RNC 2024 live updates: Tucker Carlson takes stage as Trump prepares for keynote speech days after assassination attempt

Right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson claimed Donald Trump passed up the opportunity to “inflame” the US after he was shot at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally on Saturday.

“He turned down the most obvious opportunity in politics to inflame the nation after being shot, which is an opportunity that almost every other politician I’ve ever met, and certainly his opponents, would have taken instantly,” Carlson said.

“This is the most responsible, unifying behavior of a leader, I think I’ve ever seen,” he continued.

Carlson also claimed that “Antifa” showed up at his home and that Trump offered to “stand guard” at his house the next day during the unscripted speech on Thursday night.

Right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson took the stage at the Republican National Convention this evening.

The crowd met him with thunderous applause and roaring cheers.

Carlson appears to be improvising his speech, with the Fiserv Forum’s teleprompter showing a countdown timer instead of his speech text.

Alina Habba, the former president’s attorney, delivered an impassioned speech in support of the former president on Thursday night.

“The last has tried to demolish President Trump, but there is no bulldozer big enough or strong enough to remove the legacy that he has built or the future he is creating,” she said.

“The only crime President Trump has committed is loving America,” Habba continued.

Donald Trump arrived for night four of the Republican National Convention and took his seat in the Fiserv Forum’s family box — but was not joined by any family.

The former president is currently seated without any family members nearby after his initial entrance. His son, Eric Trump, is set to take the stage within the hour.

His wife, Melania Trump, was rumored to attend tonight’s RNC programming, CNN reported earlier this evening.

Donald Trump took a seat in the Fiserv Forum’s family box for night four of the Republican National Convention.

The former president is sitting next to country music star Jason Aldean. The musician sparked backlash last year after one of his music videos featured a Tennessee courthouse where a mob lynched a Black teenager in 1927, NBC News reports.

Trump is also sitting among several GOP senators, including Ted Cruz and John Barrasso. As he sat down, Trump also shook hands with Representative Richard Hudson and Senator Steve Daines, who spoke earlier in the evening.

Donald Trump has arrived at the Republican National Convention, walking through the venue as AC/DC’s “Back in Black” plays.

The former president, still wearing an ear bandage after being shot on Saturday, was met by a roaring crowd and a standing ovation, much like the previous three nights. Trump shook hands with attendees as he walked to his seat in the family box.

Trump is set to give a 90-minute speech within the hour to close out the convention.

Mike Pompeo, former CIA director and secretary of state for Donald Trump, slammed President Joe Biden for his 2021 withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

“As an Army veteran, I want to speak to everybody who served in Afghanistan: I’m disgusted by the Biden administration’s incompetent pullout from that country.”

However, Biden has blamed the chaotic withdrawal on a Trump-era peace deal with the Taliban that Pompeo helped broker. The president said the agreement forced him to withdraw American troops, the Associated Press reports.

“Here’s another fun fact, we never lost our secretary of defense for two weeks either,” Pompeo said at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night.

Pompeo served as Trump’s CIA director and secretary of state.

Major-party conventions often feature family members and friends close to the person at the top of the ticket. It’s nothing new. But the Trumpification of the GOP which was on full display this week took that trend to the extreme — and made clear that the continued strength of the MAGA movement would not only persist through 2024, but well into the future.