Former first lady Melania Trump joins Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump on stage after he officially accepted the nomination on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 18, 2024 in Milwaukee. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
MILWAUKEE — Donald Trump in an unusual speech accepting the GOP presidential nomination Thursday at the fourth and final night of the Republican National Convention gave a detailed account about the attempt on his life last weekend when a gunman shot at him during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
“I will tell you exactly what happened. And you’ll never hear it from me a second time because it’s actually too painful to tell,” Trump said in his first public remarks about the shooting that killed one rally goer and injured two others. The gunman was killed by law enforcement at the scene.
Turning his head to look at a chart, which was later displayed on multiple screens inside the Fiserv Forum, is what saved his life, Trump said.
“I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard on my right ear,” Trump recalled. “I said to myself, ‘Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet.’ I moved my hand to my right ear, brought it down, and my hand was covered with blood.”
Trump said he knew immediately that he was “under attack” and praised the Secret Service agents for rushing on stage to shield him with their own bodies, calling them “great people” who took “great risk,” to applause from the crowd.
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He thanked the supporters in attendance last weekend for not panicking and stampeding, which can cause injuries and deaths during a mass shooting.
Trump in his 90-minute remarks appeared to seriously reflect on how close he came to being killed at one point, commenting that he wasn’t sure he was meant to survive the attack.
“I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” Trump said, before the crowd began chanting, “Yes, you are!”
“I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God,” he added.
Republicans’ bestowal of the nomination on Trump at the finale of their convention is significant in that he becomes the first convicted felon to accept a major political party’s presidential nod. Trump still faces charges in multiple criminal cases after one of the cases was dropped earlier this week.
Divine intervention seen
Trump’s comments about being saved by God followed days of politicians from throughout the country claiming the bullet only grazing his ear was an act of divine intervention.
Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, from Detroit, said earlier in the night that people “can’t deny the power of God” in Trump’s life.
“You can’t deny that God protected him, you cannot deny that it was a millimeter miracle that was able to save this man’s life,” Sewell said. “Could it be that Jesus Christ preserved him for such a time as this?”
“Could it be that the King of Glory, the Lord God, strong and mighty, the God who is mighty in battle, protected Donald Trump, because he wants to use him for such a time as this?” Sewell added.
Tucker Carlson, former Fox News television personality and conservative pundit, said that “a lot of people” are wondering what’s going on following the shooting on Saturday.
“Something bigger is going on here. I think people who don’t even believe in God are starting to think, ‘Well, maybe there’s something to this,’” Carlson said. “And I’m starting to think it’s going to be okay, actually.”
Trump wore a white bandage on his right ear concealing the wound he received last Saturday before Secret Service agents rushed to shield him from bullets.
Trump spoke about Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief attending the rally with his family, who was killed in the shooting as well as the two people who were injured.
Trump called Comperatore a “highly respected” fire chief before walking over to his fire jacket and helmet, which had been placed on the stage, and kissing the helmet in a solemn moment.
Trump said he spoke with Comperatore’s wife as well as the two injured people earlier in the day, who were doing “very well” in recovering from their injuries. The convention then observed a moment of silence for Comperatore.
GOP seeks unity as Democrats debate Biden’s fate
The Republican National Convention and Trump’s acceptance speech provided a prime opportunity for the GOP to show unity as Democrats increasingly questioned whether President Joe Biden should formally become their nominee in the weeks ahead.
Trump repeatedly criticized Democrats’ policies and said they were a threat to the country’s future, though he only mentioned Biden once, saying the damage the current president could inflict on the country is “unthinkable.”
“If you took the 10 worst presidents in the history of the United States… and added them up, they will not have done the damage that Biden has done,” Trump said.
Voters, he said, must “rescue our nation from failed and even incompetent leadership” by voting for him and Republicans during November’s election.
“This will be the most important election in the history of our country,” Trump said.
‘The stakes have never been higher,’ Biden campaign says
Biden-Harris Campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon released a written statement rebuking Trump’s speech, saying he “rambled on for well over an hour.”
“He failed to mention how he had inflicted pain and cruelty on the women of America by overturning Roe v Wade. He failed to mention his plan to take over the civil service and to pardon the January 6th insurrectionists,” Dillon wrote.
Biden, on the other hand, is “running for an America where we defend democracy, not diminish it,” she wrote.
“The stakes have never been higher,” Dillon wrote. “The choice has never been more clear. President Biden is more determined than ever to defeat Donald Trump and his Project 2025 agenda in November.”
DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said in a written statement that in “Trump’s Republican Party, there’s only space for unquestioning loyalists who will put him above our democracy, above our freedoms, and above working families.”
“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,” Harrison wrote. “No amount of desperate spin can change how unpopular and out of touch their disastrous plans are for the American people.”
No stain left by Jan. 6
Trump’s speech solidified a significant turnaround for the former president, who earned rebukes from many of the party’s leaders following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The events of that day, which led to the deaths of police officers and ended the country’s centuries-long peaceful transition of power, would traditionally have been viewed as a black spot by the party that lauds itself as supporting “law and order” as well as the country’s founding principles.
