Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination for President Thursday night, striking a softer tone on the heels of his near-death experience five days ago when he narrowly missed an assassin’s bullet at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa.
Trump took the stage at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum with theatrical flair and in front of a giant bank of large vanity-style light bulbs that spelled out “Trump.” His words began with a more somber focus on the fallout of the assassination attempt, but after the hour-mark the former President began to drift into erratic statements with a speech that clocked in at 91 minutes.
“I stand before you this evening with a message of confidence, strength and hope. Four months from now, we will have an incredible victory, and we will begin the four greatest years in the history of our country,” he said in the opening minutes. “The discord and division in our society must be healed and must heal it quickly. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together, or we fall apart. I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America.”
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Trump told the crowd he would give them a detailed description of his harrowing experience on Saturday amid the shooting.
“In a certain way, I felt very safe, because I had God on my side. I really felt that,” Trump said. When he told the crowd, “I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” the crowd responded with “Yes you are.” Later, the chant shifted to “We want Trump.”
Trump described surviving the shooting as “a providential experience,” invoking the sentiment of divine intervention that many others have since the July 13 incident.
“I stand here before you in this arena by the grace of almighty God,” he said. As he detailed his experience, his remarks were interrupted by chants of “fight, fight, fight” — a reference to the word that Trump shouted with his raised fist as Secret Service officers rushed him off the stage amid the chaos.
Although Trump is known for his pugnacious approach to campaigning, he largely refrained from mudslinging at President Biden and other Democratic opponents. He did say that the nation at present is suffering from “totally incompetent leadership” and he made a reference to “crazy Nancy Pelosi” in a slam against the former Democratic Speaker of the House. “The damage he’s done to this country is unthinkable,” he said, vowing to say the name “Biden” only once during the speech.
As if a Trump assassination attempt wasn’t enough drama, the atmosphere around Trump’s rebirth on the national political stage comes as the incumbent president and his party –Joe Biden and the Democrats — seem to be coming unglued in real-time as calls grow for Biden to bow out of the race for the good of his party.
At the start of Trump’s address, he was subdued in his delivery, and he lived up to the claim a few hours earlier from conversative commentator Tucker Carlson that Trump had been “changed” by the trauma of facing gunfire. Later, however, Trump veered into familiar territory of blaming political rivals and making wild claims about the economy, immigration policy, national defense and the efficacy of U.S. foreign policy actions under Biden’s leadership.
“This election should be about the issues facing our country and how to make America successful, safe, free and great again,” Trump said. “In an age when our politics too often divide us, now is the time to remember that we are all fellow citizens.”
After about 30 minutes, Trump moved back into his familiar stump-speech territory of preposterous boasts about his record and cheap shots at his rivals. He asserted that had he been president, he would have averted the deadly conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. He also took a few jabs at the mainstream media, including insulting CBS News’ venerable Sunday public affairs show “Face the Nation” by calling it “Deface the Nation.”
“I will end every single international crisis that the current administration has created, including the horrible war with Russia and Ukraine, which never happened if I was president, and the war caused by the attack on Israel which would have never happened if I was president,” Trump said.
Still, compared to past political speeches, Trump was in a gentler mode, vowing to be president for “all of America, not half of America,” a nod to the bitter partisan rancor that has enveloped the country. Political observers noted that it nonetheless marked a shift from the first Trump administration’s posture of demonizing political rivals and often, those who vote Democratic.
“I’m here tonight to lay out a vision for the whole nation, to every citizen, whether you’re a young or old man or woman, Democrat, Republican or independent, black or white, Asian or Hispanic, I extend to you a hand of loyalty and of friendship,” Trump said. “Together, we will lead America to new heights of greatness like the world has never seen before.
“With proper leadership, every disaster we are now enduring will be fixed, and it will be fixed very, very quickly,” Trump said. “So tonight, whether you’ve supported me in the past or not, I hope you will support me in the future, because I will bring back the American dream.”
Around the 60-minute mark, Trump cued up big-screen images of a line chart that purported to show the increase in undocumented immigrants entering the U.S. The same chart was displayed on giant screens at the July 13 rally; it was the fact that Trump turned his head to look at the chart that likely spared him a greivous or fatal wound by the shooter, who was killed at the scene by a Secret Service sniper.
“Without that chart, I wouldn’t be here today,” he said.
As Trump continued on in his familiar rambling campaign style, he took aim at transgender youth, derided sustainability concerns as “the Green New Scam,” called for the head of United Auto Workers to be fired and told Black voters that “the Hispanic population” was taking away jobs from “our Black population.” But nothing made him more animated than delivering his criticisms of the Biden administration’s handling of the migrant crisis along the southern U.S. border.
“The entire world is pouring into our country because of this very foolish administration. The greatest invasion in history is taking place right here in our country. They are coming in from every corner of the earth, not just from South America, but from Africa, Asia, the Middle East. They’re coming from everywhere,” Trump said. “They’re coming at levels that we’ve never seen before. It is an invasion indeed, and this administration does absolutely nothing to stop them. They’re coming from prisons. They’re coming from jails. They’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums. You know, the press is always on me because I say this, has anyone seen ‘Silence of the Lambs,’ the late great Hannibal Lecter? He’d love to have you for dinner.”
