Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump takes the stage following early results from the 2024 U.S. presidential election in Palm Beach County Convention Center, in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., November 6, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

An Iranian national charged by the FBI for plotting assassination on president-elect Donald Trump was tasked by the Iranians to target Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka, the Department of Justice has alleged.

Farhad Shakeri, 51, of Iran was charged Friday (November 8, 2024) in a criminal complaint in connection with their alleged involvement in a plot to murder Mr. Trump. Shakeri is an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) asset, remains at large and is believed to reside in Tehran, Iran.

“He was also tasked with targeting Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka,” the Department of Justice said. According to documents filed in a federal court, Shakeri was asked by IRGC to target Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka and to plan a mass shooting event in October 2024.

On or about October 23, 2024, the governments of the United States and Israel publicly warned travellers about threats of an attack targeting tourist locations in the Arugam Bay area, and, on or about the following day, Sri Lankan authorities reported having arrested three individuals in connection with the threat.

On October 28, after the public travel warnings issued by the governments of the United States and Israel and after CC-2’s arrest by Sri Lankan authorities-Shaker advised the FBI that he had previously tasked CC-2 with surveilling the Israeli consulate in Sri Lanka, the Department of Justice said.

Shaker stated that he and CC-2 had served time in prison together. Shaker informed the FBI that he had provided this surveillance to IRGC Official-I. According to Shaker, after being provided surveillance on the Israeli consulate, IRGC Official I asked him to identify another target.

After this Shaker then instructed CC-2 to surveil a tourist location in Arugam Bay frequented by Israeli tourists. IRGC Official-I instructed Shaker to orchestrate a mass shooting at the Arugam Bay location. They planned that CC-2 would supply AK-47s and other weapons for the attack, federal prosecutors said.

The Justice Department disclosed an Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill Donald Trump. File photo
| Photo Credit: BRIAN SNYDER

The Justice Department on Friday disclosed an Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill Donald Trump, charging a man who said he had been tasked by a government official before this week’s election with planning the assassination of the Republican president-elect.

Investigators learned of the plan to kill Trump from Farhad Shakeri, an accused Iranian government asset who spent time in American prisons for robbery and who authorities say maintains a network of criminal associates enlisted by Tehran for surveillance and murder-for-hire plots.

Shakeri told investigators that a contact in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed him this past September to set aside other work he was doing and assemble a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan.

The official was quoted by Shakeri as saying that “We have already spent a lot of money” and that “money’s not an issue.” Shakeri told investigators the official told him that if he could not put together a plan within the seven-day timeframe, then the plot would be paused until after the election because the official assumed Trump would lose and that it would be easier to kill him then, the complaint said.

Shakeri is at large and remains in Iran. Two other men were arrested on charges that Shakeri recruited them to follow and kill prominent Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad, who has endured mulitple Iranian murder-for-hire plots foiled by law enforcement.

“I’m very shocked,” said Alinejad, speaking by telephone to The Associated Press from Berlin, where she was about to attend a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the tearing down of the wall. “This is the third attempt against me and that’s shocking.”

In a post on the social media platform X, she said: “I came to America to practice my First Amendment right to freedom of speech — I don’t want to die. I want to fight against tyranny, and I deserve to be safe. Thank you to law enforcement for protecting me, but I urge the U.S. government to protect the national security of America.”

Lawyers for the two other defendants, identified as Jonathan Loadholt and Carlisle Rivera, did not immediately return messages seeking comment. Iran’s U.N. Mission declined to comment.

Shakeri, an Afghan national who immigrated to the U.S. as a child but was later deported after spending 14 years in prison for robbery, also told investigators that he was tasked by his Revolutionary Guard contact with plotting the killings of two Jewish-Americans living in New York and Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka. Officials say he overlapped with Rivera while in prison as well as an unidentified co-conspirator.

The criminal complaint says Shakeri disclosed some of the details of the alleged plots in a series of recorded telephone interviews with FBI agents while in Iran. The stated reason for his cooperation, he told investigators, was to try to get a reduced prison sentence for an associate behind bars in the U.S.

According to the complaint, though officials determined that some of the information he provided was false, his statements regarding a plot to kill Trump and Iran’s willingness to pay large sums of money were determined to be accurate.

The plot, disclosed just days after Trump’s defeat of Democrat Kamala Harris, reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to target U.S. government officials, including Trump, on U.S. soil. Last summer, the Justice Department charged a Pakistani man with ties to Iran in a murder-for-hire plot targeting American officials.

