MILWAUKEE — In the first hours after a gunman tried to end Donald Trump’s life, stunned delegates to the Republican National Convention predicted the typically triumphant party would take on more sobering undertones.
So did the former president, who told The New York Post that he overhauled his speech following the failed assassination attempt on Saturday because he wants to “try to unite our country.”
But as Trump prepares to formally accept his party’s nomination Thursday for the third time in as many White House races, he won’t preside over a somber convention loaded with bipartisan kumbayas.
The penultimate day of the GOP’s nominating party was marked by biting attacks against President Joe Biden, bombastic boasts about Trump’s record and red-meat appeals to the base, down to the quotes scribbled on the Fiserv Forum’s walls.
“THEY’RE NOT AFTER ME, THEY’RE AFTER YOU … I’M JUST STANDING IN THE WAY,” reads one of the mantras greeting thousands of delegates who each day pass by a picture of a defiant Trump as they take their seats in the arena.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
The agenda Wednesday exemplified the tone and tenor of a bare-knuckled convention. In between Trump relatives, aides and loyalists who sung the former president’s praises, speakers unloaded biting attacks on Biden and his allies, sometimes in near-apocalyptic terms.
Peter Navarro, Trump’s former trade adviser, jetted to the convention hours after he was released from a four-month stint in federal prison on charges of defying a congressional subpoena. His message to attendees, after joking about a “MAGA tattoo,” was dire.
“They stripped me of every possible defense, just as they did to Donald J. Trump in New York. They threw me to the wolves of an anti-Trump jury,” he said, adding an admonition: “Make no mistake, they’re already coming for you.”
Thomas Homan, who headed Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, accused the Biden administration of committing “national suicide” with its immigration policies.
“Biden is the first president in American history to come into office and unsecure a border,” he said. “Who the hell does that?”
And Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., questioned whether former President Barack Obama was a hidden hand behind Biden’s White House. Whoever’s running the administration, he added, “the only thing they are effective at is persecuting my father.”
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
It culminated in the debut address of Trump’s vice presidential pick, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, whose tough upbringing in small-town Ohio was memorialized in a bestselling book that fueled his rapid political rise from Trump skeptic to Trump convert to Trump’s running mate.
Georgia’s GOP delegates applauded the convention’s direction. Julianne Thompson, who gained prominence as a tea party organizer during Obama’s tenure, said Trump’s clenched-fist response to the shooting has become a symbol of resilience that has guided the gala.
“We get here, and there’s just a sense of resolve among all the delegates,” she said. “We are more determined than ever to take back the White House.”
Jim Tully, the Paulding County GOP chair, spoke of the fervor surrounding the convention as he might a religious revival. He described careening from the anguish of the shooting on Saturday to the joy of celebrating Trump’s nomination days later.
“Donald Trump hit the floor, rose again, raised his fist and reminded us what America is about,” said Tully. “And that moment when he stood up, those that were undecided said, ‘He’s our man.’ Look at him go no matter what.”
Politically Georgia co-host Bill Nigut contributed to this report.
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