MILWAUKEE — Former President Trump on Thursday formally accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for president with a lengthy speech that was part emotional recounting of a near-death experience and part rambling rendition of his greatest hits.
Here are five notable moments from Trump’s keynote address.
The former president is a showman, and his entrance on Thursday proved it.
Prior to his arrival on stage, Kid Rock performed a song and Dana White delivered remarks introducing him. Then Lee Greenwood performed “God Bless the USA,” a song that plays at the start of each Trump rally.
Trump eventually came into view as lights on the stage spelled out “TRUMP” in giant letters. The former president stood clapping for several moments, basking in applause before beginning his remarks.
The opening minutes of Trump’s speech were intense and somber as he recounted the assassination attempt against him during a Saturday campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
He said he would recount the story one time, because it was “too painful to tell.” He then went into granular detail about how he was speaking about immigration when he heard something whiz by his ear and felt something hit him with great force.
Trump recalled Secret Service agents rushing the stage to cover him and how fortunate it was that the crowd did not panic and cause a stampede amid the chaos. And he described it as divine intervention that he had narrowly escaped death.
As he spoke, images from the rally with blood on his face and when he raised his fist and urged the crowd to “fight” were displayed on the video boards behind him. At one point, an image that caught the bullet near his head appeared while Trump spoke below it.
The crowd was the quietest it had been all week as attendees appeared to listen raptly.
“I’m not supposed to be here tonight. Not supposed to be here,” Trump said, eliciting chants of “Yes you are” from the crowd.
“I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God,” he said.
In another somber moment, Trump singled out Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief who was killed in the shooting at Saturday’s rally.
"He was a highly respected former fire chief, respected by everybody," Trump said, recounting how Comperatore "lost his life selflessly acting as a human shield" to protect his family.
As Trump spoke, a fireman’s jacket and helmet were set up on stage. The crowd chanted “Corey,” and Trump walked over and kissed the helmet before calling for a moment of silence to honor Comperatore.
Trump also highlighted an online fundraiser that he said has raised more than $6 million for the families of Comperatore and two other rally attendees who were injured in the shooting.
If the start of Trump’s remarks showed a different side of the former president, the rest of the speech was notable for how similar it was to his typical campaign rallies.
He called former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “Crazy Nancy Pelosi,” prompting jeers from the crowd. He mocked the CBS News Sunday morning program as “De-face the Nation.” He accused Democrats of cheating in elections. He referred to COVID-19 as the “China Virus” and name-checked authoritarians like Hungary’s Viktor Orban and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
Trump advisers had previewed that he would not mention President Biden by name, but the former president did once to claim Biden was by far the worst president in history.
Trump’s speech frequently went off-script and lasted more than 90 minutes, making it the longest acceptance speech by a major party candidate in history.
"It was a long speech. It was a rambling speech. It was a speech by an older man,” CNN’s Chris Wallace said after the remarks concluded.
The evening concluded with thousands of balloons falling to the stadium floor and with two prominent figures in the Trump family making rare appearances on the campaign trail.
Former first lady Melania Trump made her first public appearance alongside her husband in months when she entered the arena ahead of the former president’s remarks. She later joined him on stage at the conclusion of his speech.
Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter and one-time senior adviser, also attended the final night of the convention. She sat in the family’s VIP box for a portion of the remarks before she and her husband, ex-White House official Jared Kushner, made their way onto the stage as the balloons fell.
Neither one of them spoke during the convention.
The former first lady in particular received a warm welcome from the crowd, but she and Ivanka are unlikely to become regular presences moving forward. Melania Trump hardly campaigned in 2016 or 2020, and Ivanka Trump has said she is staying out of politics amid her father’s third White House bid.