“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Friday. FBI Director Christopher Wray said the case shows Iran’s “continued brazen attempts to target U.S. citizens,” including Trump, “other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran.”

Iranian operatives also conducted a hack-and-leak operation of emails belonging to Trump campaign associates in what officials have assessed was an effort to interfere in the presidential election.

Intelligence officials have said Iran opposed Trump’s reelection, seeing him as more likely to increase tension between Washington and Tehran. Trump’s administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions and ordered the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iran’s leaders to vow revenge.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said the president-elect was aware of the assassination plot and nothing will deter him “from returning to the White House and restoring peace around the world.”

____

Neumeister reported from New York.

A Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges stemming from an alleged plot to assassinate an American politician in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards top commander Qassem Soleimani.

Asif Merchant, 46, entered his plea to one count of attempting to commit terrorism across national boundaries and one count of murder for hire at a hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Levy in Brooklyn.

The judge ordered that Merchant be detained pending trial.

Federal prosecutors say Merchant spent time in Iran before traveling to the United States to recruit people for the plot.

Merchant told a confidential informant he also planned to steal documents from one target and organize protests in the United States, prosecutors said.

The defendant named Donald Trump as a potential target but had not conceived the scheme as a plan to assassinate the former president, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Court papers do not name the alleged targets, and no attacks were made. As president, Trump had in 2020 approved the drone strike on Soleimani.

There are no suggestions that Merchant was tied to an apparent assassination attempt on Trump at his Florida golf course on Sunday, or a separate shooting of the Republican presidential candidate at a rally in Pennsylvania in July.

Merchant wore an olive-colored prison T-shirt on top of an orange undershirt to his hearing, and sported a salt-and-pepper beard.

He is being held at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, following his July 15 arrest in Texas.

Defense lawyer Avraham Moskowitz objected at the hearing to the jail conditions.

He said Merchant was being held in isolation, had been allowed out for exercise only once in two months, and had lost 15 to 20 pounds (6.8 to 9.1 kg) because jail officials would not serve a halal diet appropriate for a Shi’ite Muslim.

“It is literally torture,” Moskowitz said.

Prosecutor Sara Winik said she would speak with the Bureau of Prisons to ensure Merchant received an adequate diet.

The bureau did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations said in August that the “modus operandi” described in Merchant’s court papers ran contrary to Tehran’s policy of “legally prosecuting the murder of General Soleimani.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A view of the Paul G. Rogers Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, where Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspect in an apparent assassination attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump, is scheduled to appear in court on September 16, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida.
| Photo Credit: AFP

A man suspected in an apparent assassination attempt targeting former President Donald Trump was charged Monday (September 16, 2024) with federal gun crimes, making his first court appearance in the final weeks of a White House race already touched by violence.

Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, faces charges of possessing a firearm despite being a convicted felon and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Additional and more serious charges are possible as the investigation continues and prosecutors seek an indictment from a grand jury.

Routh appeared briefly in federal court in West Palm Beach, where he answered perfunctory questions about his work status and income. Shackled and wearing a blue jumpsuit, he smiled as he spoke with a public defender and reviewed documents ahead of his initial appearance. The lawyer declined to comment after the court appearance.

The episode occurred Sunday (September 15, 2024) afternoon when Secret Service agents stationed a few holes up from where Mr. Trump was playing golf noticed the muzzle of an AK-style rifle sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course, roughly 400 yards away.

An agent fired and Routh dropped the rifle and fled in an SUV, leaving the firearm behind along with two backpacks, a scope used for aiming and a GoPro camera, authorities said. Routh was later stopped by law enforcement in a neighbouring county.

It was the second apparent assassination attempt targeting Mr. Trump in as many months.

On July 13, a bullet grazed Mr. Trump’s ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Eight days later, Democratic President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, giving way for Vice President Kamala Harris to become the party’s nominee.

New Delhi:

Donald Trump recalled the moment he was shot at during a rally in Pennsylvania last month and narrated the events that followed, during a live conversation with X owner Elon Musk.

Trump, who survived the assassination bid but was left with a bloodied ear, said he’s “more of a believer” now.

“I knew immediately that it was a bullet. I knew immediately that it was at the ear…,” he said as over a million listeners joined to listen to the 78-year-old former president.

