The president, who was not scheduled to deliver his keynote convention address until later in the week, nevertheless made multiple public appearances throughout the first day of the four-day convention.
And while the evening programming was carefully scripted, President Trump was not.
“The only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election,” President Trump told hundreds of Republican delegates gathered in North Carolina, raising anew his unsupported concerns about Americans’ expected reliance on mail voting during the pandemic.
Experts say mail voting has proven remarkably secure.
The GOP convention marks a crucial moment for President Trump, a first-term Republican president tasked with reshaping a campaign he is losing by all accounts, at least for now.
