MILWAUKEE — The Republican National Convention culminates Thursday with Donald Trump expected to accept the party's presidential nomination at the Fiserv Forum.
The comeback, four years in the making, has become even more anticipated in light of Saturday's assassination attempt.
But Trump's narrow escape also means the speech the former president will deliver is not the same one he planned to give.
Republicans throughout the week in Milwaukee have suggested the combative former president take a gentler tone in light of the shooting and have suggested the crisis provides a chance to de-escalate the divisive political rhetoric that has marked the 2024 campaign.
Donald Trump told the Washington Examiner that he had rewritten his acceptance speech in the wake of the Saturday shooting, emphasizing a call for national unity.
"The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be a humdinger," he said. "Had this not happened, this would've been one of the most incredible speeches," aimed mostly at the policies of President Joe Biden. "Honestly, it's going to be a whole different speech now."
A shift wouldn't surprise Lawrence Tabas, state chairman of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, where the assassination attempt occurred.
"I do believe that after going through that his message will be better, and I do think he will appeal to our better emotions," Tabas said. "He has an enormous compassion and empathy that doesn't always come through."
— Associated Press
House Speaker Mike Johnson is ramping up the pressure on U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, calling on President Biden to fire her for security failures in the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
Johnson had already called for Cheatle to step down but says it's clear she has no intention of doing so.
"I think there has to be accountability and it begins at the top. This is ridiculous," Johnson said Thursday during a Fox Business interview.
Johnson also described a telephone briefing that Cheatle and FBI Director Christopher Wray provided lawmakers on Wednesday, saying "they did not give us satisfactory answers to some very important questions" while also acknowledging that some of the information may need to be discussed in a classified setting.
— Associated Press
Ohio Sen. JD Vance made his first public appearance Thursday since accepting the Republican vice presidential nomination Wednesday, speaking at an evangelical Christian breakfast where he described the winding path to his faith.
He told roughly 1,000 influential social conservatives that he once considered himself an atheist, but marrying and some early influences from the devout grandmother who raised him set him on the course to his Christian faith.
Vance also addressed uneasiness stemming from the Trump campaign's effort to streamline the Republican Party platform, which, until this month, had for 40 years called for a national abortion ban.
"There has been a lot of grumbling in the past few weeks that the Republican Party of now and the Republican Party of the future is not going to be a place that's welcoming to social conservatives," Vance told attendees. "And, really, from the bottom of my heart, that is not true. Social conservatives have a seat at this table, and always will so long as I have any influence in this party, and President Trump, I know."
The breakfast was hosted by the Faith and Freedom Coalition at the Victorian-era Pfister Hotel in downtown Milwaukee.
— Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Democrats worried about President Joe Biden's ability to win this November are making a renewed push for him to reconsider his reelection bid, using mountains of data, frank conversations and now, his own time off the campaign trail after testing positive for COVID, to encourage a reassessment.
Biden has insisted he is not backing down, adamant that he is the candidate who beat Republican Donald Trump before and will do it again this year. But publicly and privately, key Democrats are sending signals of concern and some hope he will assess the trajectory of the race and his legacy during this few days' pause.
In a radio interview with Univision's Luis Sandoval that airs Thursday, Biden said it's still early and that many people don't focus on the election until September.
"All the talk about who's leading and where and how, is kind of, you know — everything so far between Trump and me has been basically even," Biden said in an excerpt of the interview.
Some national polls do show a close race, though others suggest Trump with a lead. And some state polls have contained warning signs too, including a recent New York Times/Siena poll that suggested a competitive race in Virginia.
— Associated Press
President Joe Biden has made it clear basically any which way you ask him: he's definitely, assuredly, "one thousand percent" staying in the presidential race.
But in response to questions from journalists over the last few weeks, the embattled Democratic president has given some clues as to what could make him step aside — especially as the calls from his own party to end his candidacy continue unabated.
• Divine intervention: "I mean, if the Lord Almighty comes out and tells me that, I might do that," Biden said in an interview with ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos.
• Cold, hard data: No politician ever wants to lose — and it seems Biden would be willing to exit if he had numerical proof that that's what would happen.
• A fateful accident: "Unless I get hit by a train" was Biden's response to an interviewer's question last week about staying in the race.
• A not-yet-diagnosed medical ailment: "If I had some medical condition that emerged," Biden told BET journalist Ed Gordon. "If doctors came to me and said, 'You got this problem, that problem.'"
— Associated Press
