Former President Donald Trump formally accepted the GOP presidential nomination in Milwaukee on Thursday night, nearly a week after he survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.
Trump spoke for around 90 minutes, laying out future plans if he were to be reelected president this fall. But he also gave viewers deeper insight into last week’s campaign rally shooting, telling the crowd: “The assassin’s bullet came within a quarter inch of taking my life" and "blood was pouring everywhere."
Trump — who said “I’m not supposed to be here tonight” — added that he would never recount this story because “it’s too painful to tell.”
After four nights of speakers and the official nomination of Donald Trump as the Republican Party presidential nominee for the third election cycle in a row, the Milwaukee convention floor voted to close out its proceedings.
The Democratic National Convention will begin on Aug. 19.
Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison blasted Trump, Sen. JD Vance and the Republican Party in a statement released after the RNC concluded.
"Over the past four days, we’ve seen speakers endorse a far-right, dangerous vision that would see Americans’ basic liberties stripped away and replace the rule of law with the rule of Trump. No amount of desperate spin can change how unpopular and out of touch their disastrous plans are for the American people," Harrison said.
"The more voters learn about the Trump-Vance ticket — the most extreme running mates in modern American history — the more fired up they are to reelect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris this November.”
The big question heading into the closing night of the convention was whether the Trump who took the stage in Milwaukee would be any different than the Trump who took the stage in Butler, Pa., five days earlier. Or at the very least, whether he would sound any different.
Read Yahoo News National Correspondent Andrew Romano's takeaways from Trump's speech and the last day of the RNC here.
Trump's convention speech, which clocked in at 93 minutes, concluded with hundreds of red, white, blue and gold balloons falling from the ceiling.
In the background, opera singer Christopher Macchio sang "Nessun Dorma," an aria from a Puccini opera, before transitioning to a rendition of "America the Beautiful" as the rest of Trump's family joined him on stage.
Trump accepted the Republican Party's presidential nomination shortly after midnight Eastern Time, wrapping a speech that lasted more than 90 minutes.
The four-day Republican National Convention convention is preparing to come to a close.
In a discussion of international affairs, Trump praised the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán.
"Hungary, strong country, run by a very powerful, tough leader. Tough guy. Press doesn't like him 'cause he's tough," Trump told the crowd.
Orbán has held the position since 2010 and has dealt with international controversy over some of his political views, which include his promotion of the white nationalist "great replacement" conspiracy theory, implementation of anti-LGBTQ laws and a 2022 speech that was described as "pure Nazi."
Last week, Trump met with Orbán for the second time in six months. Trump's visit was less than two weeks after Orbán traveled to Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin and then to Beijing to meet with Xi Jinping.
After speaking for more than 90 minutes on Thursday, Trump mentioned President Biden by name only once, even though he repeatedly took issue with the policies of “this administration.”
He refrained from mentioning Vice President Kamala Harris altogether.
With many Democrats pressuring Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race following a much-criticized debate performance, Harris has been viewed as the likely frontrunner to replace him as the party’s nominee.
As that fluid situation played out this week, and Biden was diagnosed with COVID, some speakers at the convention saw fit to attack Harris in their speeches.
“Let me remind you. Kamala had one job, one job. And that was to fix the border. Now imagine her in charge of the entire country,” former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said in her speech to the convention on Tuesday.
In his speech on Thursday night, Trump repeated one of his frequently made claims that foreign governments are emptying their prisons and mental institutions and sending those people to the United States.
“They’re coming from prisons. They’re coming from jails. They’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums,” Trump said, adding, “We become a dumping ground for the rest of the world.”
Multiple news organizations have investigated the claim that the Biden administration has been flying people in from other countries and have determined that there is no evidence for it.
In his RNC speech, Trump, while speaking about the southern U.S. border, said his administration had built "most of the wall" he promised to build. During Trump's 2016 campaign, he said his administration would build a wall at least 1,000 miles long across the southern border and he would have Mexico pay for it.
"The wall — we were dealing with a really difficult Congress," Trump said. "I call it an invasion. We give our military almost $800 billion — I said, 'I'm gonna take a little bit of that money 'cause this is an invasion.' And we built — most of the wall was already built, and we built it through using the funds because what's better than that? We have to stop the invasion."
