Martha Kellner, US correspondent
Over the four days of the convention, he projected a softer, more genial demeanor than the Donald Trump we’re used to, reassuring in the knowledge that there was, in his words, “a lot of love in the room.”
That accurately describes the atmosphere inside the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee. His experience has changed how he relates to his audience.
They listened in absolute silence to Trump’s first-hand account of the assassination attempt, between bouts of applause.
It was a moving story about a man on the brink of death.
“It was a warm, beautiful evening in Butler County, Pennsylvania,” he recalled, slowly and in careful detail describing how a bullet passed through the top of his right ear and he fell to the floor.
Trump has always inspired a cult-like following among his supporters, but this week that was elevated to worship and reverence.
As Trump recounted “blood coming out everywhere” and Secret Service officers wrestling him to the ground, some delegates wiped away tears and others raised their hands in prayer, almost like a gospel service.
“In a way, I felt very safe because I had God on my side,” Trump said. There was an almost religious feel to the arena.
“You shouldn’t be here tonight,” he said, and they shouted back at him, “Yeah, you’re here.” It was support, it was synergy, and it sounded unstoppable.
On politics, he declared, “I’m running for president not for half of America, but for all of America, because winning for half of America is not winning.” These were the words of a Republican candidate who has called for unity.
That has been a theme throughout the four-day convention, with Donald Trump saying he had scrapped an earlier speech he described as “tumultuous” in order to make it less angry and more conciliatory.
If it started out that way, it evolved into the Donald Trump campaign of yore.
In a speech the length of a feature film, Trump made room to call on Democrats to stop “weaponizing” the justice system and complain about a “partisan witch hunt” against him.
He also went off script to attack “Crazy Nancy Pelosi,” the former House speaker whose office was also a target in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and whose elderly husband was the victim of a politically motivated hammer attack two years ago.
Though the campaign had said it would not mention Joe Biden by name, he clearly couldn’t resist: “I’m only going to use that phrase once,” he said, before repeating it.
Certainly there was more division than unity. There were familiar chants of election fraud and talk of an immigrant “invasion.” This was “them versus us” Donald Trump.
The speech marked the return from obscurity of Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, who wore the Republican Party’s red roster.
She hasn’t been seen in public with her husband in months – in fact, she’s kept such a low profile that one of the country’s biggest newspapers superimposed her face onto an illustration from “Where’s Wally?”
“Melania Missing” car bumper stickers were sold online and a plane flew over an American college football game with a banner reading “Where’s Melania?”
“My wonderful wife,” Donald Trump said, pointing to Melania Trump, who was sitting in the family box, as she smiled demurely.
She offered a glimpse of femininity on a night that highlighted the macho culture of the MAGA movement.
The speech was given by veteran wrestler Hulk Hogan, who was fired by World Wrestling Entertainment after he was caught on tape ranting about his daughter sleeping with a black man and frequently using the “N” word.
He ripped his shirt open to reveal his Trump/Vance vest, eliciting deafening cheers from the crowd.
Opening for Trump was Kid Rock, who recently courted controversy after brandishing a gun at a reporter and using the “N” word during an interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
He led the crowd in a chant of “Fight, fight, fight,” which became the theme song of the tournament.
At the end of his speech, Trump promised his supporters that “the future of America will be bigger and better and bolder and brighter and happier and stronger and freer and greater and more united than ever before.”
Balloons were dropped and the Republican Convention ended in red, white, blue and gold.
The convention has been a celebration for Republicans, who are united, leading in the polls and watching their Democratic opponents stumble.
They had no doubt that they were watching the next president of the United States deliver a keynote address, even if they had previously heard the notes.
Donald Trump was a different person at the start of the night, but by the end of the night he sounded more like the Donald of old.
Same messenger, same message.
