” whereas Trump had “a criminal record.”

The mockery reached its peak when Hillary Clinton, who defeated Trump in 2016, stepped away from the podium and smiled as delegates chanted, “Lock him up! Lock him up!” – a reversal from the chants of Trump's supporters about Clinton eight years earlier, even though the former secretary of state had never been charged with a crime.

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Barrow reported from Atlanta. Associated Press reporter Michelle L. Price contributed from Charlotte, North Carolina.

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