Riding a political tailwind, President Donald Trump is expected to appeal for national unity on Thursday in his first speech since surviving an assassination attempt.
Strategists see the Republican National Convention speech, likely to be watched by tens of millions of Americans on prime-time television, as a golden opportunity to recast the former U.S. president as more palatable to moderate voters.
But critics are skeptical that Trump’s reset will last, noting that previous much-hyped “pivots” have ultimately led to a return to dark, divisive and inflammatory rants.
“It was a big existential moment and I think it affected him in the short term, but you are you.” David Axelrod“He’s not a unifier, either by habit or by inclination,” said one former chief strategist to President Barack Obama.
“As long as the race is going well, others may be able to convince him that quiet is better than noise. But when he has his phone in his hand and an urge in his head at 2 a.m., there’s no telling what’s going to happen.”
As the final night of the party convention began in Milwaukee on Thursday, polls showed Trump, 78, leading the national average in the 2020 presidential race by 11 percentage points. Trump has been riding a wave of sympathy and praise since an assassin’s bullet wounded his right ear at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. Trump was hailed as a hero by cheering, sign-waving supporters at the Republican convention earlier this week.
Prior to Trump’s appearance, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson spoke about the assassination attempt and praised Trump for how he handled it.
“At that moment, a few months before the presidential election, Donald Trump became the leader of this country. And, I have to say, I think it changed him,” said Carlson, who said he reached out to Trump after the shooting and “[Trump] He didn’t say a word about himself, just how surprised and proud he was of the crowd that didn’t run.”
Speaker after speaker this week suggested that Trump’s life had been spared by divine providence so he could continue his sacred mission for the country, but they also walked back their initial accusations that Democrats were to blame for the shooting.
Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, on Saturday Tweeted Trump claimed comments from Joe Biden’s campaign “directly led” to the assassination attempt, but struck a different tone in his convention speech Wednesday night.
“So think about what they said. They said he was a tyrant. They said he must be stopped at all costs. But how did he respond? Literally, right after assassins had nearly taken his life, he called for national unity and national peace.”
He added: “He’s tough and he cares about people. He can take on assassins one minute and speak out for the nation’s salvation the next. He’s a beloved father and grandfather, and of course, a once-in-a-generation business leader.”
Trump received a standing ovation from attendees as he arrived at the convention ahead of his nomination and speech. The former president, still with a bandaged ear, wore his signature red, white and blue suit and tie and flashed a broad smile, some clapping and some fist-pumping.
Speakers on Thursday included former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who touted the Trump administration’s record. “We’ve put America first every day,” Pompeo said, citing the lack of new major wars, anti-immigrant policies and the “destruction of ISIS.” Pompeo later joked that Biden was “waddling” on the world stage as his reelection campaign faced a crisis over his age and competency.
Melania Trump was expected to attend the Republican National Convention on Thursday but will not speak, breaking with tradition, according to people familiar with the matter. The former first lady has been conspicuously absent in recent months, including from the New York criminal trial where Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts, including falsifying business records.
Some convention attendees have shifted their focus from “Making America Great Again” to “Making America United Again.” Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law and co-chair of the Republican National Committee, said: Speaking at the convention He said Tuesday that Americans must remember that “there is more that unites us than what divides us.”
Trump, playing to a more moderate stance, invited his former Republican rival, Nikki Haley, to speak. Haley was greeted with cheers and boos, which she quickly quelled by vocally endorsing Trump. “You don’t have to agree with me 100% of the time to vote for Trump,” Haley said. “Take my word for it.”
In another move aimed at softening Trump’s image, his granddaughter, Kai Madison Trump, Debuted on the political stage “My grandpa calls me during class and asks how my golf is going and tells me all about his golf game,” she said. “Grandpa, you are such an inspiration and I love you so much. The media portrays my grandpa as someone he’s not, but I know who he is.”
The Republican harmonious attitude stands in striking contrast to Democrats, who have been locked in an internal feud for weeks over whether Biden, 81, should abandon his re-election campaign after his poor debate performance. National NBC News Poll The survey found that only 33% of Democrats are satisfied with Biden as their party’s presidential nominee, while 71% of Republicans are satisfied with Trump.
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The Republican pollster and strategist spoke at an event hosted in Milwaukee by the Cook Political Report and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. Tony Fabrizio “Right now, the Democrats are the perfect firing squad, and while they’re the perfect firing squad, we have the advantage. And for us to have the advantage, we need to do exactly what we’re doing, get the message out there that we’re getting out there, the president does what the president does.”
The shooting and the resulting national attention could provide an opportunity for Trump to formally accept his party’s nomination and face Biden in a rematch in 2020. His wife, Melania, and daughter Ivanka, who have rarely been seen on the campaign trail, are expected to attend.
Some Republicans hope that Trump will cast himself as a unifier in chief, echoing the defiant optimism of Ronald Reagan, who survived an assassination attempt in 1981. Trump told the New York Post on Sunday that he had been planning to make scathing remarks about Biden but backed off in the wake of the shooting.
“I’m really looking forward to tonight’s speech, I think it’s going to be a very important speech, a historic speech,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday at a CNN-Politico Grill event on the sidelines of the convention. “He’s going to talk about uniting the country, which is why he changed the speech.”
A person close to Trump said he has been working with speechwriter Ross Worthington on revising his remarks to make it sound like he is still the president, not just a candidate.
But at the event Hosted by Axios websitePresident Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., suggested that even if Trump adopts a softer tone, his core political attacks will likely continue. “You can be gentle in shorthand, but you have to call out insanity when you see it,” Trump Jr. said when asked about harsher language, on, for example, transgender issues, alienating potential voters. “It’s not that. It’s not about tone.”
At an event hosted by Georgetown University alongside the convention, Trump campaign co-chairman Chris LaCivita He acknowledged that the message of unity would not come at the expense of winning the November election.
“This is clearly an opportunity to unite the country, but we must remember we are in the middle of an election campaign,” LaCivita said. “Our focus is all about the issues that are plaguing ordinary Americans and providing solutions to those issues.”
Indeed, while there was plenty of talk of a more flexible and inclusive Trump, he sat in a box seat at the convention alongside extremists like Carlson, the anchor who has promoted white supremacy and praised Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who once promoted a conspiracy theory about “Jewish space lasers.”
Much of the speech in Milwaukee was based on law and order themes and featured Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric, with speakers slamming Biden’s southern border policies and referring to an “invasion.” Delegates waved signs that read “Mass Deportations Now” and chanted “Train, baby, train!”
Other notable absentees include former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Mike Pence, and Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine), Todd Young (Indiana), Mitt Romney (Utah) and Rand Paul (Kentucky).
Kurt Bardella“He’ll talk about unity and use all these buzzwords all night, but don’t be fooled. It’s an act,” said a Democratic strategist.
Joanna Walters contributed reporting
