Donald Trump’s final rally in Georgia filled the Atrium Health amphitheater in the city of Macon on Sunday. Early voting results showed that supporters from the middle of the state could prove decisive in the final days of the election.

Trump arrived at the event an hour and a half late, wearing a black and gold “Make America Great Again” hat. Sticking with familiar themes, the former president said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1790, the law under which Japanese, Italian and German Americans were interned during World War II, and seek the death penalty for undocumented immigrants who kill an American.

“The United States is now an occupied country. That’s thousands of people in all of our cities.”

Trump mentioned Minely’s “Mimi” Zoe Rodriguez-Ramirez, who was murdered in Cornelia, Georgia, last week. The suspect in this murder is in the United States illegally, Trump claimed.

Rodriguez-Ramirez’s family took the stage.

“I’m losing my daughter, but I’m not losing my faith,” Carmen Rodriguez, Mimi’s mother, said at Sunday’s rally. “Donald Trump is the best choice for the USA… I met Donald Trump personally. He is the most wonderful person I have ever seen.”

More than 4 million Georgians voted in record numbers earlier this year. While voter turnout in the Atlanta metro area was slightly higher than in other parts of the state, the number of early voters was generally evenly balanced between traditionally Democratic and Republican counties.

Macon-Bibb County — the site of Trump’s Sunday rally — voted nearly 2-to-1 for Biden in 2020, but is surrounded by rural counties that generally supported Trump that same year. Voter turnout in the district has so far been around 10% below the national average.

Elsewhere, Trump called retired generals who worked for him “stupid” and singled out former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, his former chief of staff John Kelly and former Defense Secretary James Mattis. Each of the retired generals voiced sharp criticism of Trump, with Kelly last month calling Trump “fascist to the core.”

“With your vote on Tuesday, I will end inflation and stop criminals from invading our country,” Trump said. “We’re at the five-yard line, maybe even the one-yard line… That’s really all you need to know: Kamala broke it and I’m going to fix it.”

Georgia Republican Chairman Josh McKoon told rally attendees that he has approved a federal lawsuit to prevent Fulton County election offices from remaining open over the weekend to accept hand-cast mail-in ballots.

“They decided they wanted to do some overtime,” McKoon said. “We will not allow them to make it from 2024 (into) 2020.”

On Saturday, a judge in Georgia rejected Republicans’ lawsuit to block counties from keeping their offices open over the weekend so voters can cast their ballots in person.

Sunday’s rally was attended by Herschel Walker, Trump’s hand-picked Senate candidate who narrowly lost a challenge to Raphael Warnock in 2022 after a campaign marked by gaffes. It was Walker’s first appearance at a Trump rally this year.

Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, was conspicuous by his absence. Trump spent years antagonizing Kemp after the governor refused to give in to the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. But Trump and Kemp recently appeared to reconcile, with the governor pledging his support to the former president. The two appeared together at a stop near Augusta last month to survey damage from Hurricane Helene.

Kemp didn’t show up at a Trump rally.

One speaker after another on Sunday referred to President Joe Biden’s comments at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden a week ago, in which a comedian called Puerto Rico a floating island of trash. Biden sparked outrage after appearing to call Trump supporters “trash” in response, a claim the president has rejected.

Nonetheless, speaker after speaker leaned into the “garbage” comment.

“I can tell you right now: If they consider this trash,” said Georgia Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, “then I’m going to take that trash all day long.”

Andrew Clyde MP said: “There’s an old saying. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”