Former President Trump said Sunday that he has rewritten his speech for this week’s Republican National Convention to focus on unity in the wake of the weekend assassination attempt.
“The speech that I was going to give on Thursday was going to be great,” Trump said. In an interview From the Washington Examiner.
“If this hadn’t happened, this would have been one of the best speeches ever,” he added, according to the paper, noting that it focused primarily on President Biden’s policies. “It would be a very different speech now, to be honest with you.”
The former president also said that while his speech was initially intended to galvanise voters, he would now focus on how the attack on his life had changed the campaign.
“This is an opportunity to bring the whole country and even the whole world together. The speech will be completely different from what it was two days ago,” he said.
Trump arrived in Milwaukee for the party convention on Sunday, a day after he was the target of an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in which the former president said a bullet pierced his ear.
Authorities said one spectator and the shooter were killed and two other spectators were injured.
Shortly after the shooting, Trump aides confirmed that the president was still scheduled to attend the Republican National Convention and said he looked forward to addressing the nation in Wisconsin on Sunday.
Trump also said he decided to leave for the convention on Sunday afternoon because he “cannot allow a ‘gunman’ or potential assassin to force any schedule or other changes.”
The former president is scheduled to formally accept the Republican nomination on Thursday night and is widely expected to name his running mate, possibly during the party’s convention on Monday.
Police identified the shooter early Sunday as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. Investigators said they were still determining a motive.
Bomb-making materials were found in Crooks’ car and home, and his cell phone was sent to an FBI lab in Quantico for further processing and use, authorities confirmed Sunday.
In a prime-time address on Sunday night, Biden appealed for de-escalating political tensions.
“The political rhetoric in this country has become so heated. It’s time to calm down,” Biden said in a speech from the Oval Office. “This puts a heavy burden on all of us that we must never descend into violence, no matter how strongly we believe.”
