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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. J.D. Vance campaign in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on July 20, 2024. (Reuters/Yonhap)

A mere two days after Donald Trump insisted that the “discord and division in [US] society must be healed” and called for “unity” while speaking at the Republican National Convention, the former president returned to his usual belligerent rhetoric by comparing former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to a “dog.”
 
During his first campaign rally with J.D. Vance since the Republican National Convention on Saturday, Trump responded to the Democratic Party’s calls for President Joe Biden to end his reelection campaign by saying that Democrats have “a couple of problems.” 

“Number one, they have no idea who their candidate is,” he said. 
 
His speech was made at Grand Rapids, Michigan, one of the three crucial battleground states alongside Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump went further to reference reports that Pelosi is pushing to oust Biden, one of her oldest political allies, by saying that Biden has little chance of winning November’s election.

“She’s turned on him like a dog. She’s crazy as a bed bug,” Trump said of Pelosi. 
 
While accepting the Republican Party’s nomination on Thursday, Trump declared, “The discord and division in our society must be healed,” and that he is “running to be president for all of America, not half of America.”
 
Trump’s speech, which was reportedly watered down after the assassination attempt, struck a different tone from his usual speeches as it emphasized unity and didn’t involve openly mocking his political rivals.
 
However, that commitment to unity and civility lasted no more than two days with the disparaging remark Trump hurled at Pelosi. The epithet “Crooked Joe Biden” made a comeback, and he spoke disparagingly of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who some have floated as a possible replacement for Joe Biden on the Democratic Party ticket, by calling her a “terrible governor.”
 
Much like during his convention speech, he argued that he’d kept up friendly relations with leaders of rival countries, such as Xi Jinping of China, and once again mentioned that he “got along” great with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Trump claimed that he had suggested that Kim, instead of focusing so much on developing nuclear weapons, should “do something else,” and that he should “relax, chill.”
 
Trump said that he even told the North Korean leader that they should “go to a baseball game,” and suggested that he and Kim could go watch the Yankees or see Michigan’s home opener. This suggests that Trump could invite Kim to the US, but he did not state when such a conversation took place.
 
The attempt on Trump’s life, which occurred during a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, was once again mentioned during the rally, as Trump referred to it as a “horrific event” that he hopes he “never [has] to go through again,” and went on to say that he “took a bullet for democracy.”
 
Instead of the large white ear bandage he donned during the RNC, Trump had a smaller, inconspicuous bandage on his ear during the Michigan rally.

By Lee Bon-young, Washington correspondent

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