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Good morning. Last night, the Republican national convention came to a fervent climax: after days of accolades from Donald Trump’s supporters in the aftermath of the attempt on his life at the weekend, the headline act finally stepped forward to give them his blessing. Accepting the party’s nomination, Trump spoke for more than an hour and a half – and while he began on a note of unity with heavily religious overtones, he soon turned to the more divisive rhetoric that has been familiar for years.
If claims of a more statesmanlike approach from Trump were overrated, the adoring reception from delegates was also an indication of how pumped up Republicans are – and what a formidable task faces Joe Biden, or his possible Democratic replacement. Today’s newsletter, with the Guardian’s David Smith in Milwaukee, runs you through the speech and the convention, and what it all means in the race for the presidency. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
Protest | Five Just Stop Oil activists who planned to block the M25 have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms by a judge who told them they had “crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic”. Supporters of the defendants expressed outrage at the four and five-year sentences, the longest ever given in the UK for non-violent protest.
Covid-19 | The UK’s pandemic planning was beset by “fatal strategic flaws”, a damning first report from the UK Covid-19 public inquiry has found, putting pressure on the prime minister to overhaul the national civil emergencies system. Former health secretaries Jeremy Hunt and Matt Hancock were criticised for their failure to better prepare the UK.
Prisons | About 5,500 offenders will be released early from prison to “avert disaster”, the justice secretary has said. It is the first time the government has provided a figure for the number of prisoners who will be released in England and Wales as part of emergency measures.
Leeds | A police car was flipped on its side and a bus set alight after unrest broke out in Leeds on Thursday evening. Amid claims that the disorder was linked to children being taken into care, police said the disorder was “instigated by a criminal minority intent on disrupting community relations”.
Europe | Ursula von der Leyen has been voted in for a second term as European Commission president, winning an emphatic victory as mainstream groups in the European parliament united to deny a win for anti-EU and extreme right forces.
In depth: ‘The cult of personality is now on steroids’
On Sunday, after the shocking attempt on his life at a campaign rally, Trump said that he had completely rewritten his speech – which, naturally, left some real gold on the cutting-room floor. “The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be a humdinger,” Trump told the Washington Examiner. “Honestly, it’s going to be a whole different speech now.”
That’s how it started. “I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America,” he said, in the kind of boilerplate unity language that might be deployed by any political candidate on either side. “To every citizen, whether you are young or old, man or woman, Democrat, Republican or independent, Black or white, Asian or Hispanic, I extend to you a hand of loyalty and friendship.” As he described the assassination attempt against him, a rapt audience listened in pin-drop silence, with many in the crowd in tears.
But before long, Trump switched gears, delivering something more like his standard stump speech: complaining about “witch hunts”, making false claims (you can see a fact-check here), and veering into rambling asides.
“There were reasons to be sceptical of the new Trump who pivots to be unifying, and it did not last long,” David Smith said. “At first it felt written to go against his image. But then it turned into something like a typical rally speech, and we were back to Trump 1.0.”
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What did Trump say?
Trump has cannily refrained from talking in detail about the attempt on his life until now, a decision likely intended to drive attention to at least the first part of his speech. The uniform of Corey Comperatore, the volunteer firefighter who was killed by the gunman on Saturday, was placed on stage, and Trump kissed the helmet before leading the crowd in a moment of silence. He suggested that divine intervention has saved him, describing the attack as a “providential experience” and saying: “In a certain way, I felt very safe, because I had God on my side.”
“All that came across very powerfully,” David said. “I was down on the convention floor during that section, and his audience were lapping it up. The cult of personality is now on steroids.”
Before long, though, he was making wild claims about the success of his presidency and saying that migrants were responsible for “the greatest invasion in our history” and coming “from mental institutions and insane asylums”. He attacked the media and “crazy Nancy Pelosi”, praised Hungary’s nationalist, pro-Russia prime minister Viktor Orbán, made false claims about the 2020 election, and claimed crime rates are rocketing when in fact they are going down.
***
How did it go down?
Trump spoke for more than twice as long as intended, and some audience members began to file out from the upper tier of the auditorium before he came to an end. Nonetheless, the reception among Republicans was – unsurprisingly – deliriously positive.
When he talked about how close he came to death on Saturday, they listened attentively, laughed when he remarked that he had learned that ears “bleed more than any other part of the body, for whatever reason,” and, when he said “I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” chanted in response: “Yes you are!”
