'I took a bullet for democracy,' Trump tells first rally since shooting

GRAND RAPIDS - Donald Trump, holding his first campaign rally on Saturday since surviving an assassination attempt, rejected concerns that he is a threat to America's democratic system, triumphantly telling the crowd: "I took a bullet for democracy."

"I'm not an extremist at all," the newly-crowned Republican presidential nominee continued at the rally in swing state Michigan, dismissing his reported links to Project 2025, a shadow manifesto from figures close to him that has been characterized by opponents as an authoritarian, right-wing wish list.

And he mocked the rival Democratic Party, roiled by unprecedented pressure for President Joe Biden to abandon his reelection bid amid concerns over his age and fitness to serve, if reelected, until 2029.

"They have no idea who their candidate is... This guy goes and he gets the votes, and now they want to take it away. That's democracy," Trump told the 12,000-strong crowd of passionate supporters.

In the fiery but typically rambling speech, the Republican riffed on his hardline immigration views, espoused falsehoods about migrant crime, and repeated his baseless claim that Democrats "rigged" the 2020 election.

He expressed admiration for foreign autocrats including China's "brilliant" Xi Jinping, whom he praised for controlling "1.4 billion people with an iron fist."

And he evoked the seconds after a gunman tried to kill him at a rally in Pennsylvania, when, bloodied and surrounded by Secret Service agents, he raised a fist and yelled for his supporters to "fight!"

The rally represented a moment remarkable by any measure, with Trump back on the campaign trail exactly one week since the assassination attempt.