Donald Trump walks into the Republican convention before the first speech since the assassination attempt as Melania and Ivanka prepare to arrive

By Emily Goodin, Senior White House Correspondent

Melania and Ivanka Trump, along with Jared Kushner, were spotted boarding Trump Force One for the flight to Milwaukee to watch Donald Trump accept the Republicans’ presidential nomination.

The trio boarded Trump’s private plane in Newark for the two hour and 35 minute flight.

They will be cutting the timing close. Trump is scheduled to address the delegates at 9 pm ET.

Neither Melania nor Ivanka are scheduled to speak on Thursday night even though both spoke at previous Republican conventions and had the option to address this year’s.

Wrestling great Hulk Hogan told Fox News’ Bret Baier on Thursday was compelled him to publicly support former President Donald Trump.

Hogan adds some pop culture pizzazz to the final night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Well Bret, I got tired of remaining silent. I sat back and watched the borders collapse, I watched the economy collapse – the price of gas, the price of food – everything doing just an upside-down flip.

And when they took a shot at my hero Donald Trump I realized that I couldn’t be silent anymore.

Hogan also said his convention speech will be akin to ‘body-slamming the Giant at WrestleMania.’

David Axelrod, the mastermind behind Barack Obama’s two election victories and one of the loudest voices calling for Biden to step aside, is at the Republican convention.

He had his phone glued to his ear just now as he entered the bathroom. What can he have been talking about.

He stopped to talk to the Daily Mail and said the president would know how to read the numbers being presented to him about his chances in the election.

I think obviously there have been a lot of conversations and everybody’s aware of the trend lines and the president is a very experienced and practised politician and he knows how to read these numbers and he’ll make a decision that he thinks is best.

He was cautious about reporting that Biden could pull out of the race this weekend.

I’ve seen those reports. But I think everybody understands this is not an easy process.

Detroit Pastor Lorenzo Sewell got the MAGA crowd fired up in Fiserv Forum, especially as he thanked God for sparing Donald Trump’s life ‘by a millimeter.’

President Trump came to the hood because he cares about everyday average Americans. He came to my church. Prayer is preventative and proactive.

Only thirty days later after we prayed for him there was a miracle by a millimeter. God is good. President Trump will make America secure again. If Donald Trump moved just a millimeter, he would not be here today to make America Great Again.

God’s providence is his ability to do what he wants, when he wants for you. Be strong in his almighty power. Could it be that Jesus Christ preserved him for this moment in time? Could it be that the Lord saved Donald Trump for a time such as this?

A slimmed-down and tanned Mike Pompeo contrasted the former president’s foreign policy results to Biden’s in his address.

‘There were no new American wars. Our southern border closed. Here’s another fun fact, we never lost our Secretary of Defense for two weeks either,’ the former secretary of state told the crowd, referring to Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin’s five-day unannounced absence.

‘You’ll remember for those four years, the evil of Vladimir Putin was held at bay. When we walked out, January 2021, the Iranian regime was afraid, and the people of Israel were strong and secure.’

‘As an Army veteran, I want to speak to everybody who served in Afghanistan. I’m disgusted by the Biden administration and confident pullout in that country … we need a president who won’t check his watch.’

‘This administration treats illegals better than our own citizens,’ Pompeo went on. ‘The entire administration has failed to tell the truth, the truth that we all know and it’s so dangerous to our nation, the truth that Joe Biden can’t handle that 3am a phone call.’

On Thursday evening just as the RNC is concluding, yet another Democrat called on Joe Biden to resign.

Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., a moderate member of the Blue Dog Coalition who has served for nearly two decades in the House, put out a statement calling on the president to step aside.

‘For the good of the country, I think it’s time for President Biden to pass the torch to the next generation to cary on the legacy he started,’ Costa wrote.

‘Democrats need to unite and deliver their strongest team to the American people in this election,’ he said.

So far, there have been over 20 Democratic lawmakers who have called on Biden to not run for reelection.

Over 20 elected Democrats have turned on Joe, publicly urging him to exit the 2024 race and allow a fresh candidate at the top of the ticket.