The New York Times reported that, in reality, the Trump administration built about 458 miles of border wall, a lot of which was either replacing or maintaining the already existing wall. Trump officials only put up 47 miles worth of new barriers.
Former President Donald Trump delivered his keynote address at the Republican National Convention on Thursday, formally accepting the GOP's nomination just five days after surviving an assassination attempt on the campaign trail.
Here are some photos of his historic appearance on the convention's final night.
The Associated Press reported on Trump's plan:
Like many tax proposals, Trump’s push to exempt tips could have unintended consequences.
Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, argues that Trump’s proposal could actually backfire for many tipped workers.
For example, some customers may respond to tax-free tips by reducing their gratuity. Secondly, it could take the steam out of efforts in some states to gradually increase the minimum wage for tipped workers so that their base pay is in line with the minimum wage for other workers.
“I will end the electric vehicle mandate on day one,” Trump said in reference to a rule issued by the Biden administration that would make a majority of new passenger cars sold in the U.S. either all-electric or hybrids by 2032 in an effort to fight climate change.
In a meeting last month with the country’s top oil executives, Trump floated a deal. In return for $1 billion of campaign support from the companies, Trump pledged to kill Biden’s environmental restrictions, the pursuit of wind power, and the incentives for electric vehicles, the Washington Post reported.
As president, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord, expanded offshore oil drilling and allowed drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and called climate change a hoax by the Chinese government intended to weaken the U.S. economy.
Despite earlier reports that suggested Trump did not plan on mentioning President Biden by name at any point during his RNC speech, Trump said Biden's name on two occasions.
"If you took the 10 worst presidents in the history of the United States — think of it, the 10 worst, added them up — they will not have done the damage that Biden has done," Trump said. "I'm only going to use the term once. Biden. I'm not going to use the name anymore. The damage that he's done to this country is unthinkable."
Trump made an almost verbatim comment about Biden during a campaign stop in October 2023.
Former first lady Melania Trump traveled to Milwaukee for her husband's keynote speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night. And when the former president praised her in his remarks, she received a standing ovation.
"On this journey I am deeply honored to be joined by my amazing wife, Melania," Trump said, triggering an adoring response.
Melania Trump, who was seated next to JD Vance in the VIP box, smiled and waved to the crowd.
Trump attacked President Biden in Thursday’s speech, depicting him as a threat to global safety.
“There’s an international crisis the likes of which no one has ever seen,” Trump said. Nobody can believe what’s happening. War is now raging in Europe and the Middle East.”
“Our planet is teetering on the edge of World War III,” Trump said, adding, “This administration can’t come close to solving the problems.”
"I say it often," Trump continued. "If you took the 10 worst presidents in the history of the United States, think of it, the 10 worst, added them up, you will not have done the damage that Biden has done."
Over the course of the Republican National Convention, four basic lines of attack against Biden’s policies have been repeated by the speakers: that Biden is responsible for the inflation caused primarily by the coronavirus pandemic; that Biden’s reversal of Trump’s hard-line measures to curb immigration resulted in a record number of undocumented immigrants that wars broke out in Israel and Ukraine because Biden was not as feared as Trump by our adversaries and that Biden is to blame for the hasty withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan that left 13 soldiers dead.
The convention speakers have also been critical of Biden because of his age, speaking gaffes and what they see as an overall decline of cognitive ability.
“Even in his prime he had bad judgment,” former Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York said Wednesday regarding Biden’s advice to former President Barack Obama not to order the military raid in Pakistan that killed terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, “and it’s only gotten worse with age. We can’t rely on Biden to make this kind of crucial 3 a.m. decision. Heck, we can’t rely on him at 3 in the afternoon.”
“When I was President Trump’s White House press secretary, I got the chance to take my 4-year-old son up to ‘Bring Your Kid to Work Day,’” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday. “Much like Jill now drags Joe to ‘Bring Your Husband to Work Day.'"
Trump devoted a segment of his keynote speech on Thursday night to the victims of the shooting at his rally, especially Corey Comperatore, the 50-year-old former Buffalo Township fire chief.
"Tragically, the shooter claimed the life of one of our fellow Americans. Corey Comperatore, unbelievable person, everyone tells me. Unbelievable. And seriously wounded two other great warriors, spoke to them today: David Dutch and James Copenhaver," he said.
