MILWAUKEE (AP) — Donald Trump takes the stage Thursday at the Republican National Convention to accept his party’s nomination again and give his first speech since he was cut off mid-sentence by a flurry of gunfire in an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.
Trump’s address will conclude the four-day convention in Milwaukee. He appeared each of the first three days with a white bandage on his ear, covering a wound he sustained in the Saturday shooting.
His moment of survival has shaped the week, even as convention organizers insisted they would continue with their program as planned less than 48 hours after the shooting. Speakers and delegates have repeatedly chanted “Fight, fight, fight!” in homage to Trump’s words as he got to his feet and pumped his fist after Secret Service agents killed the gunman. And some of his supporters have started sporting their own makeshift bandages on the convention floor.
Speakers attributed Trump’s survival to divine intervention and paid tribute to victim Corey Comperatore, who died after shielding his wife and daughter from gunfire at the rally.
“Instead of a day of celebration, this could have been a day of heartache and mourning,” Trump’s vice presidential pick, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, said in his speech to the convention on Wednesday.
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In his first prime-time speech since becoming the nominee for vice president, Vance spoke of growing up poor in Kentucky and Ohio, his mother addicted to drugs and his father absent, and of how he later joined the military and went on to the highest levels of U.S. politics.
Donald Trump Jr. spoke movingly Wednesday about his father’s bravery, saying he showed “for all the world” that “the next American president has the heart of a lion.” But he toggled back and forth between talking about his father as a symbol of national unity and slamming his enemies.
“When he stood up with blood on his face and the flag at his back the world saw a spirit that could never be broken,” Trump Jr. said.
The convention has tried to give voice to the fear and frustration of conservatives while also trying to promote the former president as a symbol of hope for all voters.
The convention has showcased a Republican Party reshaped by Trump since he shocked the GOP establishment and won the hearts of the party’s grassroots on his way to the party’s 2016 nomination. Rivals Trump has vanquished — including Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — put aside their past criticisms and gave him their unqualified support.
Even Vance, Trump’s pick to carry his movement into the next generation, was once a fierce critic who suggested in a private message since made public that Trump could be “America’s Hitler.”
Trump has not spoken in public since the shooting, though he’s given interviews off camera. But he referenced it during a private fundraiser on Wednesday, according to a clip of his remarks recorded on a cellphone and obtained by PBS News.
“I got lucky,” he said. “God was with me.”
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