‘God on my side’: Trump recounts bid on life

Milwaukee, July 19

Donald Trump described on Thursday how he narrowly survived an attempt on his life, telling a rapt audience at the Republican National Convention in his first speech since the attack that he was only there “by the grace of Almighty God.”

Melania makes rare appearance

Melania Trump, who has largely been absent from Trump’s 2024 campaign, made a rare appearance in support of her husband on Thursday night. She entered the arena to warm applause and waved to the crowd before taking a seat. Unlike at the Republican conventions in 2016 and 2020, she did not give a speech.

“I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard on my right ear,” he said during a 14-minute account, a thick bandage still covering his ear. “I said to myself, ‘Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet.”

When he told the Milwaukee crowd that he was “not supposed to be here,” the delegates chanted back, “Yes you are!” The former president struck an unusually conciliatory tone during the speech’s opening moments, when he formally accepted the Republican presidential nomination for the November 5 election.

“I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America,” he said, in a marked shift in tenor for the typically bellicose former president.

But he swiftly pivoted to well-worn attacks on the Biden administration, which he said was “destroying” the country. He claimed without evidence that his criminal indictments were part of a Democratic conspiracy, predicted President Joe Biden would usher in “World War Three”. “I could stop wars with a telephone call,” he said during 90-plus minutes the longest convention speech in history . — Reuters