MILWAUKEE — Donald Trump, in his first public remarks since his attempted assassination Saturday, addressed a feverish crowd on the ultimate night of the Republican National Convention on Thursday in what began as a more subdued speech than normal but moved on to a more familiar list of grievances and promises to turn the country around.
While discussing immigration policy, he mentioned the killing of Rachel Morin, whose death in Harford County last year has sparked fury in national debates about illegal immigration.
“Rachel was a 37-year-old mom of five beautiful children who was brutally raped and murdered while out on a run,” Trump said in the final third of his roughly 90-minute remarks. “Rachel’s mother will never be the same. I spent time with her. She will never be the same.”
Trump, in accepting the Republican nomination, started by walking through the moments when a bullet whizzed by his head and hit his ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. He spoke about how close the shot came to killing him, that if he had moved even just a little further he’d likely have died.
“I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” Trump said, invoking chants of “Yes you are!” from the crowd that had been mostly listening quietly to a calmer-than-usual Trump. At times, Maryland delegates joined thousands of others in breaking out into chants of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” — the new mantra from last weekend’s attack — as Trump spoke.
“There was blood pouring everywhere, yet, in a certain way I felt very safe because I had God on my side,” Trump said.
The 78-year-old former president, known best for his bombast and aggressive rhetoric, offered a somewhat softer and more personal message that drew directly from his brush with death.
“The discord and division in our society must be healed. We just heal it quickly. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart,” Trump added. “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.”
Some delegates from Maryland donned fake white bandages on their ears as Trump, who’d been sitting with the bandage in the crowd each night, walked out alongside the uniform of the firefighter who attended Trump’s rally and was killed in the gunfire.
“Cory! Cory! Cory!” they chanted as Trump spoke fondly of him and walked over to touch the uniform.
“They used COVID to cheat,” Trump said, referring to the 2020 election, as he spent more of the second half of his speech in his typical style to lament the state of the country and say he’s the one who can fix it.
That included references to inflation and “illegal aliens” who are “pouring into our country.”
Trump blamed Biden for allowing the 23-year-old suspect in Morin’s killing, Victor Martinez-Hernandez, an immigrant from El Salvador believed to be in the country illegally, into the country.
“This White House let him in,” Trump said.
He rejected claims that he is a threat to democracy — because of his role in spreading false claims of election fraud four years ago — and said he’s instead trying to save democracy. He called former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose husband has also been the subject of political violence, “crazy.” And he claimed the legal cases against him and his family were unwarranted.
Tom Kennedy, an RNC delegate who chairs the Baltimore City Republican Central Committee, said after the speech that while the former president “turned the rhetorical heat up just a little bit” after his description of the shooting, it was not unusual for a Trump speech and evoked a “bold agenda” for a second term, Kennedy said.
Overall, it was the “from the heart” message Kennedy said he was looking for — “measured, contemplative and thoughtful remarks calmly and eloquently delivered.”
“Trump is a good man, and this speech reflected his innate goodness,” Kennedy said. “His supporters have long understood and embraced the remarkable man who spoke tonight. I hope Americans who’ve disagreed with him in the past will watch this speech and receive his remarks with an open mind.”
JoAnn Fisher, a delegate from Oxon Hill, Prince George’s County, said before the speech she was hoping to hear Trump touch on the economy, the southern border and make a continued push to support veterans.
A Navy veteran who has two daughters who also served in the military, Fisher called Trump’s vice president pick “a stone cold hard war veteran” for his time in the Marines.
“This is important because we need more of them [in elected office],” said Fisher, 77. “We have to give them support. We can’t keep kicking them to the curb and treating them and their families any kind of way.”
Fisher said she’s been “enraged” at Biden’s leadership and what she considers his lack of strategic military thinking or adequate support for veterans.
Chris Anderson, a Baltimore City delegate, said he was looking forward to hearing Trump’s keynote speech touch on a continuing theme of the week: “people that’ve been left behind.”
Anderson, a GOP candidate for City Council this year, said he’s been pleased with what he’s seen as outreach at the RNC specifically to the Black community. He noted prominent speeches from model and television personality Amber Rose; U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, of Florida; and several Latino speakers.
Hours before Trump said on stage that Black and Hispanic Americans were “being hurt the most by millions of people pouring into our country” at the southern border, Anderson, who is Black, said that message was true and that it’d been one he was glad to hear conventiongoers discuss this week.
“Although we’re not fully representative of the majority … of the party, I think we should look at those values and those principles of the Republican Party, consider voting for them this year instead of always doing the same thing and getting nothing in return for it,” Anderson said. “We’ve gotten the same thing over the same one party rule and it’s not benefiting us enough. If the Republican Party wants to give us something for our vote, I’ll take it — something more than empty promises.”
He said he believes Trump will support Historically Black Colleges and Universities — like Coppin State, in Anderson’s district — and opportunity zones, which are aimed at helping historically disadvantaged communities, in a potential second term.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
