Former President Donald Trump cracked a risqué joke about leaving former First Lady Melania at his rally in Georgia on Saturday after calling an activist to the stage who earlier in the event gave remarks taking direct aim at Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump brought Michaelah Montgomery up toward the end of his remarks at his rally at the Georgia State University Convocation Center in Atlanta.
He explained that he met Montgomery at a restaurant while in Atlanta earlier this year. Trump claimed when he went into the restaurant, which was a Chick-fil-A, she was ‘behind the counter’ and told him ‘President Trump, you saved my college.’
‘This one is so smart, so sharp. She grabbed me. She gave me a kiss,’ Trump said as Montgomery stood by his side. ‘I said “I think I’m never going back home to the first lady.”‘
‘You were supposed to keep that quiet,’ Montgomery joked in response after making a shushing gesture while the crowd laughed.
‘See now for the average politician, that’s death. For me, I don’t care,’ Trump said.
Donald Trump brings Michaelah Montgomery up on stage during his rally in Atlanta, GA on Saturday, August 3, 2024
Montgomery is a Georgia activist who first crossed paths with Trump inside a Chick-fil-A when he made a campaign stop there earlier this year in April.
Trump’s retelling of the story was slightly off because she was not behind the counter, but their meeting went viral after she asked Trump for a picture.
‘She loved her college, and she said, you saved my college,’ Trump recalled on Saturday before deferring to Montgomery to say where she went to school.
Montgomery is a 2020 graduate of Clark Atlanta University, which is a Historically Black College or University or HBCU. She went on to found Conserve The Culture which does grassroots campaigning.
While he was president, Trump signed a bipartisan bill that strengthened HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions.
Trump has been touting those funds while campaigning in an appeal to black voters.
Trump with Michaelah Montgomery (left) at a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Atlanta on April 10
Trump kisses activist Michaelah Montgomery after bringing her on stage at his rally in Atlanta
Trump praised Montgomery as ‘incredible’ and said she has a ‘tremendous future.’
Before Trump brought Montgomery on stage toward the end of his remarks, she spoke at the rally earlier in the evening where she went after Harris and defended Trump’s recent false claims over the vice president’s racial identity.
Trump said in an interview last Wednesday that Harris, who is biracial with an Indian mother and Jamaican father, ‘happened to turn black’ in recent years. He and his campaign have since doubled down on the line of attack.
‘I’m trying to figure out what all the outrage is about because she’s only black when it’s time to get elected,’ Montgomery said at the rally on Saturday.
‘The same black people who are mad at Trump for being confused about her race, ethnicity, nationality, whatever, are seemingly forgetting that while you’re touting her as a savior for black people, she identifies as an Asian woman,’ Montgomery went on. ‘She chose her side, and it wasn’t ours.’
Harris is the first black and south Asian Vice President of the United States and identifies as both black and Indian. She attended the historically black Howard University where she was a member of the historically black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha.
Harris responded to Trump going after her racial identity last week with remarks that signaled she would not be debating her black identity with a white man.
‘It was the same old show,’ Harris said. ‘The divisiveness and the disrespect, and let me just say, the American people deserve better.’
