 "Trump’s bandaged ear, a 39-year-old VP pick and more: Inside Day 1 of the Republican National Convention")
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stole the show after making a grand entrance at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday (July 15), just 48 hours after he was shot at in an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. Appearing at the Centre with a bandaged ear, he announced Ohio Senator JD Vance, 39, as his running mate. This announcement has breathed new life into a campaign that has been questioning the significance of age since US President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance.
Saturday’s shooting incident loomed over the convention with speakers expressing gratitude for the former president’s survival and resolving to win back the White House in November. It was one of the many memorable moments on a day that Republican delegates officially nominated Trump for the third consecutive presidential election, confirmed Vance as his running mate and opened a four-day convention aimed at making the case for another Trump term and against reelecting Biden.
Here are some takeaways from the first day of the convention.
Trump’s grand entrance
Just two days after a gunman tried to kill him , Trump walked into the convention hall with a bandage over his injured right ear as the singer Lee Greewood performed “God Bless the USA,” a regular feature of the former president’s rallies. Trump waved to the crowd and pumped his fist in the air, a gesture that has taken on new meaning after he made a similar motion from the stage as Secret Service agents whisked him to safety after the shooting.
The crowd stood and cheered with delight at the sight of their nominee. Trump, who is rarely left without words, made no formal comments. But the sight of him said plenty, offering a palpable reminder of the former president’s narrow miss from tragedy.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsHe then greeted his family before taking a seat between Vance and commentator Tucker Carlson.
JD Vance takes centre stage
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is arguably responsible for the Grand Old Party’s (GOP) biggest policy accomplishments, particularly in installing conservative judges at all levels of the judiciary. But that didn’t matter much to the Trump-friendly crowd at the RNC, which greeted the Kentucky Republican with boos — a tangible rejection of someone demonised as an establishment Republican who has insufficiently supported the former president.
Just a short while later, Vance enjoyed a much different reception. The second-youngest US senator — and the first millennial to appear on a major party ticket — received raucous applause when he walked onto the convention floor for the first time as Trump's running mate .
The duelling moments offered a window into the changes that have swept the GOP under Trump — bookending an era in which McConnell has gone from one of his party’s most powerful leaders and incisive tacticians to getting jeered on the convention floor by his party activists.
Stylistically, McConnell and Vance couldn’t be much more different. Vance, an outspoken MAGA warrior, is one of Trump’s chief acolytes. McConnell, meanwhile, has an understated demeanour while his political sensibilities are rooted in the GOP of Ronald Reagan.
Without McConnell, however, the 39-year-old Vance’s political rise might not have been possible.
Two years ago, Vance was struggling to raise money and up against a well-funded Democratic opponent. McConnell’s super PAC swept in with more than $30 million in advertising spending.
Vance won and began his climb to prominence. McConnell, now in the twilight of his political career, will step down as the GOP’s Senate leader in November.
Labour Unions are the GOP’s new friend?
For decades, Democrats have been the party of labour unions, while Republicans have been outwardly hostile to them.
But on the opening night of the RNC, Trump threw the doors of the convention open to International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien , who delivered the final speech of the night and singled out both major political parties for not doing enough for working people.
If it seems unusual for a president of a major labour union to address a major gathering of Republicans, that’s because it is. For decades, the party has pushed anti-labour laws intended to curtail the ability of unions to organise.
But in his speech, which wasn’t always warmly received by Republicans in attendance, O’Brien said workers are being taken for granted and sold out to big banks, big tech, the corporate elite, as well as both parties in Washington.
His speech amounted to criticism of Biden, who often likes to boast that he’s “the most pro-union president in history.”
As Trump continues to scramble American politics and position himself as a champion of working people, O’Brien appeared to be making clear that Democrats shouldn’t take labor for granted.
“We are not beholden to anyone or any party,” O’Brien said.
Criticisms of transgender people and more
The first night of the RNC was supposed to be about the economy , aiming to unite voters of all ideological persuasions who are frustrated by high prices. But some of the biggest applause lines came from harsh criticisms of transgender people.
It’s a reminder that cultural issues motivate the GOP base as much as financial ones. A trio of speakers unabashedly went after Democrats who have sought greater acceptance for transgender people. Of particular outrage to Republicans this year was Biden marking Transgender Day of Visibility. It happened to overlap with Easter in 2024, a byproduct of the Christian holiday being based on the lunar calendar.
To many in the LGBTQ+ community, it was a coincidence. But to many Republicans, it was an insult.
“They promised normalcy and gave us Transgender Visibility Day on Easter Sunday,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. “And let me state this clearly, there are only two genders.”
Other Republicans sought to make the issue a matter of fairness. Their argument was that it’s wrong to ask “girls” to compete against transgender athletes. The Biden administration proposed a rule in April that would prevent schools and colleges from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes, a rule that was quickly challenged in court.
Senator Ron Johnson said at the convention it was all part of a “fringe agenda” that “includes biological males competing against girls.”
Representative John James of Michigan tried to equate it to part of a broader critique of Democrats, saying that they promised to offer the country hope and had failed. “Our daughters were sold on hope, and now they’re being forced on the playing fields and changing rooms with biological males,” James said.
The attack on Biden over inflation
To hear Republicans tell it, inflation had crushed the US economy and it’s all Biden’s fault.
The argument is a key message for voters who may have doubts about Trump’s ethics but still trust his economic judgment. None of the speeches at the convention offered much of a detailed explanation as to why prices went up. That would require acknowledging the broken supply chains after the pandemic as well as how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed up food and energy costs. But Biden pushed through $1.9 trillion in pandemic aid and the GOP argued that Americans have suffered as a result of paying more for groceries and gasoline.
This was all about taking the troubling inflation data and ignoring the positives in the economy such as a strong job market and solid growth as the economy has recovered.
“So many American families have to live with so much less,” said Senator Katie Britt. “This is too high a price to pay for an administration that has brought us to such lows.”
But how would the GOP fix inflation?
The speakers never really gave a plan, other than simply returning Trump to the White House.
With inputs from AP
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