Donald Trump’s defeated rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination took to the stage at the party’s convention to sing his praises and back him to run against Joe Biden in this year’s election.
Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy all spoke out in favour of a Trump candidacy despite opposing him for the party nomination.
Haley, a former UN ambassador who previously described Trump as “diminished” and “unhinged”, told delegates: “For the sake of our nation we have to go with Donald Trump.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has accused the 78-year-old of having lost his “zip”, backed Trump and said: “We cannot let him down, and we cannot let America down”.
Trump, watching on with his ear bandaged after Saturday’s failed assassination attempt, applauded the speeches from his box where he sat alongside his newly-announced running mate JD Vance.
Vance, himself a former outspoken critic of Trump who previously called him an “idiot” and privately compared him to Adolf Hitler, will address the convention in Milwaukee tonight.
The show of Republican harmony is intended to be in stark contrast with their Democratic rivals who have spent recent weeks debating whether 81-year-old Biden should step down in favour of a younger candidate after his disastrous performance in his debate with Trump renewed concerns about his age and health.
The fallout from the attempted shooting in Pennsylvania continues, with Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle facing calls for her resignation.
She did not help her case by appearing to suggest her agents were not positioned on the rooftop where gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks took aim at the former president because of health and safety regulations.
She told ABC News: “That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. So the decision was made to secure the building from the inside.”
It also emerged Trump was given extra security before Saturday’s rally because of a threat to his life from Iran. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said officials have been tracking Iranian threats against Trump administration officials for years, dating back to the last administration.
Trump ordered the 2020 killing of Qassem Soleimani, who led the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force.
“These threats arise from Iran’s desire to seek revenge for the killing of Qassem Soleimani,” Watson said.
“We consider this a national and homeland security matter of the highest priority.”
The US Secret Service and the Trump campaign were made aware of the latest threat, prompting a surge in resources and assets, according to officials.
Former prime minister Boris Johnson met Trump at the convention and insisted he would help “protect democracy against aggression” if re-elected.
