• Questions hover over Vance as ‘least-experienced VP’ pick
• Biden comes up with combative defence of his mental and physical acuity
• Musk announces $45m a month for Trump’s campaign with contributions from several other billionaires

MILWAUKEE: Donald Trump received a hero’s welcome on Monday as he entered the Republican convention arena with a bandaged right ear, in his first public appearance since being wounded in an assassination attempt over the weekend.

Hours after clinching the formal nomination to be the Republican presidential candidate and announcing right-wing Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, Trump marched into Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum flanked by aides and waved at supporters on the opening day of what turned out to be a triumphalist gathering.

He took his seat to the sound of country singer Lee Greenwood’s patriotic hit, God Bless the USA, without delivering any remarks. But he appeared markedly moved by the rapt ovation he received from a packed venue.

It was the second huge moment of the day for the Republican crowd, which erupted into cheers earlier as Trump announced Vance, just 39, as his vice presidential pick, rewarding a one-time harsh critic who has become one of his most uncompromising supporters.

Some 50,000 Republicans descended on the shores of Lake Michigan for the four-day convention, four months before election day — Nov 5.

Least-experienced VP pick

The standard-bearer for a new kind of populism that has come to the fore under Trump, Vance is also one of the least experienced vice presidential picks in modern history.

But he embraces the ex-president’s isolationist, anti-immigration America First movement and is even further to the right than his new boss on some issues including abortion, where he embraces calls for federal legislation.

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.

A White House candidate often chooses a vice presidential running mate who can appeal to new categories of voters or compensate for acknowledged weaknesses in terms of image or policy.

Trump, though, tapped a conservative white man like himself, from a state he already had every chance of winning.

Age rebalance

Even if his octogenarian rival Joe Biden appears to be suffering more than him from advanced age, Trump knows he is no spring chicken at 78.

By picking Vance, who at 39 is half Trump’s age — and the first millennial on a major US party presidential ticket — he could neutralise what had been the relatively youthful advantage of Biden’s vice president, 59-year-old Kamala Harris.

Should the current Demo­cratic president bow out of the campaign, as some in his party are calling on him to do, attention might shift to Trump’s age. A particularly youthful running mate would rebalance the average age on the GOP ticket.

Trump was scalded by his experience with his vice president in his first term, Mike Pence, who, after years of unwavering loyalty, had declined on Jan 6, 2021, to comply when Trump asked him to refuse to certify Biden’s election victory.

“Trump picked J.D. Vance as his running mate because he will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t on Jan 6: bend over backwards to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law, and certainly no matter the harm to the American people,” said Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon.

Biden defends ‘mental acuity’

President Joe Biden defended both his “mental acuity” and his rhetoric about Donald Trump in a second TV interview aimed at ending calls for him to quit his re-election bid following a disastrous debate last month.

The 81-year-old delivered an often combative defence of his mental and physical fitness for office during the one-on-one with broadcaster NBC on Monday, which nevertheless featured some of the word salads that have worried Democrats.

“I’m old,” Biden told host Lester Holt in the interview at the White House.

“But I’m only three years older than Trump, number one. And number two, my mental acuity has been pretty damn good.”

Biden’s interview was the latest attempt by the White House to assuage growing fears over the Democrat’s age and mental state.

Biden told Holt he was wrong when he recently told donors it was “time to put Trump in the bull’s eye” of his election campaign.

“It was a mistake to use the word,” Biden said when asked if he had gone too far with his rhetoric as a deeply polarised nation reels from the shooting on Trump.

But he doubled down on what he said was the need to “talk about the threat to democracy” posed by the former president.

“Look, I’m not the guy that said ‘I want to be a dictator on Day One’,” he said, referring to remarks by Trump that alarmed many people.

The president struggled for words on a number of occasions during the interview and let several sentences trail off.

While trying to portray a statesmanlike image, Biden often showed flashes of irritation.

Asked if the Trump shooting had changed the trajectory of the election, Biden replied: “I don’t know, and you don’t know either.”

Musk’s $45m pledge

Tech billionaire Elon Musk said he plans to commit roughly $45m every month to a new fund backing Donald Trump for US president, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Musk’s donations will go to a political group dubbed America PAC, which will focus on promoting voter registration, early voting and mail-in ballots among residents in swing states ahead of the presidential election, the Journal reported.

Musk is one of several major backers of the new fund, with others reportedly including Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, former US ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft and crypto currency investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.

The Tesla founder formally endorsed Trump’s candidacy for US president on Saturday.

In March, the two met in person during a donor breakfast hosted at the Florida residence of billionaire Nelson Peltz.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2024