Donald Trump accepted his party’s presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in a speech that described in detail the assassination attempt on him before laying out a sweeping populist agenda, particularly on immigration.
The 78-year-old former US president, known best for his bombast and aggressive rhetoric, began his acceptance speech with a softer and deeply personal message that drew directly from his brush with death.
With the crowd listening in silence, Mr Trump described standing onstage in Butler, Pennsylvania, with his head turned to look at a chart on display when he felt something hit his ear. He raised his hand to his head and saw immediately that it was covered in blood.
“If I had not moved my head at that very last instant, the assassin’s bullet would have perfectly hit its mark,” Mr Trump said. “And I would not be here tonight. We would not be together.”
Mr Trump’s address, the longest convention speech in modern history at just under 93 minutes, marked the climax and conclusion of a massive four-day Republican pep rally that drew thousands of conservative activists and elected officials to swing-state Wisconsin.
Sensing political opportunity in the wake of his near-death experience, the former president embraced a new tone he hopes will help generate even more momentum in an election that appears to be shifting in his favour.
“The discord and division in our society must be healed. We must heal it quickly. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart,” Mr Trump said, wearing a large white bandage on his right ear to cover a wound he sustained in the Saturday shooting.
“I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America.”
While he spoke in a gentler tone than at his usual rallies, Mr Trump outlined an agenda led by what he promised would be the largest deportation operation in US history.
He repeatedly accused people crossing the US-Mexico border illegally of staging an “invasion” and teased new tariffs on trade and an “America first” foreign policy.
Mr Trump made sweeping promises to end inflation, “Republicans have a plan” to bring down energy prices “very, very rapidly” but gave no details except to say he would “drill, baby, drill” and “reduce your taxes.”
Mr Trump again suggested Democrats had cheated during the 2020 election he lost — despite a raft of federal and state investigations proving there was no systemic fraud — and suggested “we must not criminalise dissent or demonise political disagreement,” even as he has long called for prosecutions of his opponents.
He did not mention abortion rights, an issue that has bedevilled Republicans ever since the US Supreme Court struck down a federally guaranteed right to abortion two years ago.
Mr Trump nominated three of the six justices who overturned Roe v Wade and at his rallies often takes credit for the ruling being overturned, arguing states should have the right to institute their own abortion laws.
Nor did he mention the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021, in which supporters tried to stop the certification of his loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Mr Trump has long referred to the people jailed in the riot as “hostages”.
Indeed, Mr Trump barely mentioned President Biden, often referring only to the “current administration”.
Biden Campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon said after the speech: “It was Donald Trump who destroyed our economy, ripped away rights, and failed middle-class families. Now he pursues the presidency with an even more extreme vision for where he wants to take this country.”
Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump were at the Republican National Convention on Thursday, making a rare appearance in support of former President Donald Trump’s third bid for president.
The former first lady and the former president’s eldest daughter have largely steered clear of the campaign trail this year, a contrast with Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns when both played a larger role. Neither gave speeches.
