With Air Force One Background, Trump Rallies New Hampshire Crowd

A day after giving a campaign speech with the White House as his backdrop, President Donald Trump rallied a crowd of hundreds of supporters in New Hampshire using Air Force One as the latest background courtesy of his official office.

"Together, we are taking back our country," Trump told a screaming, jam-packed crowd.

Trump has faced criticism for holding his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on the South Lawn of the White House in front of at least 2,000 people. Few were wearing face masks and photos showed little social distancing.

But that didn't stop him from hitting the campaign trail less than 24 hours later.

"We have to win, we have no choice," he said. "We will be greater than ever before."

For more than an hour, Trump riffed on his Democratic rival Joe Biden and praised his own term in office.

"I spent the last four years cleaning up 47 years of Biden disasters," Trump said. "You better vote me, or you're gonna have the greatest depression you've ever seen."

Trump took to his signature bombastic, sarcastic stump style, after his campaign events have been scaled back amid the coronavirus epidemic.

Less than three months ago, thousands of seats were left empty during a Trump rally in Tulsa, Arizona, prompting the campaign to shift to more intimate engagements. The New Hampshire rally appeared to be the largest since then.

"We're right now, in the most important election of our history," Trump said, prompting chants from the crowd of "Four more years!"

Biden has largely continued to avoid the campaign trail and rely mostly on virtual events in recent months, citing concerns over COVID-19.

He told a group of supporters during a virtual fundraiser Thursday night that he plans to return to the campaign trail after Labor Day but he won't hold large-scale rallies like Trump's.

"One of the things we're thinking about is I'm going to be going up into Wisconsin, and Minnesota, spending time in Pennsylvania, out in Arizona," he said. "But we're going to do it in a way that is totally consistent with being responsible, unlike what [Trump]'s doing."

During his New Hampshire rally, Trump mocked Biden's decision to announce his return 10 days out.

"That's like an eternity in Trumpville," he said.

Biden has defended his decision to avoid large-scale rallies as a safety measure as COVID-19 continues to claim more than 1,000 lives in the United States each day.

Ahead of Trump's appearance, Biden, in a statement, noted that the coronavirus had killed at least 430 people in New Hampshire.

"Granite State families deserve a president who will heal and unite our nation, and make sure New Hampshire communities recover from this crisis stronger than they were before," Biden said.