Donald Trump received a hero's welcome Monday as he entered the Republican National Convention arena with a bandaged right ear less than two days after an assassination attempt and shortly after he announced Ohio Senator James David ("JD") Vance as his vice presidential running mate.
Donald Trump received a hero's welcome Monday as he entered the Republican National Convention arena with a bandaged right ear in his first public appearance since being wounded in a weekend assassination attempt.
Hours after winning the formal nomination to be the Republican presidential candidate and announcing right-wing Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, Trump marched into Milwaukee's Fiserv Forum flanked by aides and waved at supporters on the opening day of what is expected to be a triumphalist gathering.
Their vote made it official that Trump, who had long been the presumptive nominee, will lead the GOP in a third consecutive election.
Trump won the presidency in 2016, but lost to current President Joe Biden in 2020. In November, he will again face Biden.
While delegates were still voting, Trump announced he had chosen Vance (39) as his running mate. The young Ohio senator rose to national attention with his best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” which was turned in a Netflix movie in 2020.
In a first reaction, Biden dismissed Vance as “a clone” of Trump on important issues - Vance is against no-fault divorce, supports a national abortion ban, and voted against IVF access.
According to Politico, Vance underwent a "political transformation: from blue-collar bard and self-described 'Never Trump' conservative to hard-edged MAGA loyalist and dogged defender of the former president." Trump eventually picked him as running mate over Florida Senator Marco Rubio and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.
The Republican National Convention (RNC) takes place just days after a failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, the Republican's party's nominee.
The RNC is held every four years since 1856 and administered by the Republican National Committee.
The goal: apart from officially nominating and confirming a candidate for president and vice president, the gathering also adopts a comprehensive political platform and unify the party. The RNC marks the official launch of the presidential campaign.
The RNC will continue through Thursday. The agenda features more than 100 speakers focused on kitchen table issues and Trump’s plans to lift everyday working Americans.
“We have to be able to lay out a vision for where we want to take this country," according to Republican Party chairman Michael Whatley.
He said the central message would have little to do with Biden’s political struggles, Trump’s grievances about the 2020 election or the ex-president’s promises to exact retribution against political enemies.
Policy platform
“We are going to have the convention that we have been planning for the last 18 months," he said. "We are a combination of relieved and grateful that the president is going to be here and is going to accept the nomination.”
In addition to formally naming Trump the nominee, delegates from across the nation will turn to updating the GOP’s policy platform for the first time since 2016.
The scaled-down platform proposal, just 16 pages with limited specifics on key issues, including abortion, reflects a desire by the Trump campaign to avoid giving Democrats more material on campaign issues.
The platform approved by a committee last week doesn't include an explicit call for a national abortion ban, two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended a federally guaranteed right to abortion.
“More divisiveness would not be healthy,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.
(With newswires)
