Trump receives hero’s welcome at RNC in first appearance since being shot | US Election 2024 News

Trump arrives at the Republican National Convention and receives a rousing welcome after narrowly surviving an assassination attempt.

Donald Trump received a hero’s welcome at the Republican National Convention, the former president’s first public appearance since narrowly surviving an assassination attempt.

Trump arrived at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he was greeted enthusiastically on Monday, two days after he was shot in the ear by a would-be assassin at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Republican delegates stood and applauded as Trump, wearing a thick bandage over his right ear, entered the stadium to the sound of country music star Lee Greenwood singing “God Bless the USA.”

Trump, who appeared visibly emotional, did not address the convention but smiled and waved to the crowd as his supporters chanted “Fight! Fight! Fight” and raised their fists — a reference to the former president’s defiant reaction moments after he was shot.

After observing the crowd, Trump took his seat in a VIP box with some of his children and his new vice presidential running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.

Several speakers discussed Saturday’s attack on Trump, who credited God with saving his life, with some invoking religious imagery.

“Our God continues to save, deliver and liberate,” South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott told the crowd.

“Because on Saturday, the devil came to Pennsylvania with a gun – but an American lion stood up and roared.”

Other speakers focused on the economy, the evening’s official theme, including Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who said Trump would restore a “vibrant economy that lifts all Americans up.”

Trump, who scored a major legal victory hours before his arraignment when a Florida judge dismissed one of three criminal cases pending against him, is scheduled to formally accept the Republican nomination on Thursday, setting up a rerun of the 2020 contest against Democratic President Joe Biden in November.

Trump has signaled that unity will be a key theme of the four-day event, saying in a newspaper interview Sunday that he will deliver a “completely different speech” than he had originally planned.

The attack on Trump has sparked widespread calls for a reboot of acrimonious US politics, with both Trump and Biden calling on Americans to put aside political divisions and unite.

However, Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Milwaukee, said Monday’s RNC program featured many messages that were “shrill, very loud and, some would say, in places, angry.”

“There were a few speeches on stage, like one by Ron Johnson, Republican senator from Wisconsin, who described Democrats as a clear and present danger,” Fisher said.

“This is the kind of language we’ve been told people should try to avoid.”

Johnson later told PBS Newshour that he delivered the wrong speech after an earlier version of the text was loaded into the teleprompter.

Some prominent Republicans, including Vance, have accused Biden and Democrats of inspiring the attack with fiery rhetoric portraying Trump as an existential threat to democracy.

In his first television interview since the assassination attempt, Biden said Monday that it had been a mistake to tell donors that Trump should be put “on target,” but defended his portrayal of his Republican rival as a threat to democracy.

“Look, how do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is very real, when you have a president saying things like he’s saying? Do you not say something because it might provoke someone to react?” Biden told NBC News.

While the impact of the attack on Trump on the race is not yet clear, some political analysts have suggested it will boost his chances of winning, especially since it came in a key state considered vital to Biden’s election hopes.

Trump is already ahead of Biden in most opinion polls, both nationally and in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

An average of polls compiled by the 538 polling site shows Trump leading nationally by 2.2 percent.

Trump’s lead has grown by 2 percentage points since Biden’s faltering debate performance last month, which saw the 81-year-old Democrat stumble over his words and lose his train of thought.