Donald Trump, wearing a bandage partially covering his right ear, appeared in public for the first time since surviving an assassination attempt over the weekend.
Trump made a dramatic entrance to loud cheers on Monday during the first night of the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, emerging on the floor of the convention hall at about 9pm CT to cheers of “USA!” and “fight!” Lee Greenwood played “Proud to be an American” as Trump entered the convention hall.
Trump worked his way across the convention floor before making his way to a box, where he joined several notable Republicans, including Tucker Carlson, congressman Byron Donalds, and JD Vance, whom he named his running mate earlier in the day.
“He has proven to be one tough SOB,” Sean O’Brien, the president of the Teamsters union said to thunderous applause after Trump appeared.
His appearance came after a slew of speakers including Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far right congresswoman from Georgia, called Trump a “founding father” of the “America First movement.”
The speakers hailed Trump’s survival as a godly act. They also offered dueling visions of America: a country in decline under Joe Biden, beset by soaring grocery and housing prices while politicians were more concerned with undocumented immigrants and transgender issues. They tried to paint an opposite vision of America under Trump, claiming it was a prosperous country where these problems did not exist.
Greene directly referenced the attempted assassination of Trump on Saturday.
“Unfortunately, this is also a somber moment for our nation. Two days ago, evil came for the man we admire and love so much. I thank God that his hand was on President Trump,” she said.
Senator Tim Scott, of South Carolina, also suggested divine intervention had played a role in the event. “If you didn’t believe in miracles before Saturday, you better be believing right now,” he said. “A devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle, but a lion got back on his feet and he roared,” he added, to thunderous applause in the Fiserv Forum.
Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor , also brought up Saturday’s assassination attempt. “Two days ago, the whole world changed. Evil displayed itself in the very worst way through a cowardly act,” she said.
“An innocent American lost his life and we will continue to lift his family up in our prayers every single day,” added the governor, who was considered a potential vice presidential pick until she published a story about killing her dog and goat. “Prior to this week, we already knew the President Donald Trump was a fighter. He is the toughest man that I have ever met. Nobody has endured more than what he has gone through.”
Amid calls for unity during the convention, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said that Democrats and their policies represented a “clear and present danger to America, to our institutions, our values and our people”. A Johnson staffer later told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that the senator did not intend to read the line during the speech and said it was from an old version that was inadvertently loaded into the teleprompter.
Mark Robinson, the lieutenant governor of North Carolina, who has attracted criticism for violent, racist and sexist remarks also spoke on Monday. Speaking at a church last month, Robinson had said: “Some folks need killing.
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But much of his speech on focused on his personal story and rising prices – in alignment with the convention’s Monday theme of “Make America wealthy again”.
“Grocery prices have skyrocketed, gas is nearly double, factories, just like the one I worked at closing, leaving North Carolina families feeling hopeless.”
“Democrats have given hundreds of billions of dollars to the illegals and foreign nations while Gen Z has to pinch and it’s just so that they can never own a home, never married and work until they die,” Charlie Kirk, a Republican founder who is the founder of Turning Points USA. “Donald Trump refuses to accept this vacant, pathetic, and mutilated version of the American dream.”
The evening also featured speeches from several handpicked “ordinary Americans” who offered a firsthand account of how Biden’s policies had harmed them.
Several speakers also focused on LGBTQ issues and immigration as decisive issues.
“Let me state this clearly, there are only two genders,” Greene said during her remarks.
The speeches underscored how Republicans are moving into the final stretch of the election with confidence, offering a succinct encapsulation of the way Republicans plan to frame the choice between Biden and Trump.
“We don’t have to imagine a brighter day, we just have to remember,” John James, a Republican congressman from Michigan, said during his speech.