Photo: Jim Watson Agence France-Presse Supporters of Donald Trump are urged to take shelter as a storm brews ahead of the former president's speech on April 20, 2024. Trump reportedly ultimately addressed the crowd from his plane.
Carmen Cuesta Roca to Willmington
Posted at 9:12 p.m. Updated at 9:31 p.m.
- United States
Former US President Donald Trump postponed a meeting in North Carolina on Saturday, his first major campaign event planned since the start of his criminal trial in New York, due to bad weather.
Thousands of his supporters gathered at the Wilmington airport, in this state which will be bitterly contested by Mr. Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden on November 5, before the Republican candidate announced the postponement of the meeting.
“We want to make sure that everyone is safe first and foremost and so we have been asked to ask people to leave the premises and take shelter,” the former president said in a phone call broadcast on the site, according to AFP journalists.
“It seems like there's thunder and lightning […] I think we're going to have to postpone that for another time,” added Donald Trump, promising to organize another rally , “bigger”, in the same place.
The man who hopes to make a triumphant return to the White House is on trial in a case of hidden payments to buy the silence of a former porn star, Stormy Daniels, a few days before the 2016 election which he won narrowly against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
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Denouncing a “witch hunt,” Mr. Trump repeatedly protested that the trial did not give him free rein.
“I should be in Pennsylvania and Florida right now, in many other states, in North Carolina, in Georgia, campaigning,” he said indignantly this week.
Saturday morning, several hours before the scheduled meeting, his followers in Wilmington had already begun to gather, armed with coolers and hats under the scorching North Carolina sun.
For Stephen Prater, a 29-year-old trucker, it's obvious: his candidate's trial is “largely due to the left trying to do everything to prevent him from becoming president again.”
Grace Miller, 58, thinks the same thing. It’s a “political” trial, she assures.
“Busy”
Donald Trump attacked again on Saturday the judge of his New York trial, historic because it is the first criminal trial of a former American president.
The magistrate must be “dismissed”, he said. ” I did not do anything wrong ! » he stormed on his platform, Truth Social.
“If immunity is not granted to a president, every president leaving office will be immediately indicted by the opposing party,” he further said.
Although no Democratic presidential candidate has won North Carolina since Barack Obama in 2008, Joe Biden wants to believe in his chances in the state.
Because even though Donald Trump won in North Carolina twice, in 2016 and 2020, Mr. Biden narrowly lost in this state to him in the last election.
The Democrat tries to take advantage of the cases which beset his rival, stuck in court several days of the week, and plows the ground.
He was in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday, which was contested and crucial to the November election.
While he has long refrained from commenting on Donald Trump's troubles, Mr. Biden shot an arrow at him this week, saying that the latter was “very busy at the moment”.
The White House assured that Joe Biden was not following the trial, adding: “He is focused on Americans. »
This trial coincides with Joe Biden's advance in the polls since his State of the Union speech in March, with the two candidates now neck and neck.
But Donald Trump and his supporters also hope to take advantage of the media attention surrounding his criminal trial, counting on the fact that it offers him a ready-made platform for campaigning.