Trump accepts Republican nomination and looks back on assassination attempt
Former US president Donald Trump accepted the nomination as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican convention in Milwaukee on Thursday night. He also reflected extensively on Saturday’s assassination attempt in his first public speech since the shooting at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
“I’m not supposed to be here,” Trump said, wearing a white bandage on his right ear. He said God had been on his side during the attack and called for a minute’s silence for the former firefighter who was killed in the shooting.
The 78-year-old also promised to be the president “of all America, not half”. “The discord and division in our society must be healed,” he said at the beginning of his 93-minute speech. “As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart.” He predicted an “incredible victory” for the Republicans in the November election.
'Time for change'
He also talked about the “party political witch hunt” against him and called on Democrats to stop portraying political opponents as threats to democracy.
According to Trump, the US has become a “nation in decline” under current president Joe Biden. Among other things, he promised if elected to “end the illegal immigration crisis by closing our border and finishing the wall” on the US-Mexico border and “launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country”. “It’s time for change,” he said. “Make America safe, free and great again.”
Donald Trump accepts his party's nomination on the last day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 18 July 2024 © PHOTO JIM WATSON / AFP
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