In her speech Tuesday at the Republican National Convention, Lara Trump, co-chair of the RNC, sought to soften the image of her father-in-law, former President Donald Trump, much in the way that his eldest daughter had done in 2016.
Lara Trump relied heavily on the shooting on Saturday at Trump’s Pennsylvania campaign rally that left him wounded, killed one spectator and seriously injured two others.
“Nothing prepares you for a moment like that,” she said of the shooting, adding that she had quickly reached for the remote and shielded her young children from the television “so that they’re not witness to something that scars the memory of their grandpa for the rest of their lives.”
A fierce supporter of her father-in-law who for years defended his presidency as a Fox News analyst, Lara Trump said, “Maybe you got to see a side of Donald Trump on Saturday that you were not sure existed, until you saw it with your own eyes.”
While many other speakers at the nominating convention have invoked the shooting, Lara Trump, who is married to Trump’s son Eric and was recruited by the former president to lead the RNC, did so with a personal touch that other speeches lacked.
“There’s no doubt that Saturday was one of the most frightening moments of my father-in-law’s life. Millimeters separated him from life and certain death,” she said. “And yet, it was in the midst of it all, as he was jostled offstage by Secret Service that he knew how defining that moment would be for our country and he foisted his fist in the air.”
