By Galen Bacharier 

NC Newsline

ASHEBORO — The members of the Republican presidential ticket criticized Vice President Kamala Harris over the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and America’s place on the world stage during a visit to Asheboro on Wednesday.

The event, which took place outside the North Carolina Aviation Museum, marked former President Donald Trump’s first outdoor campaign event since an attempted assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania last month. It was also U.S. Sen. JD Vance’s first visit to the state since being tapped as the GOP vice presidential nominee.

With bulletproof glass at his front and back and flanked by snipers on neighboring rooftops, Trump attacked his opponent and the Biden-Harris administration, chiefly on the military and foreign policy.

He returned multiple times to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, in which 13 service members were killed during an evacuation in Kabul.

“Since the Afghanistan catastrophe, it’s been open season on America and their allies,” Trump said.

His remarks were billed as focusing on national security, part of a series of speeches intended to focus on policy. He visited North Carolina last week for a speech that was supposed to focus on his economic agenda but often veered into personal attacks and asides on other issues and people.

Such was the case again Wednesday, with Trump again expressing skepticism at the idea of a policy-centric speech.

“My advisors are fired,” he joked, after polling the audience on whether they thought he should “get personal.” “We love to keep it on policy, but sometimes it’s hard when you’re attacked on all ends. They want to put you in jail for nothing.”

Among those with whom he “got personal” were military generals who since his presidency have spoken out against him, including Retired General Mark Milley and former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.

“I call them television generals,” Trump said.

At a July campaign event in Charlotte, Trump suggested replacing some military leaders with NASCAR drivers to guide the troops because they “win so many races.”

And he continued to mock Biden and Harris as “stupid people,” warning supporters that her election would bring “a third world war.”

During his speech, he welcomed on stage a group of North Carolina sheriffs and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who earlier Wednesday held a press conference about the gubernatorial candidate’s public safety agenda in Statesville.

Vance, in first NC speech, mocks Harris’ intelligence and goes after Walz

Vance, in his remarks prior to Trump, portrayed the issues of crime and immigration as key to national security. And he mocked Harris’ understanding of foreign policy, saying she explained it “like a third grader who didn’t study for a class presentation.”

“You’re going to lose about 20 IQ points when you hear her talk about Russia-Ukraine,” Vance said. “She doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about.”

He went after the opposing vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — echoing Republican claims that he has misrepresented his military service and mocking “his bizarre love affair with China.”

“I didn’t expect (Harris) to outsource the selection of her running mate, too,” Vance said, in a joke about U.S.-based jobs being outsourced abroad.

And he touted Trump’s methods on the world stage — calling him “too big for the deep state bureaucracy.”

“Mean tweets and world peace has a pretty nice ring to it,” Vance said. “I think we ought to bring it right back.”

With convention in progress, Democrats attack Trump on economy

Harris, who set out her economic agenda in Raleigh last week, is in Chicago this week for the Democratic National Convention.

Her campaign has repeatedly attacked Trump’s domestic and economic agenda by highlighting the conservative policy blueprint Project 2025. Local Democrats held a press conference Wednesday in Asheboro saying the agenda would raise inflation and taxes on North Carolinians.

“Donald Trump has no real economic plan, and it’s clear he does not really care about us,” said Randolph County Democratic Chair Diane Hubbard. “Trump left our communities out to dry as president, driving jobs out of our state while giving tax cuts to billionaires and big corporations instead of renewing and rebuilding our infrastructure.”

Harris will officially accept the Democratic nomination this week in Chicago.

Galen Bacharier covers North Carolina politics and government for NC Newsline.