MILWAUKEE (AP) — Solemn and bandaged, Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination on the Republican National Convention on Thursday. In his speech, he described intimately the assassination attempt that might have ended his life just five days earlier. He then laid out a sweeping populist agenda, particularly on 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 group listened in silence, Trump described standing on the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, turning his head to have a 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 speech, the longest convention speech in modern history at nearly 93 minutes, marked the climax and conclusion of a four-day major Republican pep rally that drew hundreds of conservative activists and elected officials to the swing state of Wisconsin as voters weigh an election that currently features two deeply unpopular candidates. Sensing a political opportunity after his near-death experience, the customarily bombastic Republican leader struck a brand new tone that he hopes will add much more momentum to an election that appears to be tipping 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 big white Band-Aid on his right ear to cover a wound he sustained in Saturday's shooting. “I'm running for president for all of America, not 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 could be the most important deportation effort in U.S. history. He repeatedly accused people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally of staging an “invasion.” He also announced latest trade tariffs and an “America First” foreign policy.
Trump also falsely claimed that Democrats cheated within the 2020 election he lost, despite the fact that 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,” despite the fact that he has long called for the prosecution of his opponents.
He didn’t mention abortion rights, a problem that has dogged Republicans for the reason that U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal right to abortion two years ago. Trump nominated three of the six justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. At his rallies, Trump often takes credit for overturning Roe v. Wade and argues that states must have the appropriate to determine their very own abortion laws.
He also didn’t mention the revolt on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, by which Trump supporters tried to stop the confirmation of his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has long referred to the people detained for the revolt as “hostages.”
In fact, Trump barely mentioned Biden and sometimes 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 an announcement 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 within the race
With lower than 4 months remaining until the top of the competition, major changes to the race are possible, if not going.
Trump's appearance got here as 81-year-old Democratic incumbent Biden clings 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 have the ability to hunt re-election after his disastrous debate.
Biden has long been urged by his allies to campaign more vigorously, but as an alternative he’s in isolation at his beach house in Delaware after being diagnosed with COVID-19.
Hours before the balloon rain on Trump and his family was scheduled to happen within the congressional hall, Biden's deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks appeared nearby in Milwaukee and repeatedly reiterated that Biden wouldn’t 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 this system
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!” that echoed the words Trump mouthed on stage in Pennsylvania as Secret Service agents surrounded him. And wrestling icon Hulk Hogan called the previous president “an American hero.”
Hogan received a standing ovation when he stood on the important 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.”
Like many other speakers on the convention, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said recent events were inspired by God and he wondered “if there isn't 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 within the hall of Congress before Trump's speech. It was their first appearance there. Neither woman spoke.
At nearly 93 minutes, the previous president's speech surpassed the 74 minutes he gave eight years ago, in response to the American Presidency Project on 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 approach 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 running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, chosen by Trump to hold his movement into the subsequent generation, was once a harsh critic, suggesting in a now-public private message that Trump could possibly be “America’s Hitler.”
After Trump's near assassination, security was a top priority in Milwaukee. But after nearly 4 days, there have been no serious incidents within the congressional hall or in the massive security perimeter surrounding it.
The Secret Service, supported by lots of of law enforcement officers from across the country, had a robust and visual presence. And at Trump's appearances every night, he was surrounded by a wall of security officers, regardless of where he went.
“I'm not supposed to be here tonight,” Trump said within the packed hall of Congress. The hundreds of people that listened in silence shouted back: “Yes, you are.”
Associated Press reporters Michelle L. Price, Farnoush Amiri and Adriana Gomez Licon in Milwaukee and Emily Swanson in Washington contributed to this report.
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