Former President Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday with an emotional speech to the party’s national convention that marked his dramatic first public appearance since surviving an assassination attempt.
Standing alongside firefighter’s gear that belonged to slain Trump rallygoer Corey Comperatore, Trump claimed that divine intervention saved him from also being killed in the attack at a Pennsylvania campaign rally last weekend.
“As you already know, the assassin’s bullet came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life,” said Trump. “I felt something hit me really, really hard. It was a bullet, [and] my head was covered with blood.”
“But I felt very safe because I had God on my side,” he said.
“I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of the almighty God,” he added.
The former president basked in the adoring cheers of thousands of star-struck GOP delegates in Milwaukee as he called for unity behind his effort to return to the White House after the attack.
“Our resolve is unbroken and our purpose is unchanged: to deliver a government that serves the American people better than ever before,” Trump said.
Despite the dramatic shift away from his usual pugnacious tone, Trump suggested he is also prepared to take the political fight to President Biden and the troubled Democratic ticket.
“With all the energy and fight in my heart and soul, I pledge to the nation tonight: We’re going to turn our nation around,” he said. “This election should be about the issues facing our country and how to make America successful, safe, wealthy and great again.”
He did make an unusual plea for all sides to tone down political acrimony and pleaded for support from political rivals.
“Whether you’ve supported me in the past or not, I hope you will support me in the future, because I will bring back the American Dream,” he said. “With great humility, I am asking you to be excited about the future of our country.”
Trump has said he tossed out plans for a red-meat political attack on Biden, whom Trump blames for mishandling the economy and allowing an “invasion” of migrants across the southern border.
He didn’t even mention Biden’s name once, a huge shift from his usual stump speech that is peppered with Biden attack lines. But he did tick off attacks on what he calls four years of decline under Democratic rule.
“To all of the forgotten men and women who have been neglected, abandoned and left behind, you will be forgotten no longer,” he said. “We will press forward, and together, we will win.”
Former First Lady Melania Trump made a rare appearance at the convention to cheer on her husband as he launches a third straight presidential run as the GOP nominee.
Newly minted vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance cheered approvingly a day after he took his own star turn on the dais.
Trump’s convention coronation amounts to nothing short of a stunning comeback. Many wrote him off after he encouraged a crowd of his extremist supporters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a failed effort to overturn his 2020 defeat.
He rebuilt his iron grip on the Republican Party by drilling down on his right-wing base and eased to victory in the GOP primary race.
Trump shrugged off four criminal indictments and even his conviction on 34 felony counts in the recent Manhattan hush money trial.
The former president’s messianic aura of invincibility with his followers was only burnished when he narrowly avoided being killed by a would-be assassin at the rally in western Pennsylvania.
He was lightly wounded on the ear and has taken to wearing an oversized bandage, although his campaign refuses to release medical records or details about his treatment.
Trump emerges from the RNC as the clear front-runner to beat Biden with polls showing him ahead in all of the battleground states that will likely determine the winner of their rematch for the White House.
Biden, meanwhile, is sidelined by COVID-19 and is grappling with rising calls from Democratic leaders to quit the race after he stunned voters with an often incoherent performance in a debate with Trump last month.
If Biden, 81, steps down, Vice President Kamala Harris would be the heavy favorite to take over the mantle of the campaign and become the first Black woman to lead a major party presidential ticket.
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