By EMILY R. CONDON, JAMES MATHESON, and CALEY FOX SHANNON
MILWAUKEE – Accepting his party’s third consecutive presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention Thursday night, former President Donald Trump reprised his campaign themes by denouncing President Joe Biden and Democrats and claiming his myriad legal challenges were their work.
GOP officials touted Trump’s speech in advance as a message of unity.
“We rise together, or we fall apart. I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America,” Trump said in his opening statement.
But the sometimes rambling address Trump delivered was peppered with off-script complaints about how he’s been treated by the press, the 2020 election, and attacks by opponents like “Crazy Nancy Pelosi,” the former speaker of the House.
“Under the current administration, we are indeed a nation in decline,” Trump said. Referring to Biden, he said, “the damage that he has done to this country is unthinkable.”
Trump is the only candidate with felony convictions, a sexual abuse verdict, and defamation damages to be nominated by a major political party. He is appealing those verdicts but also faces other federal and state trials.
Trump promised to reduce crime, reverse Biden’s environmental initiatives, combat inflation, block the exportation of U.S. jobs overseas, provide “massive tax cuts for workers,” and protect Social Security and Medicare.
In pledging to end illegal immigration, Trump mentioned the case of Rachel Morin, the Bel Air, Maryland, mother who was murdered last year, allegedly by an undocumented man from El Salvador.
“I’m feeling energized. That was the most unifying speech I think I’ve ever heard Trump give,” Ben Marchi, an at-large delegate from Easton, Maryland, said. “It’s a level of focus that contrasts with Joe Biden and this administration. So much that I think it’s convincing for most voters out there.”
Trump began his one-and-a-half-hour address in a positive tone.
“Friends, delegates, fellow citizens, I stand before you this evening with a message of confidence, strength, and hope,” he said. “Four months from now, we will have an incredible victory and we will begin the four greatest years in the history of our country.”
“Together we will launch a new era of safety, prosperity, and freedom for citizens of every race, religion, color, and creed,” he said. “The discord and division in our society must be healed. We must heal it quickly.”
The somber 45th president recounted in vivid detail Saturday’s assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. He appeared healthy except for a white bandage over his right ear where he was wounded.
“I’ll tell you what happened,” said Trump, “and you’ll never hear it from me a second time because it’s actually too painful to tell.”
The nominee recounted in detail how he was shot, rallygoers remained calm, and Secret Service agents did their duty in neutralizing the gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks.
“I’m not supposed to be here tonight. I’m not supposed to be here,” Trump said.
“Yes, you are!” the packed convention chanted back to him.
Trump paid tribute to Corey Comperatore, the Pennsylvania firefighter who was killed Saturday, as well as the two men critically injured at the rally, David Dutch and James Copenhaver.
Many convention-goers sported makeshift ear bandages of their own in a show of solidarity with Trump.
Two Maryland delegates, Christopher Anderson and Jerry DeWolf, decided to join in the trend. Anderson said: “If he can stand up, I can stand up too.”
“Part of the thing that just touched every heart was hearing about his feelings about what happened with his almost being assassinated,” former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey, a Maryland at-large delegate, said after the speech. “He has such a positive, upbeat, hard-charging attitude about the future of this country.”
Former First Lady Melania Trump made her first public appearance of the campaign, silently greeting the convention earlier in the evening before sitting next to Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, the vice presidential nominee, and Vance’s wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, during Trump’s address.
While Trump espoused political cohesion, several prominent members of the GOP were conspicuously absent – most notably his former vice president, Mike Pence.
Trump took no responsibility for his many legal troubles.
“The Democrat Party should immediately stop weaponizing the justice system and labeling their opponent as an enemy of democracy,” Trump said.
He called the Justice Department’s case against him for taking classified documents “fake,” adding he had endured “witch hunts” for eight years.
Trump’s lawyer-turned-campaign-adviser Alina Habba told the convention Thursday night “the only crime President Trump has committed is loving America.”
In May, the 45th president was found by a jury to be guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. A judge has delayed his sentencing until at least September.
Despite his legal woes, new data shows that Trump continues to lead Biden in the presidential race. In a poll out this week from The Economist and YouGov, Trump leads Biden 43 to 41 percent.
In response to Trump’s address, the Biden-Harris campaign wrote on X: “Tonight, Donald Trump rambled on for well over an hour and failed to mention Project 2025 even once.” Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation’s conservative blueprint for a second Trump presidency.
“He failed to mention how he had inflicted pain and cruelty on the women of America by overturning Roe v Wade,” the statement continues. “He failed to mention his plan to take over the civil service and to pardon the January 6th insurrectionists. He sought to find problems with America, not to provide solutions.”
“President Biden is more determined than ever to defeat Donald Trump and his Project 2025 agenda in November,” the Biden-Harris statement concluded.
Biden’s candidacy has been a topic of fierce debate since a weak performance in the first 2024 debate against Trump on CNN on June 27. The 81-year-old president rambled incoherently at times and spoke in a hoarse whisper at others.
The Biden campaign is again on pause after the president tested positive for COVID-19 Wednesday. Biden has assured the public he feels well and is isolating at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
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