MILWAUKEE — His voice cracked as he spoke, the cane made necessary by his combat injuries resting under the swanky hotel’s cream-colored bar. “When the bullets stop flying, you need a mission,” he said. “Well, Donald Trump’s got a mission now.”
“Some of us knew it already, but the country saw what he’s made of when he got up Saturday,” said the area military veterans advocate, granted anonymity late Wednesday afternoon to be candid, referring to the failed assassination attempt on the GOP presidential nominee. “Trust me: In combat, when that fight-or-flight instinct takes over, everyone can see what you are. When he got up and said, ‘fight,’ it showed what he’s willing to do for the country.”
Lawmakers, delegates and Trump confidants here this week predicted Trump’s Thursday night Republican National Convention acceptance speech likely would present a surreal scene, with a much different message from the typically bombastic and divisive 45th president.
“I think in terms of changing the tempo and the tone of the convention and the speech, the president has made it very clear, he wants it to be more unifying, more uplifting, more positive and more optimistic — by the way, America can use that,” Kellyanne Conway, a former senior Trump campaign and White House aide, said in a brief interview.
“We already know what the problems are. We need solutions,” she said during a convention light on specific policy plans. “We already feel pessimistic and negative. We need optimism and positivity, and he wants to deliver that.”
Dan Musholt, a delegate from Canton, Mo., expects a “softer and more subdued” Trump on Thursday night. “I mean, anyone who’s had their ear lacerated by a bullet is going to be more laid back and reflective, at least for a while,” he said.
“He’ll probably get back to the usual Trump at some point,” Musholt added Wednesday. “But, obviously, the last two nights, he’s seemed more laid-back, so I don’t think he’ll be planning an in-your-face speech.”
Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., said he expects to “hear a very reflective man,” adding: “I think everybody can see he’s had a different look on his face.
“The last few nights, there was just a different level of emotion behind [Trump’s] eyes,” Mast added. “It was the face and I think that’s what you’re going to hear, what’s behind those eyes.”
Trump will not have the political stage all to himself Thursday, however. President Joe Biden is isolating at his Delaware beach home after testing positive for COVID-19, reportedly entertaining calls from some top congressional Democrats and donors to drop out of the 2024 race over fears he cannot beat Trump and would be a drag on the party’s House and Senate candidates.
To be sure, when a 20-year-old gunman made his way on top of an unsecured building and aimed an AR-style rifle at Trump, addressing loyalists at a rally in the key swing state, it altered the tone of Republicans’ big Milwaukee party — though cracks in the Trump campaign’s unity push started to show on Tuesday night and opened wider on Wednesday as speakers more in line with Trump’s MAGA movement lambasted Democrats.
Peter Navarro, a former Trump White House economic adviser who earlier Wednesday was released from a federal prison in Miami, contended on stage that “Joe Biden and his ‘department of injustice’ put me there.” He also warned convention-goers “they will come for you,” adding: “If we don’t control our government, their government will control us.”
Still, Ian Bergstrom, a delegate from Nassau County, N.Y., said he expects a “more reserved” message from Trump following his near-miss with death. “I think he’s had a realization that the political discourse has really gotten to be too much.”
“I think that the criminal prosecution and the assassination attempt has really had an impact on him, so I think he’ll give a more focused speech.” Musholt added, sitting outside the Fiserv Forum on Wednesday under a mild Wisconsin sun. “I think, and I do hope, that he’ll focus on the best interests of America.”
Should the typically bombastic Trump opt to dial things down during his prime-time address, it would offer a stark contrast to his first nominating convention way back in the summer of 2016.
“Lock her up!”
The chant echoed through a Cleveland arena during the 2016 Republican National Convention on a mid-July night. The phrase already had become a cornerstone of Trump’s first White House campaign, and former Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was egging on Trump’s loyalists.
“Now is the time for a leader that is honest and strong, a leader who will stand up for America and make absolutely clear that if you cross her path, you will pay the price,” Flynn said as the audience began to stir. “We do not need a weak, spineless president who is more concerned about issuing apologies than protecting Americans. … We do not need a reckless president who believes she is above the law.”
Whipped into a frenzy, the MAGA crowd began to chant for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee that year, to be thrown in the slammer for using a private email server while she was secretary of State. “Lock her up, that’s right,” Flynn quipped.
Months later, at a rally in Reno, Nev., Trump contended Clinton “shouldn’t be allowed to run” because “if she were to win this election, it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis. In that situation, we could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and, ultimately, a criminal trial. It would grind government to a halt.”
‘Resounding applause’
Fast forward eight years.
Trump at one time faced over 90 criminal charges, and has been convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He was found liable for sexually abusing in 1996 the writer E. Jean Carroll, with a jury awarding her $5 million. In another, he was hit with a $450 million civil fine for inflating property values and falsifying financial statements to obtain more favorable loan terms. Clinton, an occasional surrogate for Biden, was never charged with a crime.
Yet, there have been no chants of “Lock [somebody] up!” inside the Milwaukee arena this week as some question how hard Trump should go after prosecutors. (Perhaps complicating such messaging is that Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, has been convicted on federal gun-related charges, and just this week Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., was convicted on federal fraud charges — both cases brought by the Justice Department President Biden oversees. Both Democrats face the prospect of prison time.
“Probably two-thirds of Americans think one candidate is too old, Biden, and the other too dangerous, Trump,” former GOP Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania said in a recent telephone interview. “Their debate last month simply verified those concerns.”
Before the shooting, Trump had often referred to the Biden clan as a “crime family,” and called its patriarch “Crooked Joe.” He had floated the notion that, if elected again, he would use the Justice Department and FBI as a personal police and prosecution force to go after his political and legal enemies. And he has pushed unproven allegations about a “rigged” 2020 election and warned his loyalists that Democrats already have been “cheating” during 2024 primary elections — even urging them to “police” their local polling stations in November.
But Aaron Cutler, a former senior leadership staffer for then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said in an email that “voters are looking for leadership that addresses their needs and aspirations directly.”
“Trump’s promise to end the wars, secure the border, and grow the economy offer a compelling contrast to Mr. Biden’s defensive campaign strategy — and apparently nonexistent vision for a second term,” Cutler added.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., expects Trump to call for not just GOP, but national unity, predicting, “he’s going to get resounding applause and support, as he should — he literally took a bullet for our country.”
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