It had been a peculiar evening all in all, with former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan ripping off his shirt (above), MAGA’s resident rock-rap act Kid Rock leading the crowd in a chorus of “fight” to the apparent bemusement of Melania Trump, and a glancing reference from Trump to “the late great Hannibal Lecter”.
Amid the adulation, one Texas delegate, Mark Boldger, told the Guardian that Trump “might’ve put a few people to sleep tonight” and failed to “worked the crowd into the fever he normally does”. But more important than the crowd’s response is how it will be viewed by voters who probably haven’t watched the whole thing.
“It started pretty late and it went on a long time,” David said. “A lot of people will have only watched the first bit, which was the call for unity. And they have a decent shot of the coverage leading on the story of the shooting, so it may be that news broadcasts will paint him in a fairly favourable light – and they can bury the 85% which was nonsense.”
***
How has the convention gone overall?
“It has been a pretty disciplined convention, with the most extreme voices relatively marginalised,” David said. “The impression has been – we’re well ahead, let’s not do anything stupid to give the Democrats an opportunity.”
Scratch the surface, and there is plenty of the more familiar rhetoric on show despite the “unity” promise. As rightwing activist Laura Loomer told the New York Times: “I don’t want to be nice to demons.” But that tendency is now accompanied by an even more fervent, and even religious, devotion to the party’s standard-bearer. “They see something divine in him, which feels very dangerous,” David said. “Providence and the idea of God’s protective shield around Trump has been a theme all week.”
Ray Myers, a Texas delegate, told Reuters: “There’s some kind of mystical thing going on. After everything he’s been through, everything that’s been thrown at him, and now he’s even shed his own blood. And he’s still here. I don’t know how else you can explain it, but God is involved.”
Meanwhile, with the selection of JD Vance as his running mate, Trump has also emphasised his now total control over the party that was once bitterly divided over his rise. Vance, a populist who opposed Trump as “America’s Hitler” but is now among his most fervent supporters, made a speech that appeared to deliberately emphasise the defeat of old-fashioned business-oriented Republicans in favour of Trump’s brand of populism: “We’re done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to Wall Street,” he said. “We’ll commit to the working man.”
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Where does all this leave Joe Biden?
Nowhere good. Biden, who has contracted Covid-19 and been forced to self-isolate in Delaware at a crucial moment for his candidacy, might have hoped that the focus on Trump since the Pennsylvania shooting would derail attempts to force him to stand down – but after a brief hiatus, they have now intensified once more.
The Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, have both privately told Biden in the last week that there are serious concerns about whether he can beat Biden – and warned that if nothing changes they could go public with their concerns, the New York Times reported.
A prominent House Democrat, Adam Schiff, has said openly that it is time for Biden to “pass the torch”. Now the Washington Post reports that Barack Obama has told allies that Biden must seriously consider whether his candidacy is still viable. Meanwhile, the Times reported that people close to Biden say they believe he has “begun to accept the idea that he may not be able to win in November and may have to drop out of the race”.
After the debate that was such a disaster for Biden, Trump appeared to deliberately refrain from hammering his opponent. In his speech, Trump only mentioned Biden once, and wasn’t scripted to say his embattled opponent’s name at all. “That is notionally part of the ‘unity’ message,” David said. “But it’s tactical not to take him on too aggressively. His team are full of bravado about whoever they might face – but they clearly think that Biden gives them their strongest chance of victory.”
What else we’ve been reading
For the 25th anniversary of Destiny’s Child’s second studio album, The Writing’s on the Wall, Alexis Petridis has ranked their 25 best songs. Nimo
After a report detailed the Criminal Cases Review Commission’s “catalogue of failures” over Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in jail for a rape he did not commit, Malkinson writes powerfully about the “crushing” rejections of his case. “There is something deeply wrong at the CCRC and nothing less than a complete overhaul is needed,” he says. Archie
Last week, 77 pilot whales died on a Scottish island, almost a year after the stranding of 55 pilot whales on a different Scottish island. This odd incident may not just be a coincidence, Philip Hoare writes – so he went to some experts to try to find the answers. Nimo
Rob Delaney, who is in the new Deadpool & Wolverine movie, has fine answers to readers’ fairly obscure questions: he has seen surprisingly little Curb Your Enthusiasm; thinks British people are funnier than Americans; and would be a very unhelpful superhero. Archie
Zoe Williams spoke with the former chief executive of Oxfam Danny Sriskandarajah about his new book, Power to the People, which puts challenging questions about inequity to the reader, while making a case for hope and the possibilities open to us if we take civic action. Nimo
Sport
Golf | World No 272 Daniel Brown (above) took an unlikely lead on day one of the Open, finishing the day six under par. There was “carnage” on a day that saw Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau, and Tommy Fleetwood among those finishing several shots over par, wrote Ewan Murray: “The undeniable clubhouse leader after round one is the venue itself”.