“For those people that don’t believe in God, I think we all have to start thinking about that,” he added.

He also pointed out that he turned his head at the “perfect angle”, which saved his life.

“You know, I’m a believer. Now I’m more of a believer, I think. And a lot of people have said that to me. A lot of great people have said that to me, actually. But it was, it was amazing that I happened to be turned just at that perfect angle,” the Republican presidential candidate said.

The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, wounded two rally-goers and killed another before he was shot dead by the Secret Service.

Elon Musk’s much-trailed interview with Donald Trump got off to a rocky start this morning after what the tech entrepreneur said was a cyberattack on his microblogging platform.

“There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X. Working on shutting it down,” Musk, the world’s richest man, wrote earlier on the platform, formerly known as Twitter.

Former United States President Donald Trump recently revealed his wife Melania Trump’s first reaction after he was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Mr Trump was hit in the ear in an assassination bid by a gunman at a campaign rally. Blood was visible on his cheeks and mouth. The shooter was identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. He and a bystander were killed, while two spectators were critically injured.

“What was Melania’s reaction, I hope you don’t mind me asking, I know this is very personal, when she learned about what happened on that field in Butler?” Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked the former president. “She was watching live. It was all over the place, it was on television,” Mr Trump said.

“And I asked her that, I mean I wasn’t there, I was on the ground-when the world started to, when you could talk to people and said, ‘So what was your feeling,’ and she was ah, she can’t really even talk about it-“

The 45th US President continued, “Which is OK, because that means she likes me or she loves me. Let’s say if she could talk about it freely, that would be, I’m not so sure which is better but ah, she either likes or loves me, that’s nice.”

Meanwhile, the former first lady said that the gunman who opened fire at Mr Trump was a “monster”. “A monster who recognized my husband as an inhuman political machine attempted to ring out Donald’s passion — his laughter, ingenuity, love of music, and inspiration,” Melania Trump said in a statement shared on X.

“When I watched that violent bullet strike my husband, Donald, I realized my life, and Barron’s life, were on the brink of devastating change,” she said, referencing the couple’s 18-year-old son.

“I am grateful to the brave secret service agents and law enforcement officials who risked their own lives to protect my husband,” she added.

U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle enters a House of Representatives Oversight Committee hearing on the security lapses that allowed an attempted assassination of Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 22, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The director of the Secret Service said on July 23 she is resigning following the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump that unleashed intensifying outcry about how the agency tasked with protecting current and former Presidents could fail in its core mission.

Kimberly Cheatle, who had served as Secret Service director since August 2022, had been facing growing calls to resign and several investigations into how the shooter was able to get so close to the Republican presidential nominee at an outdoor campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

“I take full responsibility for the security lapse,” she said in an email to staff, obtained by The Associated Press. “In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your director.”

Ms. Cheatle’s departure was unlikely to end the scrutiny of the long-troubled agency after the failures of July 13, and it comes at a critical juncture ahead of the Democratic National Convention and a busy presidential campaign season. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have promised continued investigation, along with an inspector general probe and an independent and bipartisan effort launched at President Joe Biden’s behest that will keep the agency in the spotlight.

“The scrutiny over the last week has been intense and will continue to remain as our operational tempo increases,” Ms. Cheatle said in her note to staff.

Ms. Cheatle’s resignation comes a day after appeared before a congressional committee and was berated by hours by both Democrats and Republicans for the security failures. She called the attempt on Mr. Trump’s life the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades and said she took full responsibility for the security lapses, but she angered lawmakers by failing to answer specific questions about the investigation.

At the hearing on July 22, Ms. Cheatle remained defiant that she was the “right person” to lead the Secret Service, even as she said she took responsibility the security failures. When Republican Rep. Nancy Mace suggested Ms. Cheatle begin drafting her resignation letter from the hearing room, Ms. Cheatle responded, “No, thank you.”

The 20-year-old shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was able to get within 135m of the stage where the former President was speaking when he opened fire. That’s despite a threat on Mr. Trump’s life from Iran leading to additional security for the former President in the days before the July 13 rally.

Ms. Cheatle acknowledged on July 22 that the Secret Service was told about a suspicious person two to five times before the shooting at the rally. She also revealed that the roof from which Crooks opened fire had been identified as a potential vulnerability days before the rally. But she failed to answer many questions about what happened, including why there no agents stationed on the roof.

