During a huge rally in Asheboro, North Carolina on Wednesday, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance gave compelling speeches on the urgency of returning to Trump’s approach to U.S. national security to reverse the Biden/Harris administration’s disastrous foreign policy.
My AFPI colleague General Keith Kellogg and I were honored to attend the Trump/Vance national security speeches. (Kellogg also delivered a solid national security speech to warm up the crowd.) The Asheboro event was the first outdoor Trump rally since last month’s assassination attempt against the former president in Butler, PA. This rally had the high-security measures that should have been in place at the Butler rally.
The Trump/Vance presentations were especially significant because Vice President Harris and her campaign refuses to explain how a Harris administration would address growing global instability. There also has been an absence of any serious discussion of national security at this week’s Democratic National Convention.
An August 22 Wall Street Journal editorial raised concerns about this, noting that “Foreign policy is where the Vice President’s unknowns are most troubling… Yet Ms. Harris hasn’t explained her security views on much of anything… She hasn’t explained to the public what her core principles are, or even who she relies on for foreign policy advice.”
Trump and Vance did not pull their punches on the dire state of global security caused by the Biden/Harris administration or hold back on their policy solutions.
Trump said, “The world is on fire and Kamala and Biden have marched us to the brink of World War III,” noting the global conflicts and tensions that have occurred over the last three and a half years, including the war in Ukraine, increased threats from Iran, a surge in provocations against Taiwan from China, and increased tensions with North Korea.
Trump said the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan ordered by Biden was a “catastrophe” and noted that Harris bears responsibility for this decision because she “was the last person in the room with Biden when the two of them decided to pull the troops out of Afghanistan.” Trump condemned the Biden administration for leaving behind billions of dollars worth of U.S. weapons and military equipment and for abandoning the Bagram Airbase, which he says is now being operated by China.
The former president said the Biden/Harris Afghanistan catastrophe severely undermined global security and made it “open season on America and our allies.” He said he would have handled a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan more responsibly and without any U.S. troops losing their lives. If he wins the presidency, Trump said he will ask for the resignation of “every single senior military official who touched the Afghanistan disaster.”
The Biden/Harris policy failures on Iran were also a focus of the Trump and Vance speeches. Trump said that Iran was broke because of his policies but is $250 billion richer today because of the Biden/Vance administration ignoring the threat from Iran. Trump said the administration’s failed Iran policy enabled its support of terrorism, including the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023. Trump also faulted the Biden/Harris administration’s offer to exchange Iranian prisoners for Americans held hostage in Iran, plus a $6 billion payment to Iran. Trump said deals like this encourage more hostage-taking and noted that his administration freed dozens of hostages without paying anything to the nations that were holding them.
Trump spoke at length about the war in Ukraine, attributing it to the weak leadership of Biden and Harris. He said Russian President Putin respected him and Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if he was president. Trump indicated that stopping the Ukraine War would be one of his priorities as president and he hopes to end the war as president-elect before he is inaugurated.
His willingness to talk to the heads of state of America’s enemies is an important element of his approach to national security, telling the North Carolina crowd, “It’s good to get along with these countries…I talked this world out of a lot of wars with telephone calls. I don’t have to send in the troops.”
Trump added that he rebuilt the U.S. military and restored weapons and ammunition arsenals. He criticized the Biden/Harris administration for depleting these arsenals to send vital American weapons to Ukraine.
The surge in illegal immigrants coming across America’s southern border was a major theme of the Trump and Vance speeches. Vance condemned Vice President Harris for failing to protect the U.S. southern border as Biden’s “border czar” because she wants to give illegal aliens the right to vote. Trump stressed that this is allowing criminals and terrorists to enter the U.S. and that we will not have a country if Harris is elected because she will do nothing to secure the border.
The overall theme of the Trump and Vance speeches was the urgent need to reestablish American strength and deterrence, which has deteriorated due to the weak foreign policy of the Biden/Harris administration. Trump said in his speech,
Four years ago, our country was strong and respected like never before. Our allies admired us, our enemies feared us, because everyone knew that. As an American President, I was all about putting America first. That’s true. Under my leadership, we rebuilt the United States military, created Space Force, and we made our allies pay their fair share and their fair dues.
Trump emphasized that his national security policies kept U.S. troops out of new wars and brought about a period of peace that was squandered due to President Biden’s incompetence and poor leadership. Trump promised to remedy this situation if reelected saying, “Starting the moment I lift my hand from the Bible after taking the Oval Office, I will move to restore America to maximum power and restore the world to peace.”
Overall, the Trump and Vance speeches on national security at the Asheboro rally did not say anything new. They repeated statements Trump has made many times before about how he views the world and his approach to U.S. national security. However, these speeches were still important because they set a contrast between Trump’s strong mastery of the global threats facing this nation and how to deal with them and Harris’s profound national security inexperience and incompetence.
With speeches like this, Trump and Vance are forcing American voters to choose who they want as their next president to defend our national security and deal with autocratic leaders like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, Ali Hosseini Khamenei, and others—and to recognize that Trump is clearly the best choice.