RNC 2024 live: Trump ends longest speech in convention history with kiss from Melania

Wrestling icon Hulk Hogan fired up an excited crowd at the RNC last night with his WWE antics as he led the crowd in chants of “USA! USA!” and hammed it up for the cameras, even tearing off his shirt.

“All you criminals, all you lowlifes, all you scumbags, all you drug dealers and all you crooked politicians need to answer one question, brother,” he said.

“What you gonna do when Donald Trump and all the Trumpamaniacs run wild on you, brother?”

Here’s John Bowden and Mike Bedigan on the spectacle the red meat Republicans really came for.

The former first lady was greeted with rapturous applause as she made her entrance on the final night of the Republican National Convention and offered her husband a brief peck on the cheek as he concluded his mammoth acceptance speech.

Melania was pictured standing behind Trump as he signed paperwork to accept his third nomination for the GOP presidential candidate on Thursday, alongside his newly-selected running mate for 2024, JD Vance.

The latter’s wife, Usha Vance, stood with Melania, as well as the president’s daughter Ivanka and son Eric.

Trump’s wife was not mentioned on the list of speakers at the RNC for Thursday but later made her official entrance to the convention floor to lilting classical music.

If you’re just joining us, Donald Trump brought the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee to a close on Thursday by delivering the longest speech in the event’s history as he accepted his party’s invitation to be its presidential nominee for the third successive election cycle.

And, just five days after a .22 caliber bullet came within inches of ending his life, Trump recounted his brush with death in Pennsylvania and cast himself as a triumphant hero.

The former president, who wore a bandage on the ear that was grazed during the attempt on his life, told the crowd of delegates and supporters that he was “not supposed to be here” and credited his presence on the stage in Wisconsin to “the grace of almighty God.”

Eric Garcia and Andrew Feinberg bring you this full report on an epic evening.

The Independent was on the floor of the RNC convention on Thursday as Donald Trump discussed the apparent attempt on his life before thousands of people in Milwaukee’s Fiserv Center.

For four nights at Donald Trump’s nominating convention in Milwaukee, a roster of speakers attempted to give one of the most divisive politicians in recent US history a makeover, describing him as a loving and caring family man whose near-assassination at a rally on Saturday had changed him.

Early in his speech on Thursday night, as he accepted his party’s presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, it seemed Trump had bought into the carefully orchestrated effort to repackage him as a humbler, unifying figure, more palatable to swing voters who will be crucial to winning the Nov. 5 election.

Trump had told the Washington Examiner earlier in the week that he had torn up the original speech he planned to give in favor of one preaching national unity after his near brush with death.

And for the first few minutes of his speech, Trump sought to do that. He said he wanted to be a president for all Americans, including Democrats, and wanted to heal the divided country. He recounted in detail the attempt to assassinate him last Saturday, which he said deeply affected him, and spoke movingly of a supporter killed by the gunman.

“In an age when our politics too often divide us, now is the time to remember that we are all fellow citizens,” Trump said.

That new version of Trump lasted barely half an hour.

Then the Trump more familiar to Americans – the bombastic thrower of insults who revels in demonising his opponents – re-emerged, trampling over the message of unity so painstakingly choreographed by the Republican National Committee this week.

For those conservative voters long turned off by former president Donald Trump’s rhetoric, his somewhat softened tone in accepting the Republican nomination on Thursday night was a welcome relief.“He’s much improved,” said Dave Struthers, a 57-year-old farmer from Collins, Iowa, after watching the beginning of Trump’s speech in the basement of his farmhouse. “It’s more of a conversation with the American people, rather than yelling at them.”

Trump, who has a long history of divisive commentary, has said shoplifters should be immediately shot, suggested the United States’ top general be executed as a traitor and mocked Democratic representative Nancy Pelosi’s husband, who was beaten with a hammer by a far-right conspiracy theorist.

But on Thursday night in Milwaukee, he sported a white bandage over his right ear, which was pierced by a bullet from a would-be assassin just days earlier, and spoke in a quieter, more relaxed tone for at least the first part of the speech. He described his experience of the shooting and called for an end to discord, division and demonisation in national politics.

Nevertheless, many of his talking points remained familiar and his rhetoric grew more acerbic as the 93-minute speech wore on. He claimed that Democrats are destroying America, derided the prosecutions against him as a partisan witch hunt, warned of an “invasion” at the US-Mexico border and insisted, without evidence, that murder rates in Central and South American countries were down because they were sending their killers to the US.

“I know you’re all used to hearing me shouting outside a courthouse, but tonight I want to take you behind the law and behind the headlines and share with you a side of President Trump that reveals his character, his kindness, and his commitment to saving this great country,” she said.