Cricket | A free-scoring England were dismissed for 416 on day one of the second Test, with Ollie Pope scoring a stylish 121 against the West Indies at Trent Bridge.
Football | Mason Greenwood has completed a €31.6m (£26.7m) transfer to Marseille from Manchester United. Greenwood was suspended by United in 2022 over allegations of attempted rape and controlling and coercive behaviour, which were ultimately dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service after key witnesses withdrew their cooperation.
The front pages
“Just Stop Oil activists given record jail terms for planning M25 protest” says our Guardian lead story headline this morning. The Times goes with “Record five-year jail term for Just Stop Oil’s founder”. The Daily Telegraph has “‘Fanatical’ XR founder jailed for five years”, and there is much praise from the Daily Mail for the “Judge who spoke for all of us on eco-fanatics”. The Financial Times splashes on “Obama and Pelosi add to doubts over Biden’s chances in White House race”. Top story in the i is “Workers to get right to ignore their emails under new rules”. “That’s progress!” – the Daily Express is happy as “Migrants finally returned to France”. “They failed us all” – the Daily Mirror reports on Covid inquiry findings. The Metro exclaims “Just go!” under the strapline “Justice secretary seeks to sack legal chief for years of failure that left an innocent man in prison. That’s about the case of Andrew Malkinson.
Something for the weekend
TV
The Jetty (BBC iPlayer)
This Jenna Coleman-led drama starts badly, via a burning boathouse and a false alarm with an intruder. So far, so deeply uninspired BBC thriller. But it becomes not only very good, but an unexpectedly attentive meditation on what it means to be a woman in a world suffused with male violence. It isn’t Happy Valley – but it is much, much closer to it than you might have expected. Lucy Mangan
Book
Cross by Austin Duffy
“He was at the centre of everything and he knew everything.” So the long-serving IRA man Francie Begley is described in Austin Duffy’s riveting and gritty Troubles novel, Cross, which takes its title from a fictional northern Irish border town. With most recent Troubles novels set in the dark days of 1970s Belfast, it’s refreshing and instructive to read one that plays out during the peace process. Jude Cook
Film
Janet Planet
Annie Baker won a Pulitzer for her stage play The Flick, about listless, bored ushers in an empty cinema auditorium between screenings; now she makes her feature debut with a very personal movie about an 11-year-old girl spending a fraught summer with her mum in rural Massachusetts in 1991. It unfolds in an indulgent, dreamy haze, a little emotionally reticent but always beautifully presented. Peter Bradshaw
Podcast
Esther Perel: The Arc of Love
Widely available, episodes weekly
Super psychotherapist Esther Perel has put together some of her best observations about love with beach listening in mind. She’s joined by couples in therapy, unloading their feelings on the big love questions, including dilemmas around polyamory, reproduction and divorce. Perel’s thought-provoking questions take you right into the therapy room and her wise asides bring you out. Hannah Verdier
Today in Focus
The ‘brat’ summer takeover
The Guardian music editor Ben Beaumont-Thomas, books editor Lucy Knight and film and TV critic Leila Latif look at what’s dominating culture this summer.
Cartoon of the day | Martin Rowson
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
In Clarksdale, Mississippi, a photography exhibition is paying tribute to Black farmers – the descendants of enslaved people – who birthed the blues and whose legacy lives on today. While Black residents of the Mississippi Delta have often been ignored or anonymised in art, writes Adria R Walker of Guardian US, photographer Justin Hardiman and co-curator Adrienne Domnick are “showing the pride, history and dignity of [present day farmers’] labour” via their Soil project.
“When people think about Mississippi, they never centre the Black people of Mississippi,” Hardiman says. “My work is about centring us, making the story about us.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until Monday.
