The official theme was crime and safety. But key speakers, including Lara Trump and Nikki Haley, described former President Donald Trump as a family man and a unifier — despite his divisive persona.
The speech Lara Trump originally wrote was not the speech she delivered Tuesday night at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Instead, she recalled the moment she realized what had happened to former President Donald Trump at his rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
« Our family has faced our fair share of death threats . none of that prepares you as a daughter-in-law to watch in real time someone try to kill a person you love », she said.
« None of that prepares you as a mother to quickly reach for the remote and turn your young children away from the screen so that they’re not witness to something that scars the memory of their grandpa for the rest of their lives. »
Officially, the theme for Day 2 of the convention was crime and safety — speakers told harrowing stories of family members who had been killed or died of drug overdose. But underlying that message was an attempt to humanize the president, primarily by women in Trump’s close personal and political orbit.
Their remarks aimed to counter the criticism that Trump has faced over his past treatment of women and his combative campaign persona.
The assassination attempt, at least for Lara Trump, was a clear focal point in this effort to reframe who Trump is for a large audience. Trump is known for tough talk, but the women Tuesday night described him as a compassionate unifier.
Lara Trump intertwined both praise for the former president’s political record and personal anecdotes of who he is in their family: father, grandfather and father-in-law.