A bloodied Mr. Trump was quickly escorted off the stage by Secret Service agents, and agency snipers killed the shooter. Mr. Trump said the upper part of his right ear was pierced in the shooting. One rallygoer was killed, and two others were critically wounded.

“The assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on July 13th is the most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades,” Ms. Cheatle told members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. “As the Director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse.”

Details continue to unfold about signs of trouble that day and what role both the Secret Service and local authorities played in security. The agency routinely relies on local law enforcement to secure the perimeter of events where people it is protecting appear. Former top Secret Service agents said the gunman should never have been allowed to gain access to the roof.

Two days after the shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said he supported Ms. Cheatle “100%.”

But there were calls for accountability across the political spectrum, with Congressional Committees immediately moving to investigate, issuing a subpoena to testify and the top Republican leaders from both the House and the Senate saying she should step down. Mr. Biden, a Democrat, ordered an independent review into security at the rally, and the Secret Service’s inspector general opened an investigation. The agency is also reviewing its counter sniper team’s “preparedness and operations.”

In an interview with ABC News two days after the shooting, Ms. Cheatle said she wasn’t resigning. She called the shooting “unacceptable” and something that no Secret Service agent wants to happen. She said her agency is responsible for the former President’s protection: “The buck stops with me. I am the director of the Secret Service.”

Ms. Cheatle served in the Secret Service for 27 years. She left in 2021 for a job as a security executive at PepsiCo before Mr. Biden asked her to return in 2022 to head the agency with a workforce of 7,800 special agents, uniformed officers and other staff.

She took over amid a controversy over missing text messages from around the time thousands of Mr. Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, following his 2020 election loss to Mr. Biden.

During her time in the agency, Ms. Cheatle was the first woman to be named assistant director of protective operations, the division that provides protection to the president and other dignitaries, where she oversaw a $133.5 million budget. She is the second woman to lead the agency.

When Mr. Biden announced Ms. Cheatle’s appointment, he said she had served on his detail when he was Vice President and he and his wife “came to trust her judgment and counsel.”

A drone view shows the stage where Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump had been standing during an assassination attempt the day before, and the roof of a nearby building where a gunman was shot dead by law enforcement, in Butler, Pennsylvania, U.S. on July 14, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The gunman in the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump is believed to have flown a drone around the Pennsylvania rally site ahead of time in an apparent attempt to scope out the site before the event, a law enforcement official said Saturday.

The drone has been recovered by the FBI, which is leading the investigation into last Saturday’s shooting at the rally by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.

Crooks fired multiple rounds from the roof of a building adjacent to the Butler Farm Show grounds, where Trump was speaking, before being fatally shot by a Secret Service counter sniper. The existence of the device and its use at some point before the shooting could help explain why Crooks knew to fire from the point.

The official who described the drone was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. Details of the drone were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Trump said this week that one bullet clipped his right ear. A memo released Saturday by the Trump campaign and authored by Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, who served as the GOP nominee’s White House physician, said that Trump sustained a gunshot wound to the right ear from a high-powered rifle that came “less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head, and struck the top of his right ear.”

One of the bullets aimed toward Trump killed 50-year-old firefighter Corey Comperatore, a spectator who was in the bleachers. Two others were seriously wounded.

The FBI is continuing to investigate what may have motivated Crooks to carry out the attack. So far, officials have not found any ideological bent that could help explain his actions.

Investigators who searched his phone found photos of Trump, President Joe Biden and other senior government officials, and also found that he had looked up the dates for the Democratic National Conventional as well as Trump’s appearances. He also searched for information about major depressive order.

More details about the investigation are expected to be made public in the coming week when FBI Director Chris Wray appears before the House Judiciary Committee.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally, Saturday, July 20, 2024, in Grand Rapids, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
| Photo Credit: AP

Donald Trump, holding his first campaign rally Saturday since surviving an assassination attempt, dismissed concerns that he is a threat to democracy, triumphantly telling a cheering crowd: “Last week I took a bullet for democracy.”

“I’m not an extremist at all,” he continued at the rally in swing state of Michigan, dismissing his reported links to Project 2025, a radical shadow manifesto led by figures close to him that has been characterised by opponents as an authoritarian, right-wing wish list.

ALSO READ: How the attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump unfolded

And he mocked the rival Democratic Party, roiled by unprecedented pressure for President Joe Biden to abandon the White House race amid concerns over his age and fitness to serve, if reelected, until 2029.

