Donald Trumpserious and bandaged, accepted the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday to the Republican National Convention in a speech in which he described in detail the assassination attempt that could have ended his life just five days earlier, before he comprehensive populist agendaespecially on the issue of immigration.
The 78-year-old former president, best known for his boastful and aggressive rhetoric, began his acceptance speech with a softer and deeply personal message, one directly inspired by his brush with death. Moment by moment, as the crowd listened in silence, Trump described standing on the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, turning his head to look at a chart on display when he felt something hit his ear. He raised his hand to his head and immediately saw that it was covered in blood.
“If I hadn’t moved my head at that very last moment, the assassin’s bullet would have hit its target,” Trump said. “And I wouldn’t be here tonight. We wouldn’t be together.”
Trump’s address, the longest convention speech in modern history at nearly 93 minutes, marked the climax and conclusion of a four-day massive Republican pep rally that drew thousands of conservative activists and elected officials to the swing state of Wisconsin as voters weigh an election that is currently two deeply unpopular candidatesSensing a political opportunity after his near-death experience, the often bombastic Republican leader has struck a new tone that he hopes will add even more momentum to an election campaign that appears to be turning in his favor.
“The discord and division in our society must be healed. We must heal it fast. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a common destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart,” Trump said, wearing, as he has done all week, a large white Band-Aid on his right ear to cover a wound he sustained in an attack. the shooting on Saturday“I’m running for president for all of America, not for half of America, because winning for half of America is not a victory.”
While speaking in a softer tone than at his usual rallies, Trump also outlined an agenda led by what he promised would be the largest deportation effort in U.S. history. He repeatedly accused people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally of staging an “invasion.” He also announced new trade tariffs and an “America First” foreign policy.
Trump also falsely claimed that Democrats cheated in the 2020 election he lost, even though a series of federal and state investigations proved there was no systematic fraud. He also said “we must not criminalize dissent or demonize political disagreement,” even though he has long called for the prosecution of his opponents.
He did not mention the right to abortion, a Issue that concerns Republicans since the US Supreme Court overturned a state-guaranteed right to abortion two years ago. Trump nominated three of the six justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. Trump at his rallies often takes responsibility for the repeal of Roe and argues that states should have the right to make their own abortion laws.
He also did not mention the Uprising in the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in which Trump supporters tried to prevent the confirmation of his defeat against Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has For a long time this referred to the people who were imprisoned for the riot as “hostages”.
In fact, Trump barely mentioned Biden and often referred only to the “current administration.”
“It was Donald Trump who destroyed our economy, dismantled rights and failed middle-class families,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign manager, said in a statement after the speech. “Now he is seeking the presidency with an even more extreme vision of where he wants to take this country.”
The RNC ends at an uncertain time in the race
With less than four months remaining until the end of the competition, major changes to the race are possible, if not likely.
Trump’s appearance came as Biden, the 81-year-old Democratic incumbentis clinging to his party’s likely nomination despite relentless pressure from key allies in Congress, donors and even former President Barack Obama, who fears he may not be re-elected after his disastrous debate.
Biden, who has long been urged by his allies to campaign more vigorously, is instead in isolation at his beach house in Delaware after diagnosed with COVID-19.
Hours before the balloon rain on Trump and his family was scheduled to take place in the congressional hall, Biden’s deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks appeared nearby in Milwaukee and repeatedly reiterated that Biden would not resign.
“I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t know how many more times I can answer that,” Fulks told reporters. “There are no plans to replace Biden on the ballot.”
Strength in the program
Thursday’s RNC program seemed designed to exude strength and masculinity while also implicitly rejecting Biden.
Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White called Trump “a real American bad ass.” Kid Rock sang a song with the chorus “Fight, fight!” and repeated the words Trump mouthed on stage in Pennsylvania when he was surrounded by Secret Service agents. And wrestling icon Hulk Hogan called the former president an “American hero.”
Hogan received a standing ovation when he stood on the main stage and ripped off his shirt, revealing a red “Make America Great Again” shirt.
“As an entertainer, I try to stay out of politics,” Hogan said, breaking character briefly. “I can’t stay silent any longer.”
How many speakers during the congress, former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson said recent events were divinely inspired and he wondered “if there is something bigger going on.”
“I think it changed him,” Carlson said of the shooting, praising Trump for not erupting in anger afterward.
“He has done his best to unite the country,” Carlson added. “It is the most responsible and unifying behavior of a head of state that I have ever seen.”
Former first lady Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump, the president’s eldest daughter and former senior adviser, met in the hall of Congress before Trump’s speech. It was their first appearance there. Neither woman spoke.
At nearly 93 minutes, the former president’s speech surpassed the 74 minutes he gave eight years ago, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Republicans leave party convention united
The convention showcased a Republican Party reshaped by Trump since he shocked the GOP establishment and won over the party base on his way to the party’s nomination in 2016. Trump’s defeated rivals – including Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis – put aside their earlier criticism and gave him their full support.
Even his vice presidential candidate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, who was Trump’s choice to carry his movement into the next generation, was once a sharp critic who suggested in a private message that has since been made public that Trump could be “America’s Hitler.”
After Trump’s near assassination, security was a top priority in Milwaukee. But after nearly four days, there were no serious incidents in the congressional hall or in the large security perimeter surrounding it.
The Secret Service, backed by hundreds of law enforcement officers from across the country, had a strong and visible presence. And at Trump’s nightly appearances, he was surrounded by a wall of security officers wherever he went.
Meanwhile, Trump and his campaign team non-released information about his injury or the treatment he received. The former president on Thursday detailed his story of surviving the attack – and vowed he would not speak about it again.
“I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” Trump said in the packed hall of Congress. The thousands of people who listened in silence shouted back: “Yes, you are.”