This story originally appeared on NC Newsline.

Reeling from days of backlash over his Madison Square Garden rally, former President Donald Trump went on the offensive in a speech at Rocky Mount, North Carolina, railing against remarks by President Joe Biden in which it appeared to some that he called Trump supporters “garbage.”

“Joe Biden finally said what he and Kamala really think of our supporters,” Trump said, drawing a chorus of boos from the crowd of about 4,000. “He called them garbage.”

The campaign seized on the comment almost immediately after Biden made it in a Tuesday evening video call with the Hispanic voter advocacy group Voto Latino.

Denouncing a racist joke by Tony Hinchcliffe at Trump’s New York rally this past weekend — in which the insult comic called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” — Biden appeared to say, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”

White House disputes claim

The White House’s official transcript disputes this interpretation, indicating the comment was misunderstood by some because of the president’s stutter — and that he was instead referring to Hinchcliffe himself, saying “his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos.”

Regardless of Biden’s intent, Trump sought to turn the comment to his advantage Wednesday, using it to further his campaign’s long-running narrative that his supporters have been victimized by a political establishment that despises them — a populist appeal that helped win him the 2016 presidential election.

“You are not subhuman,” Trump told the rally crowd. “And you know it’s what they believe because look how they’ve treated you. They’ve treated you like garbage, frankly.”

He made direct reference to remarks by that year’s Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, when she infamously referred to half of Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables” — a comment Clinton later wrote played a role in her electoral defeat. “That makes deplorable look like baby stuff,” Trump said of Biden’s comment.

“You know what’s worse than anything? Garbage. We’re garbage,” Trump said. “And I call you the heart and soul of America — you’re the people that built America.”

For her part, Harris distanced herself from Biden’s remarks before flying to North Carolina for her own event Wednesday. “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” she told reporters in Washington.

‘I’m not Hitler’

Throughout the Rocky Mount rally, Trump sought to cast himself and his supporters as the victims of hate, accusing Harris of running a “campaign of hate, anger, and retribution” immediately after calling her a “low-IQ individual.”

Trump’s own campaign has faced condemnation for hate speech throughout the campaign. At that same New York rally, he condemned Democrats as the “enemy from within,” and since the start of the race, he has attacked undocumented immigrants as “poisoning the blood of our country” — to the point where critics have compared his rhetoric to that of Adolf Hitler.

“I’m not Hitler,” Trump said Wednesday afternoon. “They’ve bullied you; they’ve demeaned us, they’ve demonized us and censored us and deplatformed us and weaponized the power of our own government against us.”

He denied wanting to jail political opponents and journalists, telling supporters he himself had been targeted by the justice system — a reference to federal charges against him for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and, separately, for refusing to return classified documents after the conclusion of his presidency. In both cases, Trump has pleaded not guilty.

Trump then attacked members of the media in attendance at his rally, calling them “scum” and “so dishonest” as he gestured to them at the back of the arena — bringing down an onslaught of jeers from the crowd.

Familiar remarks on immigration, the economy and voting

The rest of the rally focused on familiar themes, with Trump pledging to bring back manufacturing jobs through tariffs and condemning Biden and Harris on inflation and the border.

Trump repeated debunked claims about Hurricane Helene — after unloading a torrent of false claims at a rally in Greenville earlier this month — most notably that the agency had spent $1 billion in disaster aid on migrants, a piece of misinformation that Republicans have repeatedly used to attack the federal government.

He also sought to sow distrust in the upcoming election, claiming Elon Musk told him only paper ballots could guarantee a secure election and calling for “one-day voting” without early or mail-in options — suggesting that otherwise, ballots could be stolen by the boxful. At the same time, he praised North Carolinians for setting an all-time record in early voting, with more than 3 million ballots cast.

“We must defeat Kamala Harris and stop her radical left agenda with a landslide that is too big to rig. You need to get out and vote — that’s all I ask,” Trump said, before commending a sizable contingent of the crowd who indicated they’d already voted. “Thank you very much. That’s very impressive.”

Wednesday’s event, which came just a few minutes after Harris rallied supporters 60 miles away in Raleigh, is part of what appears as if it will be an almost constant stream of visits by the candidates and their surrogates in the campaign’s final days. Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz was scheduled to be in Charlotte, Greensboro and Asheville on Wednesday, while Trump’s running mate JD Vance will be in High Point on Thursday. Harris will headline a rally in Charlotte on Saturday while Trump holds another event in Greensboro.