Former President Donald Trump spoke in Greenville Monday afternoon, denouncing federal recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene and falsely accusing his rival Vice President Kamala Harris of failing to address the storm. (Photo: Screengrab from Trump campaign livestream.)
Former U.S. President Donald Trump falsely accused his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris of abandoning North Carolina residents impacted by Hurricane Helene in a Greenville rally Monday afternoon — one of many distortions he made after his first visit to the western part of the state post-Helene.
“When the people of North Carolina were stranded and drowning in Hurricane Helene, Kamala Harris was at a glitzy fundraiser in a city that she destroyed, San Francisco,” Trump said. “When North Carolina needed help, Kamala Harris was nowhere to be found.”
While Harris did attend a fundraiser at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco in the days after Helene struck North Carolina, she also made multiple visits to the disaster zone in the week that followed — at one point helping pack aid kits at a distribution center in western North Carolina, the Associated Press reported.
Trump did not visit western North Carolina until Monday, when he spoke with affected residents in Asheville, though he visited other areas impacted by the storm in Georgia. He acknowledged this during his speech Monday, telling the crowd he did not want to disrupt recovery efforts — though he took credit for convincing Elon Musk to provide Starlink satellite communication devices to North Carolinians and Georgians hit by the storm.
Trump’s rally brought thousands of supporters to Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum, a venue at East Carolina University. Harris delivered remarks to a packed crowd at the same arena last week, goading Trump as “weak and unstable” and accusing him of dodging interviews. The former president spoke shortly after 3 p.m. Monday for a little over an hour — avoiding the long spells of silence that sparked questions about his health at other recent speeches.
False immigration claims
A persistent theme throughout the evening was immigration, with Trump repeating false claims that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had taken over apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado — and alleging that they had done the same in New York’s Times Square, citing break-in reports by the New York Post.
He reiterated the false claim that FEMA spent aid money for disaster relief on undocumented immigrants, a claim the agency itself has refuted. “When I’m president, North Carolina will get the support you need and deserve, and that is without question.”
Among the migrant groups Trump targeted in his speech were Congolese immigrants, who he called “so much more vicious” than Americans in a xenophobic aside. “They cut you up and they don’t even think about it the next day,” he said.
Trump repeatedly claimed, falsely, that Harris had never called or met with anyone with the U.S. Border Patrol while he touted the endorsement of the law enforcement agency’s labor union. He also lied that she had never visited the U.S.-Mexico border — when in fact, she visited the U.S. border in Arizona last month and spoke with local border patrol leaders there, according to the Associated Press.
He blasted Harris for remarks she made as a presidential candidate during the 2020 Democratic primaries when she stated she would provide gender-affirming surgery to undocumented immigrants in detention facilities — an attack line his campaign has made a focus in the closing weeks of the election. The New York Times reported last week that Trump’s administration also provided gender-affirming surgery to inmates.
Trump denied playing a role in the failure of a border security bill authored by Senators Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), despite contemporaneous social media posts denouncing the bill.
“Ted, did I ever tell you not to sign that bill? No, right?” he asked Senator Ted Budd (R-N.C.), who gave remarks earlier in the afternoon. “Maybe I should go along with that story, Ted. Nobody’s had that kind of power in a long time.”
Budd made many similar comments on Harris’s immigration record, calling her a “failed border czar” and blaming her for a spike in border crossings under President Joe Biden — repeating a Republican attack line based on Harris’s role in an effort during early days of the administration to address the root causes of migration in Latin America.
Economic promises
Most of the rest of Trump’s speech centered on economic issues — denouncing Harris and the Biden administration for inflation while pledging to restore the economy to its status under his presidency.
“I’d like to begin by asking a question: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Trump said at the beginning of his remarks, echoing Ronald Reagan’s 1980 appeal to voters — though with an ironic twist, as the nation was still at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in October 2020.
He repeated pledges to implement a 10% tariff on all U.S. imports — calling anyone who opposed the measure “dumb” or “corrupt” — and said he would also make interests on car loans fully tax-deductible, an innovation he compared to the invention of the paper clip. “People look at it, they say, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’”
Trump decried the loss of manufacturing jobs in North Carolina, making special mention of the state’s furniture manufacturing industry — which declined precipitously in the 200os.
“I used to come down here all the time to buy furniture for hotels and things that I was building,” Trump said. “Year by year by year it was being dissipated, it was being taken over by China and others, and all we needed to do is slap some tariffs on it.”
He vowed to bring manufacturing jobs back to North Carolina — an echo of his promises during the 2016 election — and bring an end to inflation.
“I’m here today with a message of hope for all Americans,” Trump said. “With your vote in this election, I will end inflation, I will stop the invasion, and I will bring back the American dream.”
Among the speakers before Trump was retired Army Colonel Laurie Buckhout, the Republican challenging Rep. Don Davis in North Carolina’s closest congressional race, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report — the state’s first congressional district, which includes Greenville. Trump reminded rally-goers he endorsed her during his remarks.
“I want to stand shoulder to shoulder with President Trump as he fights to make America great again,” Buckhout told the crowd to cheers. “The working families and family farmers of eastern North Carolina cannot afford four more years of Kamala Harris’s record-setting inflation.”
Early voting
Monday’s event came just days after the start of early voting Thursday, which officials said began at a record pace. More than one million ballots had been cast statewide as of Sunday, the vast majority of which came at in-person early polling stations.
Trump commended western North Carolina voters for making it to the polls and in a shift from the 2020 presidential race, urged his supporters to bank their ballots ahead of election day, reminding them that they have until Nov. 2 to head to the polls for early voting.
“These are people that lost their houses, in some cases unfortunately they lost family members, and yet they set a record in early voting,” Trump said. “And that is Trump territory too, so that should be a good thing.”
Republican attorney general candidate Rep. Dan Bishop, speaking earlier in the afternoon, said he was pleased the number of Republican early voters was roughly keeping pace with the Democratic total. Alluding to election fraud claims, he called on rally attendees to build a lead that is “too big to rig.”
Trump made similar references during his speech, though stopped short of repeating his false claim that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen.
“Did you ever hear the expression that the vote counter is far more important than the candidate?” he asked rally-goers. “We can’t let that happen. We’ve got to take it back.”
The morning before the rally, Trump reiterated his “complete and total endorsement” of several North Carolina Republican congressional candidates on Truth Social, including Reps. Chuck Edwards, David Rouzer, and Greg Murphy. All three races are considered safe Republican seats by the Cook Political Report.
Trump will visit Greensboro on Tuesday to conclude his circuit around the state, delivering a speech at the city’s Greensboro Coliseum at 3 p.m.