Former United States President Donald Trump will take the stage at the Republican National Convention (RNC), where he will deliver a speech as the party’s standard bearer just five days after surviving an assassination attempt.
Thursday night’s speech will close a convention that has largely been a reminder of how Trump’s brand of populist, pugilistic politics has transformed the Republican Party.
But officials said Trump will adopt a more unifying message after Saturday’s attack, in which he was grazed in the ear by a gunman’s bullet.
Trump said he rewrote his speech after surviving the incident at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. His family and close allies have maintained that the president has changed profoundly, as Trump and his supporters at the RNC repeatedly referred to the near miss as an act of God.
“I think you might see a little different version of Donald Trump tonight, maybe a little softer version than some people at home have seen in the past,” co-chair of the Republican National Committee and Trump’s daughter-in-law. Lara Trump told CBS News on Thursday.
“I don’t think you can go through what he went through on Saturday, truly a near-death experience, and not come out the other side impacted,” she said.
Donald Trump Jr echoed the sentiment.
“He’s going to be tough when he needs to be. We saw it. He will never change,” said the former president’s eldest son at an event for the news website Axios. “But I think there will be something. I think they are important occasions that change people permanently.”
Political observers have questioned what a more unifying message from Trump will actually look like and who it will apply to.
Although Trump told the Washington Examiner this week that the attack is an “opportunity to unite the entire country, even the entire world,” he and his supporters also mixed their message with one of defiance.
Trump’s newly announced running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, said shortly after the shooting that President Joe Biden’s campaign rhetoric led to the assassination attempt, although he has since backed away from the claim.
RNC attendees seized on Trump’s shouted plea in the moment after the attack, with “fight, fight, fight” becoming a rallying cry. Wearing a bandage around your ear, like Trump, has become a symbol of solidarity.
Continuing the theme, Trump will also be introduced by the president and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Dana White, and former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan on Thursday.
Reporting from the convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane said the party’s platform, which was heavily influenced by Trump, has not yet reflected the promised change in tone.
“He is expected to say he will unify the country, but the platform – what the party says it will run on – is deeply divisive,” she said.
It includes promises to expel millions of undocumented immigrants, reinstate travel bans in some Muslim-majority countries, close the Federal Department of Education and cut funding to schools depending on how they teach about race and gender.
The party platform also pledges to “hold accountable those who abused government power to unfairly prosecute their political opponents,” which appears to be a reference to Trump’s conviction in a New York court in May on charges related to payments. hush money payments made to an adult film star, as well as his other two criminal trials related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Biden.
Democrats divided
Thursday’s speech comes after a string of political victories for Trump in recent weeks.
On Monday, a Florida judge dismissed a federal case related to the hiding and hoarding of classified documents after leaving the White House. This occurred after the Supreme Court ruled that US presidents enjoy broader judicial immunity than previously defined.
Democrats are also increasingly divided over the viability of Biden’s candidacy following a poor debate performance last month.
On Thursday, US media reported that several prominent Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, had pressured Biden to reconsider his candidacy.
The news came just hours after the White House announced that Biden tested positive for COVID-19 while campaigning in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
