MILWAUKEE: Donald Trump began the second day of the 2024 Republican Party convention on Tuesday with a visual reminder of his recent assassination attempt, a young running mate who shares his hardline populist views and the backing of the world’s richest person. Trump’s rapturous reception at the Republican National Convention on Monday made clear that he enjoys the enthusiastic support of his party — a marked contrast to President Joe Biden, who has faced a wave of calls from his fellow Democrats to abandon his re-election bid.

The Republican former president walked into the Fiserv Forum in downtown Milwaukee to an uproarious response, his ear heavily bandaged from having been grazed by a bullet, hours after he was officially nominated to be the party’s 2024 standard-bearer. “Fight! Fight! Fight!” the crowd chanted while pumping their fists, echoing Trump’s own defiant response in the moments after he was shot. Uncharacteristically subdued, Trump, 78, waved from a box

where he sat alongside his newly anointed running mate, US Senator J D Vance, 39. Turning his back on previous Republican opposition to Trump, whom he once said might be “America’s Hitler”, Vance reinvented himself and ultimately won the ex-president’s endorsement in the 2022 Ohio Senate race, launching his meteoric rise. Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, was expected to address the convention on Tuesday, despite having mounted a spirited primary challenge to Trump.

The convention’s opening night also featured a speech from the head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters labor union, an unusual decision for a party that has traditionally favored business owners. While Teamsters head Sean O’Brien did not endorse Trump, he also might not endorse Biden either, which would be the first time since 1996 that the union does not back the Democratic candidate.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that Elon Musk has said he plans to commit around $45 million per month to a pro-Trump political action committee. The Tesla chief executive, who is the world’s richest person, endorsed Trump on Saturday following that assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania campaign rally. The attack raised fears of a more deeply fractured political landscape ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

Biden, who has portrayed Trump as a threat to US democracy, condemned the shooting and urged Americans to rely on the ballot box, not violence, to resolve their differences. Authorities were still trying to identify a motive for the shooting, after the gunman was killed by the US Secret Service. In an NBC interview broadcast opposite the convention on Monday evening, Biden said he made a mistake by saying Trump should be put in the “bullseye” politically last week but added that Trump has frequently employed violent rhetoric on the campaign trail.

Biden has ordered an independent review to determine how the gunman could have come so close to killing Trump despite the Secret Service’s heavy security presence. The four-day convention will culminate with Trump’s prime-time address on Thursday, when he formally accepts the party’s nomination to face Biden in a rematch of their 2020 race. The assassination attempt, followed by the convention, has pushed Biden to the background after weeks of speculation about whether he might drop out of the race after a disastrous debate performance last month raised fresh questions about his age and mental acuity.

Biden again rejected the notion on Monday when pressed by NBC’s Lester Holt, focusing instead on the myriad falsehoods Trump unleashed during the debate. The president has stepped up his unscripted appearances to try to demonstrate his capability but has yet to assuage some Democrats’ fears about his reelection chances.

Trump’s selection of Vance, the author of the best-selling “Hillbilly Elegy”, completed the Ohio senator’s transformation from an outspoken Trump critic to one of his most loyal supporters. Vance, who shares Trump’s affinity for political brawling, is likely to energize core Republicans, but it is less clear whether he can broaden the ticket’s appeal to moderate and independent voters wary of another Trump term.

Biden called Vance a Trump “clone” on Monday, and Democrats pounced on Vance’s opposition to abortion rights, an issue that has proven damaging to Republicans. In a Fox News appearance on Monday night, Vance said he backed Trump’s position that each state should decide for itself whether to permit abortion. The race between Trump and Biden remains close, according to public opinion polls, though Trump leads in several swing states likely to decide the election.

Monday began with the latest in a string of recent legal victories for Trump, when US District Judge Aileen Cannon threw out federal charges in Florida accusing him of illegally retaining classified documents. Trump is due to be sentenced in New York in September for trying to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the weeks before his 2016 election victory.

But his other two indictments on federal charges in Washington and state charges in Georgia – both related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat – are mired in delays and could be imperiled after the US Supreme Court ruled in July that he had immunity for many of his official acts as president. – Agencies