Trump: Those holding US hostages will pay if they’re not freed by time I return to office
In RNC speech accepting nomination, ex-US president says Oct. 7 wouldn’t have happened on his watch; falsely claims 2020 election was stolen from him and Biden inherited ‘world of peace’
MILWAUKEE — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump warned that countries holding American hostages will pay “a very big price” if they are not released, as he accepted the GOP presidential nomination on Thursday at the Republican National Convention.
“To the entire world, I tell you this: We want our hostages back, and they better be back before I assume office, or you will be paying a very big price,” Trump warned in his speech.
Trump did not specify which hostages he was referring to.
There are more than 60 Americans being held hostage or wrongly detained around the world, including eight Americans being held by Hamas in Gaza, who were among the 251 taken during the terror group’s October 7 massacre, when 1,200 people were murdered in southern Israel.
The parents of an American-Israeli hostage taken in the onslaught addressed the RNC on Wednesday evening.
The Thursday speech, Trump’s first since the attempt on his life last weekend at a rally in Pennsylvania, was among the longest convention speeches in modern history at just under 93 minutes.
Trump repeated several false assertions, including the claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, that his opponent “inherited a world of peace” from him, and that crime rates were increasing, even though they are lower than when he left office.
Promises to end world crises
Trump reiterated his claim that Hamas’s October 7 onslaught would not have happened if he were president.
He vowed to “end every single international crisis that the current administration has created, including the horrible war with Russia and Ukraine — which would have never happened if I was president — and the war caused by the attack on Israel, which would have never happened if I was president.”
“Iran was broke. Iran had no money. Now Iran has $250 billion. They made it all over the last two and a half years,” he added, saying the Biden administration has provided Tehran sanctions relief.
“I told China and other countries, if you buy from Iran, we will not let you do any business in this country.”
He repeated his claim that Iran was on the verge of agreeing to negotiate a new deal to more strictly curb its nuclear program before Trump lost the 2020 election.
“Iran was going to make a deal with us, and then we had that horrible, horrible result that we will never let happen again,” the former president said.
“Now Iran is very close to having a nuclear weapon, which would have never happened.”
Since the collapse of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers following Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the accord in 2018, Tehran has pursued nuclear enrichment to just below weapons-grade levels.
Western powers say there is no credible civilian reason for that. Iran says its aims are entirely peaceful but officials have recently said it could change its “nuclear doctrine” if it is attacked or its existence is seen as threatened by Israel. That has prompted alarm at the International Atomic Energy Agency and in Western capitals.
Trump again pledged to build an Iron Dome missile defense system for the United States akin to the one Israel has.
“Israel has an Iron Dome. They have a missile defense system. Three-hundred and forty-two missiles were shot into Israel, and only one got through a little bit,” Trump said in an apparent reference to Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel in April.
“Why should other countries have this and we don’t? No, we’re going to build an Iron Dome over our country and we’re going to be sure that nothing can come and harm our people,” he added.
It was not clear what threat Trump is trying to thwart, as Iron Dome is only capable of intercepting short-range rockets — not a danger the US has ever faced along its borders.
Surviving assassination
Trump also described how he narrowly survived the attempt on his life, telling a rapt audience in his first speech since the attack that he was only there “by the grace of Almighty God.”
“I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard on my right ear,” he said in Milwaukee, a thick bandage still covering his ear. “I said to myself, ‘Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet.”
The former president struck an unusually conciliatory tone during the speech’s opening moments when he formally accepted the party’s presidential nomination.
“I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America because there is no victory in winning for half of America,” he said, in a marked shift in tenor for the typically bellicose former president.
He paid tribute to Corey Comperatore, the firefighter who was fatally shot during the assassination attempt, kissing the helmet of his uniform that was placed on stage.
As he has done throughout his political career, Trump argued that only he can save a dwindling nation from certain doom.
The address marked the climax and conclusion of a massive four-day Republican pep rally that drew thousands of conservative activists and elected officials to swing-state Wisconsin as voters weigh an election that currently features two deeply unpopular candidates.
Biden campaign denounces his role in Jan. 6 riot
“Tonight, Donald Trump rambled on for well over an hour and failed to mention Project 2025 even once,” the Biden-Harris campaign said in a statement, referencing a collection of policy proposals by conservative activists to consolidate power in Trump’s hands if he wins office.
The campaign slammed Trump for failing to mention his role in the US Supreme Court’s overturning of the constitutionally protected right to abortion, the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, and for policies that “destroyed our economy.”
“President [Joe] Biden is running on a different vision. He’s running for an America where we defend democracy, not diminish it,” the campaign said.
The GOP convention’s program of speakers reflected the nominee’s background as a reality television star — the primetime list featured mixed martial arts executive Dana White, the rapper and singer Kid Rock, and the pro wrestler Hulk Hogan, who fired up the crowd by tearing his top off to reveal a sleeveless red Trump campaign shirt.
His entrance was befitting of a TV star or a pro wrestler — a screen lifted slowly to reveal Trump standing in front of massive lights arranged to spell out his last name before an image of the White House was projected behind him.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden, Trump’s opponent in the November 5 election, was “soul searching” about whether to drop out of the race entirely, one source said, after senior party figures, congressional allies and major donors warned him he could not win following a halting debate performance on June 27.
Biden, 81, was isolating at his Delaware home after contracting COVID-19. His doctor said he was experiencing mild symptoms.
