MILWAUKEE/WASHINGTON - Former US president Donald Trump formally accepted the GOP presidential nomination Thursday night at the Republican National Convention being held in Milwaukee, the US state of Wisconsin.
At the convention, Trump described how he narrowly survived an attempt on his life, telling a rapt audience in his first speech since the attack that he was only there "by the grace of Almighty God".
"I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard on my right ear," he said during a 14-minute account, a thick bandage still covering his ear. "I said to myself, 'Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet."
When he told the Milwaukee crowd that he was "not supposed to be here," the delegates chanted back, "Yes you are!"
READ MORE: Four in five Americans fear country is sliding into chaos, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds
The former president struck an unusually conciliatory tone during the speech's opening moments.
"I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America," he said, in a marked shift in tenor for the typically bellicose former president.
But he swiftly pivoted to well-worn attacks on the Biden administration, which he said was "destroying" the country. He claimed without evidence that his criminal indictments were part of a Democratic conspiracy, predicted President Joe Biden, his Democratic rival, would usher in "World War III", and described what he called an "invasion" of migrants over the southern border.
READ MORE: Trump picks Ohio senator J.D. Vance as running mate
In the meandering remarks that followed - at 90-plus minutes the longest convention speech in history - Trump abandoned the message of unity he had promised to embrace in favor of his usual mixture of bombast and grievance, repeating his false claim that Democrats stole the 2020 election.
Trump asserted, as he has throughout his political career, that only he was capable of saving the country from certain doom.
"I could stop wars with a telephone call," he said.
The speech capped a four-day event during which he was greeted with adulation by a party now almost entirely in his thrall.
ALSO READ: Suspect came within inches of killing Trump, but left few clues as to why
Trump devoted much of his speech to attacking migrants, a theme that has always animated his presidential campaigns.
"They're coming from prisons, they're coming from jails, they're coming from mental institutions and insane asylums," he said, before citing by name several Americans who were murdered by suspects in the country illegally.
There is no evidence foreign governments are intentionally sending such people to the US Academic studies show that immigrants do not commit crime at a higher rate than native-born Americans.
The speech broke Trump's own 2016 record for the longest delivered by a nominee, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California in Santa Barbara. His 2020 convention address, delivered at the White House, was the third longest ever.
ALSO READ: After assassination attempt, Trump and Biden seek calm, unity
After Trump concluded, his family and that of his running mate, Senator JD Vance, walked onto the stage as balloons dropped from the ceiling. His wife Melania Trump, who is rarely seen on the campaign trail, joined him on Thursday for the first time this week.
Vance, at 39 half Trump's age, is widely seen as the ideological heir to Trump's Make America Great Movement.
"JD, you're gonna be doing this for a long time," Trump said. "Enjoy the ride."
In a statement, Biden campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon said Trump had presented only problems, not solutions.
"It was Donald Trump who destroyed our economy, ripped away rights, and failed middle class families," she said. "Now he pursues the presidency with an even more extreme vision for where he wants to take this country."
With Xinhua inputs