"Two great people. I also spoke to all three families of these tremendous people. Our love and prayers are with them and always will be. We're never going to forget them. They came for a great rally," he said. "They were serious Trumpsters, I want to tell you."
Trump went on to call Comperatore "a highly respected former fire chief" who shielded his family during the attack. "What a fine man he was."
"Corey! Corey! Corey!" the audience chanted.
Trump went over and kissed the firefighter's helmet on stage that he said was provided by the fire department and the victim's family.
A key objective of the Republican National Convention was to further humanize Trump for voters. On Thursday, the former president did so by recounting the shooting on Saturday at his campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
“I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” said Trump, who was injured in the shooting.
The audience responded with a chant of “Yes you are! Yes you are!”
In a moving display, Trump kissed the fire helmet of Corey Comperatore, 50, who was killed when gunfire erupted at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally and led the crowd in a moment of silence for the former firefighter.
Over the past year, Trump has been found liable for sexually assaulting and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, and was later, in a second defamation lawsuit, ordered to pay her $83.3 million. A New York judge ruled that he had violated his business assets in violation of New York law and ordered him to pay $355 million in fines plus interest. A New York jury found him guilty in a criminal trial of falsification of business records stemming from his $130,000 hush money payment to keep adult film actress Stormy Daniels from sharing her story about an alleged extramarital affair.
None of those uncomfortable facts were mentioned during the convention. Instead, three women were tasked with offering an alternative version of Trump’s character.
“When the president hired me, I was the first mom and the third woman ever to serve as White House press secretary,” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in her speech on Tuesday. After detailing the attacks she endured from critics, Sanders added, “It was President Trump who defended me.”
“When I look at Donald Trump, I see a wonderful father, father-in-law and, of course, grandfather to my two young children, Luke and Carolina,” Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law, said in a speech delivered onTuesday.
“He calls me in the middle of the school day to ask how my golf game is going and tells me all about his. But then I have to remind him that I’m in school and I have to call him back later,” Kai Trump, Trump’s granddaughter, said in her speech on Wednesday.
Trump delivered his keynote address at the Republican National Convention on Thursday, formally accepting the GOP's nomination just five days after surviving an assassination attempt on the campaign trail.
“As you already know, the assassin’s bullet came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life. So many people have asked me what happened," Trump said. "And therefore, I’ll tell you what happened, and you’ll never hear it from me a second time, because it’s too painful to tell.”
The former president then recalled the shooting at the rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday.
"I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard," he said. "I said to myself, 'Wow, what was that?' It could only be a bullet, and moved my hand to my right ear and brought it down. My hand was covered with blood.
"I immediately knew it was very serious," he said. "We were under attack."
As he spoke, images of Trump bleeding on the floor of the rally stage were displayed on screens behind him.
"There was blood pouring everywhere," Trump added. "And yet in a certain way I felt safe because I had God on my side.
In his opening remarks of a speech in which he accepted the Republican presidential nomination, Trump struck a tone of unity.
“Together we will launch a new era of safety, prosperity and freedom for citizens of every race, religion, color and creed. The discord and division in our society must be healed and we must heal it quickly," Trump said.
That message was expected. In an interview with the New York Post the day after being shot at his Pennsylvania campaign rally, Trump said he “threw away” the speech he had first prepared to deliver at the RNC and wrote a new one.
“I want to try to unite our country,” he told the paper.
In speeches delivered earlier in the week by his daughter-in-law Lara Trump and his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., a similar pattern emerged in which the former president’s relatives spent much of their remarks attempting to humanize him. But the convention has also heard its share of harsh criticism for President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on topics like inflation and a surge in the number of undocumented immigrants crossing the outhern U.S. border.
Videos of Trump taken prior to Saturday’s shooting have played on multiple nights and have featured him making fun of Biden’s age and have portrayed Democrats as incompetent and dishonest.
Trump came out for his RNC speech — his first time speaking on stage since his assassination attempt last weekend. Lee Greenwood sang "God Bless the U.S.A.," a regular song on the Trump campaign trail, as the stage backdrop flashed the name "TRUMP" in neon lights.
Just prior to his walk to the podium, a White House backdrop was projected behind him.
Cover thumbnail photo: Mike Segar/Reuters
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