MILWAUKEE — Former President Donald Trump made his first public appearance Monday since a shooter tried to assassinate him two days before at a political rally, entering the Republican convention hall to roaring applause, his right ear bandaged, and holding his fist aloft.
Supporters on the convention floor and standing in the stadium sang along to a live rendition of "God Bless the U.S.A." with singer Lee Greenwood as Trump waved to supporters and joined family members and new running mate JD Vance in their seats, alongside Tucker Carlson and Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida.
Trump wore a subdued look as the room around him erupted and chants of "USA" rang out.
Later, Trump mouthed “thank you” as Amber Rose, a rapper and television personality, urged Americans to vote for him in her speech. After Monday night's program concluded, Trump greeted attendees reaching out to him as he made his way out of the arena.In the aftermath of the shooting on Saturday, Trump raised his fist to his supporters in Butler, Pennsylvania. Then he was bundled into a waiting vehicle and stayed out of public view until the convention Monday — but remained in the middle of a flurry of behind-the-scenes activity.
Trump fielded phone calls from President Joe Biden and leaders in the Republican Party and around the world. He mused to conservative outlets about how he had cheated death. He returned to his home in New Jersey and then flew to Wisconsin for the convention where he was nominated as the Republican Party's presidential candidate for the third time.
Trump did not speak Monday night, but the outpouring of support from convention attendees echoed the relief Trump showed in his interviews. “I’m not supposed to be here,” he told the Washington Examiner. In an interview with the New York Post, he said, “I’m supposed to be dead.”
As the convention speeches got underway, Trump's allies drove home their feelings about his narrow escape. “Two days ago, evil came for the man we admire and love so much,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said. “I thank God that his hand was on President Trump.”
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina put the threat in biblical terms, to applause. “The Devil” showed up in Pennsylvania “holding a rifle," he said, "but the American lion got back up on his feet and roared.”
A source who had spoken to Trump told NBC News that his mood was contemplative and that the attack had left him feeling like he had a new lease on life.
The source said he believed Trump’s brush with death would work its way into his speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, as he and his aides rewrote parts of it in the hours after the attack.
"I basically had a speech that was an unbelievable rip-roarer," Trump told the Washington Examiner's Byron York in the interview. But he "threw it out," Trump said, and was drafting a new version. "Now, we have a speech that is more unifying.”
Trump re-emerged after he fielded private well-wishes from around the nation and the globe. Biden and Trump spoke on the phone after the shooting, which Biden characterized as "very cordial" in an interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt.
"I told him how concerned I was, and want to make sure I knew how he was actually doing," Biden said. "He sounded good. He said he was fine, and he thanked me for calling him."
New U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer also spoke with Trump on Sunday, according to an official readout of their call.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., reached out. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., recounted a conversation with Trump on Fox News. An emotional Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told NBC News' "Meet the Press" on Sunday what he was hoping to say to Trump when they were scheduled to connect later that day.
Even independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met with Trump earlier Monday, according to Kennedy campaign press secretary Stefanie Spear. Spear, who said Kennedy is not dropping out of the race, said they met to "discuss national unity" and that Kennedy "hopes to meet with leaders of the Democratic Party as well."
As he touched down in Wisconsin before the convention, an aide shared a video showing Trump raising a fist, echoing the gesture seen around the world in Butler after the shooting.
By Monday, Trump was pledging to “move forward” to work on "Uniting our Nation" — as he called for the prosecutions against him to be thrown out, among them the “Witch Hunts,” “January 6th Hoax” and “the Georgia ‘Perfect’ Phone Call charges,” which he slammed as a coordinated political attack by "the Democrat Justice Department."
Fox News' Bret Baier reported that he talked to Trump early Monday and that Trump was basking in a federal judge's decision to dismiss the indictment against him in Florida on charges of mishandling classified documents — another monumental development for Trump in a head-spinning few days.
Trump’s call for unity has resonated with Republicans on the ground, with Wisconsin Republican Party Chair Brian Schimming telling NBC News that the shooting offers Trump an opportunity to reach out to the nation.
“I think the president will be reflective about what has happened here in the last couple of days and certainly will use that unfortunate occurrence to call for people to a common place,” Schimming told NBC News in Milwaukee. “So I fully expect the president to address that, but also to make sure the whole country hears him say that not only that kind of thing is wrong, but … to unify the country in a rare moment when something tragic like that happens."
