MILWAUKEE — The economy was the focus of the first night of the Republican National Convention, but it was donald trumpin first public appearance since the assassination attempt at his rally on Saturday that stole the show.
Electricity pulsed through the Fiserv Forum as Trump, wearing a large white bandage over his right ear, entered the venue. The crowd erupted into raucous applause when Lee Greenwood sang “God Bless the USA” – a song played at every Trump rally – in a moment that moved several people in the crowd, including the former president’s son, Don Jr.
Trump made no comment other than saying “thank you” to the attendees before taking a seat in the box next to the senator. J.D. Vance of Ohioto whom he announced as his running mate in the early afternoon, and Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla. Imitating Trump’s comments after he was shot and stood up, rallygoers chanted, “Fight! To fight! To fight!”
Most speakers stuck to the night’s theme — “Make America Rich Again” — but interspersed throughout the night were mentions of the shooting and rhetoric that at times contradicted Trump’s own calls for unity.
High inflation, and what the speakers said was the lackluster economy under the presidency Joe Bidenwas a major point of conversation throughout the evening.
“Many families today are having the same experience,” said North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, speaking about his experience growing up in poverty. “Food prices soared and gas nearly doubled in North Carolina factories.”
The moderate tone from Robinson, who is running for governor, was particularly notable because he is known for pugilistic speeches sometimes accompanied by violent comments, including one this month when he said: “Some people need to be killed.”
Biden’s theme of inflation and the economy – even as inflation has cooled and the unemployment rate remains low — has been a consistent goal throughout a campaign that has been shaken Saturday night, when a 20-year-old gunman took aim at Trump during a rally in Pennsylvania, narrowly missing shooting him in the head but bleeding his ear in the process. The shooter, who was killed by authorities, killed one rally attendee and injured two others.
After the shooting, Trump said he rewrote his convention speech give greater emphasis to unit theme and the need to reduce pressure on the type of political rhetoric that has marked much of the elections to date.
The consequences of an assassination attempt on the Republican presidential candidate were felt at the convention, but on the first night it was not the main topic. Trump’s campaign strategically chosen which speakers would discuss the issue to avoid it appearing in every speech, and this only occurred in a few cases on Monday night.
“On Saturday, the devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle,” said Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. “But the American lion stood up and roared!”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said, “Unfortunately, this is also a dark time for our nation. Two days ago, evil came to the man we admire and love so much. I think, God, his hand was on President Trump.”
But the convention was not limited to unifying the country; there was still plenty of red meat for the base that went after the Democrats and other groups of people.
Greene, for example, also went after transgender rights. Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, the second speaker of the night, also gave a fiery speech about what he considered the failure of the “democratic agenda”.
“Today’s Democratic agenda – their policies – are a clear and present danger to America,” Johnson said. “They abandoned the working middle class. But with President Trump… these forgotten Americans are forgotten no longer.”
Johnson later told PBS that the wrong speech was loaded into the teleprompter, and not the one he intended to deliver. A spokesperson for Johnson told NBC News that the speech should begin by noting that the convention was meeting “at a dark time in history” and saying that Americans “should all heed President Trump’s call for unity, strength and resolve ”.
“It also didn’t have ‘Today’s Democratic Party is a clear and present danger to America,’” the spokesperson said.
Tech investor David Sacks began adding torque to the evening, criticizing “disorderly” Democrats, who he said had spent time “illuminating the country” about Biden’s fitness, and blaming the party for transforming the once “beautiful city” of San Francisco “in a cesspool of crime.”
Charlie Kirk, an outspoken Trump ally, urged Republicans to “fire the Biden-Harris regime.”
“Our current state of slow-motion national decline is a choice,” he said.
Moments later, Trump, in a recorded video, criticized the Democrats, whom he accused of cheating in the elections.
“Frankly, it’s the only thing they do well,” Trump said.
There were lighter moments, however. When the convention program ended, a pastor who was delivering the blessing took the stage with an impersonation of Trump so strong that Trump himself laughed.
Headlining the night was Teamsters President Sean O’Brien. Although he did not support Trump, he called him a “tough son of a bitch.” O’Brien supported Democrats in recent presidential elections but has not supported this cycle. O’Brien was the first Teamsters president to speak at the Republican Party convention.
He called on the party to abandon its opposition to unions and praised Vance and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, for their overtures to organized labor.
“We need corporate welfare reform,” he said. “Under our current system, big companies like Amazon, Uber, Lyft and Walmart… offer no real health care, no retirement benefits, no paid leave, relying on publicly funded assistance, and who pays the bill? The individual taxpayer.”
Some conservatives weren’t big fans of the speech. Inside the convention hall, a man near the media area repeatedly yelled at O’Brien during his speech.
In events leading up to the convention’s opening night, a focus on reducing temperatures was a major theme in the ballrooms and event spaces in downtown Milwaukee, where many groups began holding convention-themed events.
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts opened his speech at the think tank’s “Policy Fest” with a clear reference, possibly in jest, to the need for less exaggerated political rhetoric.
“How many of you are ready to take back our country steadily, calmly and peacefully?” he said. Earlier this month, however, he said the country was on the brink of a “second American Revolution.”
Shortly after Roberts’ remarks, right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson, who is scheduled to speak at the convention later this week, took the stage to describe the assassination attempt on Trump as part of a “spiritual battle.”
“There is no logical way to understand what we are seeing now in technical terms. … These are not political divisions,” he said. “There are forces and they are very obvious. Now they have decided, for whatever reason, to take off the mask. [Their] The only objective is chaos, violence, destruction.”
Carlson, who later sat next to Trump and Vance in his private box on Monday night, went further, saying that Trump’s opponents “do not care, obviously, that our country is being colonized.”
“They want the power to kill,” he said, specifically mentioning the bloodlust for war. “And that.”
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
