Moderate and dignified, Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination and promised to unify a divided country.
“As Americans, we are bound together by a common destiny and a common destiny,” he said. “Together we rise or we fall apart. I’m running for president for all of America, not half of America, because for half of America winning doesn’t mean winning.”
It was his first public speech since Saturday at a rally in Butler, Pa., where a bullet struck him in the ear, killing one attendee and wounding two others.
Trump said he rewrote his grand nomination speech in the days leading up to the speech to project a tone of unity after his near-death experience.
watch: JD Vance, Hulk Hogan, Dana White and other RNC speeches
Trump’s speeches in 2020 and 2016
He has held a convention-ending berth twice before, once in 2016 as then-candidate Trump and again in 2020 as the sitting president.
As early as 2016, Trump focused on America’s fight against crime, terrorism and immigration, and his plans to address them. NPR annotated Trump’s remarks that night — and did some fact-checking where necessary.
In 2020, Trump delivered speeches from different angles. In his speech that year, he harshly criticized then-candidate Joe Biden, railed against “cancel culture” and repeatedly invoked the sinister image of a “socialist agenda.”
In 2020, the Republican National Committee followed the Democratic National Committee, allowing Trump to directly refute Biden’s vision for America’s future. NPR annotated Trump’s 2020 remarks (and Biden’s, if you’re interested.)
