MILWAUKEE — After a weekend scare involving the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, the Republican National Convention got off to an enthusiastic start Monday, according to a Surry County man attending the event.
“The energy level is ultra-high,” A.J. Daoud of Pilot Mountain said Monday by telephone from Milwaukee, where the convention began that afternoon.
“Everybody is energized,” added Daoud, a businessman associated with Cox-Needham Funeral Home in Pilot who is serving as a convention delegate and also as a sergeant of arms there, which basically includes helping to keep delegates in order.
However, the scene was not so upbeat on Saturday, when a North Carolina contingent including Daoud arrived a day early, before convention activities began.
While in their hotel lobby, they were able to monitor the events in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a lone rifleman tried to kill Trump, but only wounded him in the right ear.
“I equated it to 9/11,” Daoud said of his reaction to what was transpiring, also likening the near-tragedy to the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s.
The general feeling among he and others Saturday was “anxiety and tension,” the local man said.
However, the events they were witnessing from Pennsylvania soon provided reason for hope as Trump, blood streaming from his ear, rendered a defiant pose.
“When he did his fist pump,” Daoud recounted, “there was a big sigh of relief and cheering.”
He added, “everybody was like thanking God, ‘cause this could have been a much-worse situation.”
Strict security
When Monday rolled around, tight security surrounded the convention, as one would expect after the weekend incident.
Daoud mentioned that extra officers have been called in from outside areas, including troopers from Michigan.
Everyone was preparing to get on with the business of the Republican National Convention, which the local man said had been declared the largest in history with about 50,000 people attending.
“We just got done with the North Carolina delegation breakfast,” Daoud said Monday.
Activities later in the day were to include the first official convention session and the announcement of J.D. Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio, as Trump’s running mate.
Trump also was in attendance Monday.
Daoud and other delegates officially voted Monday to nominate Trump to be on the GOP presidential ballot for the November election.
In addition, the delegates approved a new party platform that reflects Trump’s political positions, such as a leave-it-to-states approach to abortion regulation.
It abandons the GOP’s long-standing explicit support for national restrictions on abortion.
The platform further includes plans to end inflation, make the U.S. a manufacturing superpower and provide large tax cuts for workers.
The document also contains Trump’s promise to not cut “one penny” from Social Security and Medicare.
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