Trump closes out Republican National Convention with unifying speech

President Donald Trump formally accepted the GOP presidential nomination on Thursday at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Trump, somber and bandaged, delivered a speech that described in detail the assassination attempt that could have ended his life just five days earlier before laying out a sweeping populist agenda, particularly on immigration.

The crowd cheered and thousands of balloons fell from the rafters as the entire Trump family posed on stage following the speech. Michigan GOP Chair Pete Hoekstra says the speech was effective.

“I think he hit the right tone throughout the whole speech,” Hoekstra said. ‘It’s hard where you start talking about an assassination attempt and then you end up with the biggest balloon drop in the history of political conventions. And I think he made the transition beautifully.” 

Delegate Matt DePerno — who is still facing charges of undue possession of a voting machine, willfully damaging a voting machine and conspiracy back in Michigan — agreed that Trump’s speech had the right tone.

“It was very dramatic, I think, very soft spoken, very unifying,” DePerno said.

Moment by moment, the crowd listening in silence to the 78-year-old former president as he described standing onstage in Butler, Pennsylvania, with his head turned to look at a chart on display when he felt something hit his ear. He raised his hand to his head and saw immediately that it was covered in blood.

“If I had not moved my head at that very last instant, the assassin’s bullet would have perfectly hit its mark,” Trump said. “And I would not be here tonight. We would not be together.”

Michigan Delegate Bethany Wheeler says it was a powerful address.  

“Just the emotion in the beginning, when he was talking about how serious everything was, it was very powerful,” Wheeler said. 

Trump acknowledged the man who was killed, and the two others who were injured in the attack. The address was the longest convention speech in modern history at just under 93 minutes — marking the end of a massive four-day Republican pep rally that drew thousands of conservative activists and elected officials to swing-state Wisconsin.

Speaking in a gentler tone than his usual rallies, Trump outlined an agenda led by what he promises would be the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. He repeatedly accused people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally of staging an “invasion.” Additionally, he teased new tariffs on trade and an “America first” foreign policy.

Trump also falsely suggested Democrats had cheated during the 2020 election he lost — despite a raft of federal and state investigations proving there was no systemic fraud — and suggested “we must not criminalize dissent or demonize political disagreement,” even as he has long called for prosecutions of his opponents.

He did not mention abortion rights, an issue that has bedeviled Republicans ever since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federally 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 credit for Roe being overturned and argues states should have the right to institute their own abortion laws.

Nor did he mention the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in which Trump supporters tried to stop the certification of his loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has long referred to the people jailed for the riot as “hostages.”

Trump did however touch on the auto industry – by attacking electric vehicle production and calling for United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain to be fired.  

Michigan Delegate and conservative activist Monica Yatooma says she loved Trump’s speech.  

“When he was talking about closing the border, that’s something I feel like that’s so important because of all the unnecessary deaths of American citizens,” she said. “But also when he talked about education and parental rights, that’s something that’s very near and dear to my heart.” 

Though Trump barely mentioned President Joe Biden, simmering in the background of the Republican convention are the attempts by some in the Democratic Party to oust Biden as the party’s candidate, as concerns about his fitness for a second term and his electability mount.  

Hoekstra says it doesn’t matter who Trump faces in the general election.  

“Whether it’s Joe Biden, Kamala Harris or or somebody else, they’re going to move forward on the same issues that you know that Joe Biden’s been implementing for four years. It’s not going to change,” he said.

Long pressed by allies to campaign more vigorously, Biden is instead in isolation at his beach home in Delaware after having been diagnosed with COVID-19.

Hours before the balloons were scheduled to rain down in the convention hall, Biden deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks appeared nearby in Milwaukee and insisted over and over that Biden would not step aside.

“I do not want to be rude, but I don’t know how many more times I can answer that,” Fulks told reporters. “There are no plans being made to replace Biden on the ballot.”

Trump will appear at his first campaign rally since the assassination attempt in Grand Rapids on Saturday.  

The Associated Press contributed to this report.