(OSV News) — Former President Donald Trump delivered a speech July 18 to accept the Republican nomination for president, pledging to reduce inflation and reinstate and increase his hard-line immigration policies if he wins another term in the White House.
Trump’s acceptance speech was his first public speech since the shooting at his July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, which is currently under investigation by law enforcement officials as an attempted assassination.
Surviving an assassination attempt
“The assassin’s bullet came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life,” Trump said, adding it was “painful” to recall.
“I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard on my right ear,” he said, adding he knew it was “very serious.”
Trump thanked the “very brave” Secret Service agents who rushed to the stage to protect him.
“If I had not moved my head at that very last minute, that assassin’s bullet would have perfectly hit its mark, and I would not be here tonight, we would not be together,” Trump said.
Trump said he survived by “the grace of Almighty God,” and offered his condolences to the family of Corey Comperatore, who was killed in the attack. State officials later said Comperatore was protecting his family from gunfire when he was struck. Trump displayed what he said was Comperatore’s fire uniform while he spoke.
Two others, he said, David Dutch and James Copenhaver, who were “seriously injured” in the attack would recover.
Changes to GOP platform
On his general election pitch, Trump praised the platform recently adopted by the party that he oversaw. That document removed a long-standing call for federal abortion restrictions after 20 weeks, added a call for mass deportations, access “to Birth Control, and IVF (fertility treatments),” and cut references to guns and the Second Amendment.
“This week the entire Republican Party has formally adopted an agenda for America’s renewal. And you saw that agenda and it’s very short compared to the long, boring, meaningless agendas of the past,” Trump said.
RNC delegates appeared to enthusiastically accept its nominee’s hard-line immigration position, calling for mass deportations. Delegates on the floor were seen carrying signs reading, “Mass Deportations Now.”
Immigration was a central theme of Trump’s speech. At one point, a chart was displayed that Trump said was the same one he was attempting to show the crowd in Butler when gunshots rang out.
“I never got to see it that day,” he quipped.
Sen. JD Vance named as vice presidential nominee
At the convention, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, was nominated as Trump’s running mate.
In his speech to the convention July 17, Vance sought to highlight his age, arguing that Biden has been in Washington longer than his own lifespan.
“For half a century he’s been the champion of every major policy initiative to make America weaker and poor,” Vance argued of Biden.
Vance also repeatedly mentioned the Rust Belt states — Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — the Trump campaign hopes will deliver him a second term in the White House.
In an apparent nod to naming his political heir, Trump said to Vance during his own speech, “You’re going to be doing this for a long time.”
Evolving social conservatism
In comments at a Faith & Freedom Coalition Breakfast the following morning, Vance seemed to acknowledge frustration among some pro-life activists about the party’s platform weakening its opposition to abortion. Trump, Vance argued, “delivered for social conservatives more than any president in my 39 years of life.”
“I think he deserves a little bit of grace, and he deserves a little bit of trust, and I hope that we will all provide that,” Vance said.
Prior to accepting the vice presidential nomination, Vance seemingly backtracked some of his own opposition to abortion, telling NBC News he supports access to mifepristone, a drug commonly used for abortion.
But social conservatism was not as evident in the 2024 RNC program as in years past. Speakers included model and rapper Amber Rose, who has been a proponent of abortion access, and there was a performance from Kid Rock with profane language.
The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to take place Aug. 19-22.
