Former US President Donald Trump will take the stage at the Republican National Convention (RNC), where he will deliver a speech as the party's standard-bearer just five days after surviving an assassination attempt.
Thursday night's speech will cap a convention that has largely been a reminder of how Trump's populist, pugilistic politics have transformed the Republican Party.
But his representatives have said Trump will adopt a more unifying message in the wake of Saturday's attack, in which a gunman's bullet grazed his ear.
Trump has said he rewrote his speech after surviving the incident at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. His family and close allies have maintained that the president has changed profoundly, as Trump and his supporters at the Republican National Convention have repeatedly referred to the incident as an act of God.
“I think we're going to see a little bit of a different version of Donald Trump tonight, maybe a little bit of a softer version than some people at home have seen in the past,” Republican National Committee co-chair and Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump told CBS News on Thursday.
“I don't think anyone can go through what he went through on Saturday, truly a near-death experience, and not come out the other side shaken,” he said.
Donald Trump Jr. echoed the same sentiment.
“It’s going to be tough when it has to be. We’ve seen that. It’s never going to change,” the former president’s eldest son said at an event for the news site Axios. “But I think something will happen. I think these are momentous occasions that change people permanently.”
Political observers have wondered what Trump's more unifying message will actually look like and to whom it will apply.
Though Trump told the Washington Examiner this week that the attack is an “opportunity to unite the entire country, even the entire world,” he and his supporters have also mixed their message with one of defiance.
Trump's recently announced running mate, Sen. JD Vance, said shortly after the shooting that President Joe Biden's campaign rhetoric had led to the assassination attempt, though he has since backed away from the claim.
Republican National Convention attendees seized on Trump’s chant in the aftermath of the attack, and the slogan “fight, fight, fight” became a rallying cry. Wearing a bandage over one’s ear like Trump has become a symbol of solidarity.
Continuing the theme, Trump will also be introduced by Ultimate Fighting Championship Chairman and CEO Dana White and former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan on Thursday.
Reporting from the convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Al Jazeera's Patty Culhane said the party's platform, which has been heavily influenced by Trump, has yet to reflect the promised change in tone.
“He is expected to say he is going to unify the country, but the platform – what the party says it is going to use – is deeply divisive,” he said.
It includes promises to expel millions of undocumented immigrants, reinstate travel bans on some Muslim-majority countries, close the federal Department of Education and cut funding to schools based on how they teach about race and gender.
The party’s platform also pledges to “hold accountable those who have abused the power of government to unfairly prosecute their political opponents,” which appears to be a reference to Trump’s conviction in a New York court in May on charges related to hush money payments to an adult film star, as well as his two other criminal trials related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Biden.
Democrats divided
Thursday's speech comes after a series of political victories for Trump in recent weeks.
On Monday, a Florida judge dismissed a federal case involving the concealment and hoarding of classified documents after leaving the White House. This came after the Supreme Court ruled that US presidents enjoy broader immunity from prosecution than previously defined.
Democrats are also increasingly divided over the viability of Biden's candidacy after a weak performance in last month's debate.
On Thursday, US media reported that several top Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have pressured Biden to reconsider his candidacy.
That news came just hours after the White House announced that Biden had tested positive for COVID-19 while campaigning in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
