MILWAUKEE ― After the attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life over the weekend, Republicans and Democrats alike called on the country to turn down the political rhetoric and unite as Americans.
It didn’t last long. On Monday morning, Trump railed against his criminal indictments, called the Jan. 6 insurrection a “hoax,” and accused Democrats of orchestrating all his legal troubles in a post on his social media site, Truth Social.
Later that afternoon, Trump announced he was selecting Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his vice presidential running mate, a loyal MAGA firebrand who blamed President Joe Biden’s rhetoric for the shooting at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, saying it “led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
And although speakers at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee were more subdued than usual during the evening prime-time hours, calling for unity after the shooting, there were still notable attacks on Democrats and their policies.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), for example, opened the slate of GOP speeches by attacking the “radical far-left agenda,” which he defined as a “fringe … that includes biological males competing against girls and the sexualization and indoctrination of our children.”
He went on to call Democratic policies “a clear and present danger to our institutions, our values and our people,” drawing cheers from the audience.
Asked later about the comment by a PBS reporter, Johnson blamed the teleprompter, saying it mistakenly loaded an older version of his speech.
“Americans don’t want welfare, they want work,” he also said in his RNC speech. ”They don’t want woke equity, they want God-given equality.”
Other RNC speakers took aim at Biden’s age and fitness to be president amid calls for the 81-year-old to step aside as Democratic presidential nominee by some members of his party.
“The current president is not capable of turning things around,” Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) said on Monday. “His weakness is costing us our opportunity, our prosperity, our safety. Each diminshed. All in decline. Just like the man in the Oval Office.”
Attendees at the convention also saw a video montage displayed on TV screens showing Biden walking up the steps of Air Force One, the presidential plane, with a narrator concluding, “He can’t even walk up steps or put on his coat.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who posted on social media that “Democrats wanted this to happen” in regard to the Trump rally shooting by a 20-year-old registered Republican whose motive is not yet known, similarly gave a more toned-down speech at the GOP convention. But she, too, couldn’t hold entirely back, railing against “globalists,” attacking transgender people and immigrants, and decrying U.S. support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.
Republicans also gave North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson a speaking slot at their convention, an eyebrow-raising decision given his long list of incendiary comments in recent years, including calling for making abortion illegal “for any reason,” mocking school shooting survivors, calling LGBTQ people “filth,” and appearing to endorse political violence in a speech last month.
“Some folks need killing!” Robinson said. “It’s time for somebody to say it.”
Robinson, who is a GOP candidate for governor in North Carolina, spoke mostly about the economy under Biden’s administration on Monday, however, steering decidedly clear of any controversy.
Democrats similarly went on offense on Monday, pointing out Vance’s record of criticizing Trump in the past and attacking him over his comments embracing abortion restrictions at the federal level last year. But the decision to keep Robinson on the list of speakers at the GOP convention was a step too far for one Democratic senator.
“In the wake of Saturday’s tragic events, nothing is changing in the Republican Party,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote Monday in a post on X, formerly called Twitter. “Tonight they put on stage the crazy right winger who said ‘some folks need killing’ in a speech talking about the political left.”
Some attendees at the convention were also skeptical about the calls for a new tone. Greg Reiman, from Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, said he didn’t know if it was possible to unify.
“How do you create unity when one side wants transgender children — to be able to become trans, change their sex — without their parents knowing about it? And the other side thinking that’s deviance? I don’t see where there’s room to compromise,” Reiman said.
