“Our case to Virginia is very simple,” Trump said. “We will seal the border. We will make the American Dream affordable again. We will bring back the American Dream, something you don’t hear about anymore. You’re going to have the American Dream back working with your great Gov. Glenn Youngkin. We will make Virginia greater than it has ever been before.”

Until recently, Youngkin and Trump had a tepid relationship. While Youngkin didn’t criticize the former president, he avoided appearing with him in public and waited until Trump clinched the Republican nomination to endorse his campaign. Amid speculations in 2022 that Youngkin might be launching his own bid for the presidency, Trump lashed out over social media, asserting Youngkin never would have been elected without his support and mocking the governor’s last name.

During the speech, Trump heavily criticized the U.S. economy under Biden’s administration, pointing to higher interest rates and increased inflation.

The former president also took a jab at Biden’s concerns over climate change and said nuclear weapons in other countries posed a much greater risk to the United States. Trump used an incorrect figure to describe rates of sea-level rise, saying sea levels “may rise 1/8 of an inch in the next 497 years” and joked it would create more waterfront properties.

According to the most recent report card from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at William & Mary, Norfolk has a rise rate of 5.38 millimeters (0.212 inches) per year, making it the highest rate on the East Coast for a fifth year in a row. The forecast measures changes in relative sea level — the height of water relative to the land surface on which people live. More broadly, NASA reported sea levels globally rose by about 0.3 inches, or 0.76 centimeters, from 2022 to 2023, a “relatively large jump,” according to the report.

Before Thursday’s debate in Atlanta, Trump and Biden had not been on the same stage or even spoken since their last debate weeks before the 2020 presidential election. Trump skipped Biden’s inauguration after leading an unprecedented and unsuccessful effort to overturn his loss to Biden that culminated in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection by his supporters.

During the campaign rally, Trump called for the release of jailed Jan. 6 rioters, earning a loud cheer from the crowd.

“These people have been treated so badly,” he said.

During Trump’s speech, the former president also accused Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department, and using law enforcement to try to hurt his political opponent.

The charges Trump was convicted of were brought by state rather than federal prosecutors. He is facing a litany of other criminal charges, including conspiring to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss. There is no evidence Biden directed the Justice Department or local prosecutors to pursue prosecutions of Trump.

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