Instead, Trump has succeeded in convincing his supporters that the people convicted for violent acts should be pardoned as “political prisoners” and the several court cases against him are about his politics and not his actions.
Top Trump campaign official Chris LaCivita refused to say earlier Thursday during an event near the RNC whether Trump would continue to campaign on the promise to pardon Jan. 6 defendants, or “hostages” as he has described them numerous times.
Trump said Thursday night that nothing would prevent him from becoming president following November’s election.
“Our resolve is unbroken and our purpose is unchanged — to deliver a government that serves the American people better than ever before,” Trump said.
“Nothing will stop me to this vision, because our vision is righteous and our cause is pure,” Trump added. “No matter what obstacle comes our way, we will not break, we will not bend, we will not back down and I will never stop fighting for you.”
Trump’s loss of the popular vote and the Electoral College four years ago led him to make false claims about election fraud, which never bore fruit. Judges threw out numerous court challenges.
Trump faces federal felony charges that he conspired to create false slates of electors in seven states and attempted to obstruct the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.
That, however, hasn’t stopped Trump from repeating the claim and making it a hallmark of his third run for the Oval Office.
Trump reiterated many of those incorrect claims during his speech to applause and cheers from the crowd gathered inside Fiserv Forum.
“They used COVID to cheat,” he said.
Trump: ‘We must not criminalize dissent’
Despite his incessant encouragement of rally chants during the 2016 campaign to lock up former Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, and a willingness to explore jailing his rivals if he wins in November, Trump said “we must not criminalize dissent or demonize political disagreement.”
In addition to the federal 2020 election subversion charges, Trump faces racketeering charges in Georgia, sentencing over a guilty verdict in New York, and federal charges over allegedly stealing and hiding classified government documents after leaving the Oval Office.
Federal District Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday dropped the classified documents case on the grounds that the government illegally appointed a special counsel to prosecute it. The Department of Justice has since appealed.
The former president reminded the crowd of the “major ruling that was handed down from a highly respected federal judge.”
“If the Democrats want to unify our country, they should drop these partisan witch hunts,” Trump said.
‘Stop wars with a telephone call’
Trump said the “planet is teetering on the edge of World War Three” and he will “end every single international crisis that the current administration has created.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 “would have never happened if I was president,” he said, repeating the same claim about the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel.
“I tell you this, we want our hostages back and they better be back,” Trump said later in the speech about Israeli-American hostages still in Hamas captivity.
Trump praised Victor Orbán — the Hungarian prime minister known for his authoritarian streak — which the crowd cheered. He also touted his friendship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
He said the press criticized him for his congeniality with Kim, but “it’s nice to get along with someone who has a lot of nuclear weapons,” Trump said.
“I could stop wars with a telephone call,” Trump said, but immediately followed with a promise to “build an Iron Dome missile defense system to ensure that no enemy can strike our homeland.”
Trump’s ‘only crime’ is ‘loving America’
Speakers rallying the crowd before Trump’s appearance on Thursday exalted his golf game and business management style, and defended the former president, who they say supports them through long-established ties.
“To me, he is my friend,” Trump’s attorney Alina Habba said tearfully.
“Sham indictments and baseless allegations will not deter us, because the only crime President Trump has committed is loving America,” she said.
Trump’s 2020 election subversion case has sat in a holding pattern for months while he appealed his claim of presidential immunity to the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices returned the case to the trial court after issuing a 6-3 majority opinion in early July that grants broad immunity for former presidents’ official acts.
Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in New York state court for falsifying business records related to a hush money payment by his personal lawyer to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election.
However, the New York judge handling the case has delayed Trump’s sentencing while his lawyers challenge the case, arguing the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling opens questions about what evidence against a former sitting president can be admitted to court.
Pompeo says no Putin in Ukraine under Trump
Mike Pompeo, Trump’s former CIA director and secretary of State, blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and deaths of its civilians on “weakness” of the Biden administration.
“Last week, we saw what it meant — that Children’s Hospital bombed, innocents killed — it did not have to be,” Pompeo said, referring to the July 8 Russian strike on the medical facility in Kyiv.
World leaders from NATO etched a path for Ukraine to join the alliance at the July summit in Washington, D.C, and pledged more resources for the nation that Russia further invaded in February 2022.
Trump has long criticized NATO, dismissing the post-WWII alliance’s core tenet that an attack against one is an attack against all and threatening to withdraw over funding.
In February he told a rally crowd in South Carolina that he would “encourage (Russia) to do whatever the hell they want” to “delinquent” member countries that do not pay 2% of their GDP on defense.
All members agreed to a 2% commitment in 2014, and 23 are on track to meet the target this year, according to the alliance.
On Wednesday night at the RNC, Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, echoed Trump’s words and declared “no more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer.”
Lia Chien contributed to this report.
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