“They have no idea who their candidate is… This guy goes and he gets the votes, and now they want to take it away. That’s democracy,” Mr. Trump told the 12,000-strong crowd of passionate supporters.

Even as he veered into his typical, rambling campaign speech, the rally represented a moment remarkable by any measure, with Mr. Trump back on stage exactly one week since a gunman tried to kill him.

The Republican presidential nominee appeared wearing a new, smaller, flesh-coloured bandage over his right ear, bloodied in the attack by a 20-year-old gunman at a rally in Pennsylvania that killed one bystander.

Security was reportedly tight inside the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, amid questions over Secret Service lapses at the Pennsylvania rally — though there were few visible signs of any greater law enforcement presence.

Meanwhile, Mr. Biden loyalists continued to defend the embattled president as the drumbeat of calls for him to abandon his campaign grows louder.

The 81-year-old and his team have remained publicly adamant that he is staying in the race, though some reports suggest discussions have begun in his inner circle about how exactly he might step aside.

Biden’s ‘big decision’

There has been massive speculation over who could replace him. As vice president, Ms. Harris appears best positioned to do so.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive who sought the party’s presidential nod in 2020, gave Ms. Harris a boost Saturday without turning her back on the president.

“Joe Biden is our nominee,” she said on MSNBC. “He has a really big decision to make.

“But what gives me a lot of hope right now is that if President Biden decides to step back, we have Vice President Kamala Harris, who is ready to step up, to unite the party, to take on Donald Trump, and to win in November.”

Some Democrats, however, fear that such a late switch could trigger chaos, dooming the party at the polls.

Team Trump, for its part, is effervescent after an exceptional streak of luck — from the failed assassination bid to favorable court rulings and Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month.

“I had God on my side,” he told the Republican National Convention Thursday, at which he demonstrated his absolute control over the party, firing supporters up to a rare pitch.

Saturday was Mr. Trump’s debut campaign appearance with running mate J.D. Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio who at age 39 could help win over critical swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Ahead of Mr. Trump’s speech, Mr. Vance warmed up the crowd, taking a swipe at Ms. Harris.

“I did serve in the United States Marine Corps and build a business. What the hell have you done, other than collect a check?” he said of the former U.S. senator and California attorney general.

Mr. Trump’s supporters had begun lining up in their dozens in Grand Rapids on Friday, nearly a full day before the rally began.

Edward Young, 64, preparing for his 81st Trump rally, was wearing a T-shirt showing the already iconic photo of Mr. Trump pumping his fist immediately after being shot.

“They have turned him into a martyr and left him alive,” he said. “Now he’s more powerful than ever.”

Two days after surviving an attempted assassination, former President Donald Trump appeared triumphantly at the Republican National Convention’s opening night with a bandage over his right ear, the latest compelling scene in a presidential campaign already defined by dramatic turns.

GOP delegates cheered wildly when Mr. Trump appeared onscreen backstage and then emerged in the arena, visibly emotional, as musician Lee Greenwood sang “God Bless the USA.” That was hours after the convention had formally nominated the former president to head the Republican ticket in November against President Joe Biden.

Also read | Trump assassination bid derails Biden’s counter-polarisation strategy

Trump did not address the hall — with his acceptance speech scheduled for Thursday — but smiled silently and occasionally waved as Greenwood sang. He eventually joined his newly announced running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, to listen to the night’s remaining speeches, often with a subdued expression and muted reactions uncharacteristic for the unabashed showman

The raucous welcome underscored the depth of the crowd’s affection for the man who won the 2016 nomination as an outsider, at odds with the party establishment, but now has vanquished all Republican rivals, silenced most GOP critics and commands loyalty up and down the party ranks.

“We must unite as a party, and we must unite as a nation,” said Republican Party Chairman Michael Whatley, Trump’s handpicked party leader, as he opened Monday’s primetime national convention session. “We must show the same strength and resilience as President Trump and lead this nation to a greater future.”

But Whatley and other Republican leaders made clear that their calls for harmony did not extend to Biden and Democrats, who find themselves still riven by worries that the 81-year-old question is not up to the job of defeating Trump.

“Their policies are a clear and present danger to America, to our institutions, our values and our people,” said Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, welcoming the party to his battleground state, which Trump won in 2016 but lost to Biden four years ago.

