MILWAUKEE – Donald Trump’s Republican Party convenes on Monday hoping to chart his return to the White House after he survived an assassination attempt that prompted him and President Joe Biden, his Democratic rival, to call for national unity and calm.
The former president will announce at the convention this week his choice for a running mate, having cited as frontrunners Ohio US Senator J.D. Vance, Florida US Senator Marco Rubio and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, all of whom will speak at the at the gathering.
Trump held individual meetings with each of the three men late last week in what was effectively one last job interview, according to two sources who requested anonymity to disclose private conversations.
While the event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, will be a festive affair to formally choose the party’s presidential nominee, it occurs at a tense moment in US history on the road to the Nov. 5 election rematch between Biden, 81, and Trump, 78.
Will party leaders scheduled to speak over the next four days try to cool tempers among Republicans? Or will they use the occasion to accuse Democrats of demonizing Trump as a threat to democracy and making him a target for political violence?
“This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together. The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would’ve been two days ago,” Trump told the Washington Examiner.
Biden, too, in a televised address from the White House on Sunday, said: “There is no place in America for this kind of violence, for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.”
He said: “The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down.”
Trump and Biden are locked in a close election rematch, according to most opinion polls including by Reuters/Ipsos. The shooting on Saturday whipsawed discussion around the presidential campaign, which had been focused on whether Biden should drop out following a halting June 27 debate performance.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, the country’s highest-ranking Republican, told NBC’s “Today” show on Sunday that all Americans needed to tone down their rhetoric. He accused Biden’s campaign of making hyperbolic attacks on Trump.
“Everyone needs to turn the rhetoric down,” he said.
Biden condemned the assassination attempt. He ordered an investigation into Saturday’s shooting at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania in which Trump’s right ear was grazed by a bullet, one supporter was killed and two others were wounded before Secret Service agents shot dead the 20-year-old suspected gunman whose motive has yet to be clarified.
The Biden campaign declined to comment on allegations from some Republicans that his comments helped create the conditions for the shooting.
Trump has frequently turned to violent rhetoric in his campaign speeches, using the word “bloodbath,” labeling his perceived enemies as “vermin” and “fascists,” and accusing Biden without evidence of a conspiracy to overthrow the United States by encouraging illegal immigration.
For Trump, the convention represents a test.
Having consolidated party control, Trump could seize on the prime time opportunity to deliver a unifying message or paint a dark portrait of a nation under siege by a corrupt leftist elite, as he has done at times on the trail.
