Trump Speaks on Attack, Shifts to Usual Rhetoric

Donald Trump described how he narrowly survived an attempt on his life, telling a rapt audience at the Republican National Convention 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."

With photos of a bloodied Trump showing on screens behind him, Trump praised the Secret Service agents that rushed to his side and paid tribute to the volunteer firefighter who was killed, Corey Comperatore, kissing his fire helmet.

The former president struck an unusually conciliatory tone during the speech's opening moments, when he formally accepted the Republican presidential nomination for the Nov. 5 election.

"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 Three," and described what he called an "invasion" of migrants over the southern border.

In the meandering remarks that followed 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.

The speech capped a four-day event during which he was greeted with adulation by a party now entirely in his thrall.