Jeff Burns was excited to attend his first in-person Republican National Convention, spend time with fellow conservatives (a rarity for a Bay Area Republican voter) and celebrate former President Trump being officially named the party’s nominee for 2024.
What's more, when Burns flew to Milwaukee on Saturday, he was sitting next to veteran Republican strategist Karl Rove. But then images of Trump recoiling from a would-be assassin's bullet appeared on their seatback monitors.
In an instant, he said, “the gravity of the world we live in and the extremism and the violence and the rhetoric of both parties” came to the fore.
What was supposed to be a joyous moment had “completely transformed,” she said Sunday. “I’m still trying to come to terms with it.”
Those are the emotions swirling as Burns and other delegates gather for the four-day convention, which begins Monday in Milwaukee. There is relief that Trump survives, dismay that such a thing could happen and determination to press on.
Burns, 52, a Danville resident and chairman of the Contra Costa Republican Party in Northern California, said images of a bloodied Trump defiantly raising his fist have become iconic. Trump already excites his audience, but Burns predicted his appearance at the convention would be electrifying.
“When he comes on stage, even just to say hello, it will be like the Beatles,” he said.
Burns is among roughly 2,400 delegates, as well as tens of thousands of elected officials, donors, guests, journalists and others, gathered in and around Fiserv Forum.
Given the number of high-profile potential targets, security around such events has always been heightened around political conventions, but has now been intensified in the wake of the assassination attempt.
Convention organizers had already been coordinating with 40 law enforcement agencies, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley told Fox News on Sunday.
“The stadium is ready, security is here and we feel very comfortable working with the Secret Service,” Whatley said, adding that there was “no place” in the country’s politics for the “horrible” violence that unfolded Saturday at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania.
But he added that the violence would not stop the convention or the work of the delegates.
Delegates are expected to approve the party's platform on Monday, the day under the banner of “Make America Rich Again.”
The next three days will also have themes.
• Tuesday: “Make America Safe Again”
• Wednesday: “Make America Strong Again”
• Thursday: “Make America Great Again”
“We’re here in Milwaukee and the show is going to happen,” Whatley said. “It’s tremendously important for us as a country that the Republican Party moves forward. We’re going to be strong. We’re going to be resilient, and certainly President Trump will be strong and resilient.”
Trump, who was said to be “doing fine” after being bloodied by a bullet, arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday.
As Burns said, the photo of Trump raising his fist after he was shot and rushed off the stage by Secret Service agents — as an American flag fluttered in the background — has become an iconic image of the moment.
It was on the front of a red T-shirt worn by Shane Kruchten, 39, of San Diego, as he disembarked from a plane in Milwaukee on Sunday. His baseball cap also urged people, in rather racy language, to vote for the former president.
“Obviously, tensions are rising,” said Kruchten, a private security agent and owner of a construction company. “Things are going to get crazy. But there are still people who come out because, at the end of the day, they love America. And America comes first.”
“We know what is needed. This country is needed. It is founded on God. It needs God to be back in it, and evil spirits are trying to invade it and we are here to fight.”
Kruchten said he worked for War Room, a podcast founded in 2017 by Trump's White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who is jailed after being convicted of contempt of Congress.
Wisconsin is a key swing state that President Biden won by less than 1% over Trump in 2020 and is critical to winning the White House in November. Democrats in and around Milwaukee — longtime liberal strongholds — denounced the assassination attempt but also worried about what could happen during the convention.
“I hope this week is peaceful, that there is no violence. There is no place for that,” said Amy Yetson, a 47-year-old life insurer who is registered as a Democrat. “I hope everyone can have their say, but that everyone stays safe.”
Burns, who was staying in nearby Brookfield with other members of the California Republican delegation, was heartened to see Trump’s plane land in Milwaukee on Sunday. He then watched Biden’s Oval Office speech at a hotel bar, where he sipped a Sonoma-Cutrer chardonnay.
“We debate and we disagree, we compare and contrast the candidate’s character, their record, the issues, the agenda, the vision for America,” Biden said. “But in America, we resolve our differences at the ballot box. That’s how we do it, at the ballot box.” Not with bullets.”
While he wasn't thrilled with some of Biden's words in recent days about how it was “time to call Trump on his word,” Burns said he thought the president “did a good job” and “said the right things.”
He said he would like to see both men appeal to Americans' better angels, and he hoped Trump would do the same when he accepts the Republican Party nomination on Thursday.
“We’ll see. It’s politics and it’s a hand-to-hand sport,” he said. “We’re all Americans. I live in a Democratic state and a Democratic county. I work overtime to spend time with people and have friendships with people who don’t agree with me at all. And we put that aside. And that’s America and I think that’s healthy.”
