The crowd got wild at the biggest rally thus far of Kamala Harris’ campaign and the Democratic nominee snapped when it got out of hand.
In Detroit on Wednesday night, the raucous gathering sang along to Beyonce and screamed to ‘lock up’ Donald Trump while the speakers dropped obscenities and f-bombs as they spoke in Harris’ favor, only pausing to direct medics after multiple people fainted in the heat.
Even vice presidential nominee Tim Walz felt the mood.
‘Holy h***, can you throw a party here in Michigan,’ he told them.
The mood ramped up another notch when he introduced Harris. She came out to a sustained, minute-long screaming ovation but then struggled to regain control of the unruly rally.
There were 15,000 people spilling out of a hanger at the Detroit airport, the biggest crowd yet of Harris’ presidential campaign.
And when a group of Gaza protesters started yelling at her, Harris snapped.
‘If you want Donald Trump to win then say that. Otherwise I am speaking,’ she told them as her supporters cheered her on.
‘If you want Donald Trump to win then say that. Otherwise I am speaking,’ Kamala Harris snapped at group of pro-Gaza protesters
Harris experienced the first pro-Gaza protesters of her presidential campaign when a group of them slipped into the event to heckle her from the sidelines.
‘Kamala Kamala, you can’t hide, we don’t want no genocide,’ they chanted.
At first Harris downplayed the interruption to her speech. ‘All good,’ she said.
The crowd yelled ‘Ka-ma-la, Ka-ma-la’ to drown them out.
But as the anti-Israel protests continued Harris got snappier: ‘I’m here because we believe in democracy. Everyone’s voice matters but I am speaking now.’
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It was the roughest rally yet for Harris and her running mate, who are on a multiple state tour. The war in Israel is a huge issue in Michigan, which as a large Muslim population. Harris, as a member of Joe Biden’s administration, has faced criticism for not enough being done to help civilians in Gaza.
But the event was raucous from the start, beginning with Harris’ rock star entrance.
She stole a move out of Donald Trump’s playbook for the event and pulled up to the campaign rally in her Air Force plane.
She and Walz arrived at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport on Air Force Two, landing as Beyoncé’s ‘Run the World’ played.
‘Who run the world? Girls,’ blared on the loudspeakers as the plane came down the tarmac.
Harris disembarked to Beyonce’s ‘Freedom,’ which has become her signature campaign song, walking from the plane to the airport hanger where a crowd of 15,000 awaited her, a crowd so big it spilled out onto the tarmac.
Trump, during the 2020 election, repeatedly used Air Force One as a backdrop for his campaign speeches. He held his rallies at airports around the country, delighting the crowd when the blue-and-white plane pulled right up to the hanger, allowing the then-president to make a dramatic entrance.
Air Force Two arrives for Kamala Harris’ and Tim Walz’s rally in Detroit
‘Holy h***, can you throw a party here in Michigan,’ Tim Walz said
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The crowd got more rambunctious from there, amped up by the speakers, who dropped multiple four-letter words.
United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain kicked things off by blasting Trump for his treatment of the industry. The powerful union group endorsed Harris for president two weeks ago.
‘Trump talks about he’s going to bring back the auto industry. Donald Trump doesn’t know s*** about the auto industry,’ Fain shouted.
‘And he doesn’t give a d***about the working class in this country.’
As Fain continued to speak, he let it all out: ‘I’m f***ing angry.’
Other speakers kept up the vibe, including Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who’s seen as a future presidential contender.
‘We need a strong woman in the White House and it’s about d*** time,’ she said in her remarks.
Walz remarked on the mood.
‘Holy h***, can you throw a party here in Michigan,’ he said.
He let loose during his remarks. His praised Whitmer for knowing how to ‘fix the d*** roads’ and told the crowd ‘you have got a treasure here in Michigan.’
And he acknowledged how crazy his life has been for the last two days, since Harris called him on Tuesday morning and offered him the slot as her running mate.
We’re 91 days out from the election, he told the crowd. ‘Ninety,’ they yelled back at him.
’90. Christ I haven’t slept in 24 hours,’ he said rubbing his face.
He was filled with crowd-pleasing lines.
And he had plenty of zingers ready to throw at Republicans.
‘The one thing I will not forgive them for is they try to steal the joy from this country. But you know what? Our next president brings the joy. She emanates the joy,’ Walz said.
Supporters cheer on Kamala Harris and Tim Walz
Harris and Walz walk on the tarmac from Air Force Two into the rally
The crowd of 15,000 spilled out of the hanger
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz disembark from Air Force Two
It wasn’t just the rhetoric that was hot.
All the speakers had to stop their remarks to direct medical personnel to where they were needed in the crowd as multiple people fainted.
At least six people needed medical attention over the course of the rally. There were volunteers on hand with water and Fig Newtons.
Shouts of ‘water, water,’ and ‘medic, medic’ could be heard in the crowd as people collapsed.
Walz had to stop, too, to direct medics.
‘Thank you for caring for your neighbors,’ Walz said as the crowd made room for the medical personnel. ‘Look we share a lot things. That’s one of them. We’re neighbors and we’re not weird.’
He introduced Harris, who stuck to her usual stump speech.
Kamala Harris takes photos with the crowd after her remarks
The crowd went wild when Air Force Two arrived; Donald Trump also used his Air Force plane to arrive at rallies when he was president
Kamala Harris speaks with Air Force Two behind her
But Harris also included an addition that she added on Wednesday.
She stopped her supporters who yelled ‘lock him up’ about Trump, her Republican rival. She did the same earlier in the day at her rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
She had been giving her standard stump speech where she outlined her background as a prosecutor, arguing it meant she knew how to deal with men like Trump, when the crowd started yelling ‘lock him up.’
Harris jumped to Trump’s defense.
‘Hold on,’ she said. ‘The courts are going to handle that. We’re going to beat him in November.’