Saturday’s shooting at a Pennsylvania rally, where Trump was injured and one man died, were clearly in mind, but the proceedings were celebratory — a stark contrast to the anger and anxiety that had marked the previous few days. Some delegates chanted “fight, fight, fight” — the same words that Trump was seen shouting to the crowd as the Secret Service ushered him off the stage, his fist raised and face bloodied.

“We should all be thankful right now that we are able to cast our votes for President Donald J. Trump after what took place on Saturday,” said New Jersey state Sen. Michael Testa as he announced all of his state’s 12 delegates for Trump.

When Trump cleared the necessary number of delegates, video screens in the arena read “OVER THE TOP” while the song “Celebration” played and delegates danced and waved Trump signs. Throughout the voting, delegates flanked by “Make America Great Again” signs applauded as state after state voted their support for a second Trump term.

Multiple speakers invoked religious imagery to discuss Trump and the assassination attempt.

“The devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle,” said Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. “But an American lion got back up on his feet!”

Wyoming delegate Sheryl Foland was among those who adopted the “fight” chant after seeing Trump survive Saturday in what she called “monumental photos and video.”

“We knew then we were going to adopt that as our chant,” added Foland, a child trauma mental health counselor. “Not just because we wanted him to fight, and that God was fighting for him. We thought, isn’t it our job to accept that challenge and fight for our country?”

“It’s bigger than Trump,” Foland said. “It’s a mantra for our country.”

Another well-timed development boosted the mood on the convention floor Monday: The federal judge presiding over Trump’s classified documents case dismissed the prosecution because of concerns over the appointment of the prosecutor who brought the case, handing the former president a major court victory.

Trump’s campaign chiefs designed the convention to feature a softer and more optimistic message, focusing on themes that would help a divisive leader expand his appeal among moderate voters and people of color.

On a night devoted to the economy, delegates and a national TV audience heard from speakers the Trump campaign pitched as “everyday Americans” — a single mother talking about inflation, a union member who identified himself as a lifelong Democrat now backing Trump, a small business owner, among others.

Featured speakers also included Black Republicans who have been at the forefront of the Trump campaign’s effort to win more votes from a core Democratic constituency.

U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas said rising grocery and energy prices were hurting Americans’ wallets and quoted Ronald Reagan in calling inflation “the cruelest tax on the poor.” Hunt argued Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t seem to understand the problem.

“We can fix this disaster,” Hunt said, by electing Trump and sending “him right back to where he belongs, the White House.”

Scott, perhaps the party’s most well-known Black lawmaker, declared: “America is not a racist country.”

Republicans hailed Vance’s selection as a key step toward a winning coalition in November.

Trump announced his choice of his running mate as delegates were voting on the former president’s nomination Monday. The young Ohio senator first rose to national attention with his best-selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which told of his Appalachian upbringing and was hailed as a window into the parts of working-class America that helped propel Trump.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who had been considered a potential vice presidential pick, said in a post on X that Vance’s “small town roots and service to country make him a powerful voice for the America First Agenda.”

Yet despite calls for harmony, two of the opening speakers at Monday’s evening session — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and North Carolina gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson — are known as some of the party’s most incendiary figures.

Robinson, speaking recently during a church service in North Carolina, discussed “evil” people who he said threatened American Christianity. “Some folks need killing,” he said then, though he steered clear of such rhetoric at the convention stage.

Trump’s nomination came on the same day that Biden sat for another national TV interview the president sought to demonstrate his capacity to serve another four years despite continued worries within his own party.

Biden told ABC News that he made a mistake recently when he told Democratic donors the party must stop questioning his fitness for office and instead put Trump in a “bullseye.” Republicans have circulated the comment aggressively since Saturday’s assassination attempt, with some openly blaming Biden for inciting the attack on Trump’s life.

The president’s admission was in line with his call Sunday from the Oval Office for all Americans to ratchet down political rhetoric. But Biden maintained Monday that drawing contrasts with Trump, who employs harsh and accusatory language, is a legitimate part of a presidential contest.

Inside the arena in Milwaukee, Republicans did not dial back their attacks on Biden, at one point playing a video that mocked the president’s physical stamina and mental acuity.

They alluded often to the “Biden-Harris administration” and took regular digs at Vice President Kamala Harris — a not-so-subtle allusion to the notion that Biden could step aside in favor of his second-in-command.