Five big takeaways from Trump’s convention speech

After a tumultuous few weeks that upended American politics, Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination for a third time on Thursday night, delivering a message of unity and strength.

Before Trump’s appearance, Kid Rock performed his song “American Bad Ass,” Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White introduced the rally, wrestling legend Hulk Hogan ripped his shirt off in a show of support, and the crowd sang the rally’s theme song, “God Bless the USA.”

He strode onto the stage, his name written in giant lights behind him.

But after that bombastic introduction, the former president remained relatively calm, if often off-script, speaking to his Republican supporters for more than 90 minutes.

He recounted to the hushed crowd the recent assassination attempt and suggested that divine intervention had saved him.

But despite emphasizing his message of national unity, he was unable to resist his scathing criticism of Democratic Party leaders.

Trump began his speech by sharing his experience from last Saturday’s attack.

“As you all know, an assassin’s bullet came very close to taking my life,” Trump told the assembled Republican delegates.

He said he tilted his head slightly to look at a graph about immigration that was on the teleprompter screen.

“I started to turn like this to the right to look at the chart and tried to turn just a little bit further, but luckily I didn’t have to, when I heard a loud whoosh and felt something hit me really hard on my right ear.

“I said to myself, ‘Wow, what was that? Must be a bullet.’

President Trump called the Secret Service agents who rushed onto the stage “very brave.”

“It is only by the grace of Almighty God that I am standing here before you in this arena,” he said. “Many will say this was a providential moment, and perhaps it was.”

He praised the crowd at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, for not panicking and causing mob violence.

“They just didn’t want to leave me and you could see that love in their faces,” he said.

In his speech, he harshly criticized Joe Biden’s policies on many fronts but, as he often does at his rallies, he only directly mentioned his rival by name once, calling Biden one of the worst presidents in history.

“The damage he has done to this country is unimaginable,” he said. “It’s just unthinkable.”

Uncertainty surrounds Biden’s future as a presidential candidate, as he is recuperating at his Delaware home after being diagnosed with COVID-19 on Wednesday.

Biden has vowed to continue his campaign despite reports that leading Democrats, including Barack Obama, have questioned his position, and a growing number of lawmakers are calling for him to step aside to allow a new candidate to run.

President Trump has promised to build the rest of the southern border wall, “most of it’s already built,” but that claim is inaccurate: fewer than 500 miles have been built during his first term.

He also painted a picture of massive inflation, saying, “Food prices have gone up 50 percent, gasoline has gone up 60 to 70 percent and mortgage rates have quadrupled.”

Inflation is a big issue for American voters, but prices have risen a total of about 20% since Biden took office in January 2021.

Trump also repeatedly made baseless claims that fraud in the 2020 election cost him the presidency.

The convention ended with the customary onstage family gathering, but the Trumps are no longer just for show: they are now real Republican power players and potential dynasties.

President Trump’s sons, Eric and Don Jr., have been given high-profile speaking engagements, and Don Jr. reportedly had a major influence over his father’s selection of running mate.

Also on stage earlier this week was Eric’s wife, Lara Trump, who will play a key role in the campaign as co-chair of the Republican National Committee.

The convention also heard from some lesser known family members, including Trump’s eldest son and avid golfer, granddaughter Kai Trump, who is 17 and ineligible to vote in November.

Other Trumps had much lower profile. Melania Trump made a rare public appearance on the final night of the election but did not give the podium speech that is typically given to wives of US candidates on such occasions.

Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump also attended the convention on the final day with her husband Jared Kushner. She was once a close aide to her father but left politics after her father left the White House.

President Trump largely sought to continue the overall theme of national unity that was repeated at this week’s convention, but at some points derailed into scathing attacks on the Democratic Party and its policies.

At the start of his speech, he told the crowd, “Together we will usher in a new era of safety, prosperity and freedom for our people of every race, religion, color and creed.”

“I’m running for president not for half of America, but for all of America, because winning for half of America is not winning.”

Still, he couldn’t resist delivering ad-libbed lines criticizing Democratic Party leaders and leaders of the United Auto Workers, the nation’s largest labor union. In addition to his criticism of President Biden, he called former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “crazy.”

Regarding the lawsuit against him, he said: “They’re destroying our country and it has to stop.”

Trump also demanded that “Democrats immediately stop weaponizing the justice system.”

As has been the case throughout his political career, immigration has been a top priority.

He called illegal immigration “an invasion that is killing hundreds of thousands a year” and promised “the largest deportation operation in the history of our nation, even larger than that of President Dwight D. Eisenhower many years ago.”

In 1954, over one million Mexican immigrants were deported from the United States.

In one lengthy section of the longest convention speech in memory, he blamed immigrants for crime, saying “we have become a rubbish dump for the world and the world is laughing at us and thinking we are fools.”

Reporting by Rachel Looker