Trump set to give first speech since shooting as he closes out RNC: Latest updates

Republican senators got into a heated confrontation with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on the floor of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Wednesday as they demanded answers about the agency’s response to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

In a video posted to X by Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, a posse of GOP lawmakers are seen rounding on Cheatle and pursuing her through the Fiserv Forum while voicing their outrage over the shooting.

“You put him within less than an inch of his life,” Wyoming Senator John Barrasso yelled at Cheatle, presenting her with an ultimatum: “Resignation or full explanation.”

The director declined to answer their questions and was seen trying to leave, before Barrasso, Blackburn, James Lankford of Oklahoma and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota gave chase, following Cheatle along a corridor and up a flight of stairs before she managed to duck into a bathroom with her agents blocking the door.

Here’s your daily dose of nonsense from the RNC, featuring such greats as Nancy Mace, Matt Gaetz, Kellyanne Conway and a nice bunch of folks brandishing “mass deportation” signs.

The former Fox News personality and fianceé of Donald Trump Jr took to the stage on Wednesday night and delivered another round of exuberant, high-decibel praise for the former president, prompting social media users to note that she was “yelling again” and as “unhinged” as ever.

People were quick to reminisce about Guilfoyle’s speech at the lockdown-restricted 2020 RNC, which concluded with a defiant shout of “the best is yet to come” to an empty theater.

Though she did not use the now-infamous line again yesterday – her soon-to-be husband did.

Her claim below is just simply not true, by the way, and an argument dependent on Republicans gaslighting the American electorate into forgetting the pandemic ever happened.

Here’s more from Mike Bedigan.

Trump’s former trade adviser, who was jailed for refusing to comply with a subpoena to testify before the House committee investigating January 6, received a huge response from the crowd.

“If we don’t control all three branches of our government… their government will put some of us like me and Steve Bannon in prison and control the rest of us,” Navarro said, continuing his old boss’s “weaponisation of the justice system” narrative before issuing a baseless, racist, scaremongering attack on immigrants.

Here’s Alex Woodward and Andrew Feinberg.

Never heard of this Trump before?

Here’s Graig Graziosi with some background.

Also addressing the convention on Wednesday was Donald Trump Jr and his daughter Kai Trump – the former president’s eldest grandchild, 17 – who received a warm welcome on stage at the Fiserv Forum and praised her grandfather as a “normal” senior who gives her “candy and soda when her parents aren’t looking”.

Here’s Eric Garcia on her speech.

You can read the Ohio Senator’s address in full below.

If you’re just joining us, Donald Trump’s new running mate JD Vance closed out the third night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Wednesday with his first speech as the GOP’s vice presidential nominee.

Vance laid into President Joe Biden by declaring: “For half a century, he’s been a champion of every single policy initiative to make America weaker and poorer.”

Trump himself will deliver the closing address of this year’s RNC on Thursday evening, promising his remarks will be more moderate in tone after he called for cooler rhetoric in the wake of his surviving an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on Saturday night.

Here’s our report from Mike Bedigan and John Bowden.

Senator JD Vance’s mother attended the Republican National Convention to watch her son speak this evening.

“Our movement is about single moms like mine who struggled with money and addiction but never gave up,” Vance said. “And I’m proud to say that tonight, my mom is here, ten years clean and sober. I love you, Mom.”

Bev Vance stood from her seat next to Speaker Mike Johnson as the audience applauded and chanted, “JD’s Mom!”

“Mom, I was thinking, it’ll be 10 years officially, in January,” Vance continued. “If President Trump is okay with it, let’s have the celebration in the White House.”