- President Trump formally accepted the Republican presidential nomination for a third time on Thursday.
- It was his first speech since the assassination attempt and the longest acceptance speech in history.
- He talked about the incident and even showed me the medical records that he claims saved his life.
On Thursday night, former President Donald Trump formally accepted the Republican Party’s presidential nomination for a third time.
The speech, delivered at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, lasted approximately one hour and 32 minutes, making it apparently the longest speech in American history.
It was the former president’s first public speech since a gunman tried to assassinate him at a rally in Pennsylvania last Saturday, after which he said he planned to rewrite his speech and focus on unity.
It was also Trump’s first speech since selecting Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate, and came as his main rival, President Joe Biden, appeared to be in the twilight years of his candidacy.
The speech was long and at times disorganized, and covered many of the same themes as previous election speeches.
Here are the eight most important takeaways from President Trump’s Thursday night speech.
1. Trump described the assassination attempt in harrowing detail.
Trump, wearing the large earmuffs he’d worn throughout the convention, began his speech by addressing Saturday’s assassination attempt.
“I’m going to tell you exactly what happened,” Trump said, “and you’ll never hear it from me again, because it’s too painful to tell.”
The audience fell silent as he detailed the attempt on his life, describing the “loud whoosh” of a bullet grazed his ear.
“My hands were covered in blood,” Trump said, describing what happened after he put his hand to his ear. “There was just blood everywhere.”
He elaborated, saying the crowd didn’t move because they saw the blood and thought he might be dead.
“Here’s an interesting statistic: The ear is the part that bleeds the most. When something happens to the ear, for whatever reason, it bleeds more than any other part of the body,” Trump said. “So we learned something.”
2. He recognized Corey Comperatore, who was murdered at the rally.
On stage with Trump was always displayed the fire equipment of former fire chief Corey Comperatore, who was shot and killed at a rally in Pennsylvania.
“But Corey — and I have to say, unfortunately, he was a wonderful person,” Trump said, adding that he called Comperatore’s wife, Helen, on Thursday.
At one point, Trump stepped away from the microphone to kiss Comperatore’s firefighting gear, including his jacket and helmet.
3. He used the assassination attempt to his advantage
At the end of the day, Trump is still Trump.
As he wrapped up his discussion of the Pennsylvania rally, Trump began talking about the numerous lawsuits he has faced over the past few years.
“We cannot criminalize dissent or demonize political disagreements. We have seen that happen to a level we’ve never seen in our country recently,” Trump said. “In that spirit, Democrats must immediately stop weaponizing our justice system and branding their political opponents as enemies of democracy.”
He also touted Judge Eileen Cannon’s dismissal of a classified documents lawsuit against him, which is likely to be appealed.
“If Democrats want to unite our country, they need to end the partisan witch hunt that I’ve been living through for nearly eight years,” Trump said.
4. Trump said his new vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, “will be in the job for a long time.”
Earlier this week, Trump picked Vance, one of the former president’s staunchest supporters in the Senate, as his running mate.
In his first public comments since being elected, Trump said he was “thrilled to have a new friend and partner fighting alongside me.”
He also mentioned Vance’s wife, Usha, and made a point of noting the fact that the two attended Yale Law School.
“It’s an honor to elect him. He was a brilliant student at Yale. His wife was a brilliant student at Yale. They met at Yale. They’re both smart people,” Trump said. “JD, you’re going to be in this for a long time. Have fun.”
Vance, who turns 40 next month, is one of the youngest vice presidential candidates in US history, putting him within striking distance of becoming president if Trump wins and well-positioned to become the Republican standard-bearer in 2028.
5. Despite promising “unity,” the speech wasn’t all that unifying.
Trump promised a speech focused on unity.
Though Trump’s rhetoric has been noticeably calmer, he has made many inflammatory statements about his political opponents — at one point saying Democrats are “destroying our country” — and continued to lie about the results of the 2020 election.
“We don’t have people who are intense,” Trump said while speaking about foreign wars. “We have people who are not as intense, except when it comes to stealing elections and a few other things. In those cases, they are intense.”
He also directly attacked Biden.
“You could name the 10 worst presidents in the history of the United States, and just think about it, you could put the 10 worst people together and they wouldn’t have done the damage that Biden has done,” Trump said. “I’m only going to use that word once. Biden, I’m not going to use that name anymore. Just once.”
6. President Trump called for the removal of UAW President Sean Fain, highlighting the Republican Party’s struggle to win union support.
President Trump’s speech was filled with attacks on union members, claiming that “unions are suffering” because of illegal immigration.
At one point, he harshly criticized President Trump and directly criticized Sean Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers union, who endorsed Biden for president in January.
He called for an end to Biden’s electric vehicle mandate, arguing the policy leads to manufacturing moving overseas, saying “the unions should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to happen and the leadership of the United Auto Workers should be fired immediately.”
Electric vehicle policy has been central to Republican efforts to win over autoworkers, including during the United Auto Workers strike last fall. While Fain and the UAW have expressed concerns about electric vehicles, they have not outright rejected Biden’s platform on the issue.
“The problem we have is we have people like Sean Fain bashing Donald Trump,” Vance, now Trump’s running mate, told Business Insider in September. “At least keep your mouth shut and get help wherever you can.”
As Trump continued speaking, the UAW fired back, calling him a “billionaire strikebreaker.”
7. Trump showed a chart he was looking at the day he was shot, claiming it may have saved his life.
President Trump survived last Saturday’s assassination attempt in large part because his head was turned to the side as he was being pointed at a chart produced by the Border Patrol showing illegal immigration in recent years.
About an hour into his speech, Trump showed the chart again, describing it as “the chart that saved my life.”
“The last time I put this chart out, I didn’t have a chance to actually look at it,” Trump said, “but without this chart, I wouldn’t be here today.”
8. It was the longest presidential acceptance speech in history.
Trump’s 92-minute speech on Thursday night appeared to be the longest speech ever delivered by a major party presidential candidate.
Trump surpassed the record for a nomination speech he set in 2016, when he delivered a speech that lasted nearly an hour and 15 minutes, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Trump’s 2020 speech was similarly lengthy, lasting roughly an hour and 10 minutes.
By contrast, Biden’s 2020 acceptance speech lasted less than 25 minutes.
