Trump returns to the stage. And stays and stays and stays.

MILWAUKEE — When Donald Trump emerged on stage with a bandaged ear he somberly — and emotionally — recounted how he survived an assassination attempt.

And then, he veered straight back into MAGA mode.

Over the course of a 90-plus-minute speech in Milwaukee — the longest acceptance speech by a presidential nominee in history — Trump boasted about meeting with the head of the Taliban and how he “got along very well” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He went off on MS-13, immigration, on crime declining in Venezuela by 42 percent and on the media calling him a braggart. He called the streets of Washington a “killing field.” And he cracked a joke about Hannibal Lecter: “He would love to have you for dinner.”

Trump’s crowning moment — set up to be a triumphant return to center stage just five days after a bullet pierced his ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — turned into a meandering speech that resembled his usual rallies with macabre descriptions of a nation in decline.

Any doubts about the former president’s influence over the party were put to rest this week as a convention in Milwaukee that reflected Trump’s “America First” movement in everything from the adoption of a new party platform to the “Make America Great Again” themes each night.

It also represented a stunning political victory for a former president who left the White House in disgrace less than four years ago following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters and a moment of personal triumph after he survived an assassination attempt just days ago. Trump, who will be sentenced in September in his New York criminal trial, is the first convicted felon to become a major-party presidential nominee.

The Republican Party’s apparent show of unity came at a moment of profound uncertainty for the Democratic Party. Pressure is mounting on President Joe Biden to step aside from within his own party, following a disastrous debate performance last month. Trump only mentioned Biden once, a decision that reflects a new reality of the race: Biden may soon no longer be a candidate.

That wasn’t a dynamic Trump acknowledged Thursday night. Instead, he used the top of his keynote address at the Republican convention to process the assassination attempt the nation had witnessed days before.

Speaking slowly and somberly, Trump detailed his brush with death on Saturday, saying it would be the only time he did so, because “it’s too painful to tell.” As the crowd sat in near silence, Trump described the moment a bullet struck his ear — when he felt a pain and thought to himself “it can only be a bullet.”

“I am not supposed to be here tonight,” Trump said, drawing chants of “Yes you are!” from the crowd. “I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God. Many people say it was a providential moment.”

He paid tribute to Corey Comperatore, who was killed at the rally — at one point walking over to a display of his firefighter’s uniform, bending to kiss the helmet.

He also gave his family a starring role. Former first lady Melania Trump has taken a low-profile approach throughout the campaign and stayed away from the trail. Yet she was seated in the VIP box as Trump spoke, and she joined him onstage after he finished and the balloons began to fall. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, who served in his White House but who has also been absent from his 2024 campaign, was also in the arena.

Soon, though, Trump pivoted to a message that sounded more like his typical rally speeches, with descriptions of violence and mayhem at the southern border and promises to end conflicts abroad without elaborating on any specifics.

Biden campaign co-Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon issued a statement after the speech saying Trump “rambled on for well over an hour and failed to mention” some of the election’s biggest issues, including abortion. And she again yoked Trump to Project 2025, a proposed conservative blueprint for the next Republican administration that the former president has tried to distance himself from.

Trump “sought to find problems with America, not to provide solutions. But after all, it was Donald Trump who destroyed our economy, ripped away rights, and failed middle class families. Now he pursues the presidency with an even more extreme vision for where he wants to take this country,” O’Malley Dillon said. “President Biden is more determined than ever to defeat Donald Trump and his Project 2025 agenda in November.”

But while Trump used the speech to attack Democratic policies, he also issued calls for national unity and tried to make appeals beyond just his base. He declared that he was “running to be president for all of America, not half of America,” because “there is no victory in winning for half of America.”

Trump nodded to voters who did not support him in the past, saying he will “extend to you a hand of loyalty and friendship,” despite political party, race or gender. It was part of the theme of this year’s convention programming, which was tailored in part to appeal to independent and more traditionally Democratic voters.

“As long as our energies are spent fighting each other, our destiny will remain out of reach,” Trump said. “We must instead take that energy and use it to realize our country’s true potential — and write our own thrilling chapter of the American story.”