Even former President Barack Obama reportedly told allies Biden should ‘seriously consider’ whether he should stay in the race, raising speculation he could drop out in a matter of days.

And Republicans are now questioning those Democrats, saying if they say he’s not up to the task in four months, how can he do the job currently.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Kai Trump, 17, said her grandfather Donald Trump was ‘proud’ after her remarks at the Republican Convention on Wednesday.

Speaking with Fox News in Milwaukee, Wisconsin the day after her remarks, the 17-year-old golfer reflected on the evening.

I was a little nervous but he said I did amazing and he was very proud of me. And it was just a nice heart-to-heart moment afterwards.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Donald Trump Jr. told ‘little b*****ds’ to keep away from his daughter Kai, 17, after she was ‘swarmed’ by fans following her speech at the Republican National Convention.

The 17-year-old stole the show at Wednesday night’s programming when she took stage for brief remarks about the ‘real’ side of her grandfather Donald Trump.

Fox News host Laura Ingraham prompted the conversations with Don Jr., saying:

I’m being told, by the way, that your daughter has been just swarmed in this arena by teenage boys. All of them want –

The eldest Trump son cut-in with:

Get away you little b*****ds and stay away.

You have unleashed the male – she had the big fan club. She trending on the internet more than you. She’s eclipsing her father at this point?… They had to shut down a part of the arena because so many people were following her. So you’ve introduced her to the world now.

Perhaps I’ll regret picking up that phone and saying, ‘sure you can speak there.’ But I had to do that for her because she needed to do that for her grandpa.

A group of anti-RNC protestors arrived outside of Fiserv Forum Thursday evening to slam the conservatives coming into the restricted area around the event.

They held up signs and shouted at attendees while decrying Trump and the GOP platform.

By Morgan Phillips, Congress Reporter in Milwaukee, Wis.

Trump-endorsed House candidate and convention delegate Brandon Gill of Texas told DailyMail.com the energy at the RNC has been ‘phenomenal’ because Republicans have finally succeeded at becoming the ‘party of the working class.’

‘If I were a Democrat right now I would be terrified at this Republican Party,’ he said.

‘We are the party that is looking to help the working man, the forgotten man, the person in middle America whose jobs are getting shipped overseas, the people seeing their wages collapse because we’re flooding this country with cheap labor.’

‘For the past several decades, there’s been this Faustian bargain between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats want votes and Republicans want cheap labor. and because of that we’re not going to do anything about the border. Trump stopped that, he secured the border. ‘

‘So Democrats should be terrified and they should also know that a lot of these things they’ve been doing to use were going to do right back to them. This is the Republican Party that fights back. You’re going to weaponize the justice system against us, you’re going to weaponize the fed gov against us we’re going to dismantle the administrative and bureaucratic state.’

Kid Rock has been seen rehearsing at the convention arena.

He changed some of the lyrics of one of his songs to ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’

We just arrived in Milwaukee to support our tried and true, red, white and blue, 100 percent American bada‑‑ president.

What’s going to happen tonight? Tune in to find out. But here’s a hint: Are you scared? God bless Donald Trump and God bless America.

From Kelly Laco, executive editor of politics in Milwaukee, Wisconsin:

Adoring MAGA fans stopped Speaker Mike Johnson to sign their Trump hats as he made his way to the VIP box.

Johnson, alongside his wife Kelly, were all smiles as they snaked through the mob.

The speaker has been seated near Trump all week and will be by his side again on the final – and most highly anticipated – night.

Trump is expected to address his fans for the first time since he was shot in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) doens’t think it matters if President Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee.

Speaking with DailyMail.com at the Republican National Convention on Thursday morning, the Trump ally said Democrats are just looking for a ‘better messenger’ than the current president to deliver their leftist agenda.

Asked whether Biden is the nominee makes a difference, Donalds replied:

No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter to me. I think what the Democrats are just looking for is a better messenger because they don’t have a better message.

It doesn’t really matter who. It doesn’t matter because their message is terrible.

Donalds speaks with newly nominated Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance in Trump’s guest box in Fiserv Forum at the RNC.

Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., chair of the NRCC, said that if Democrats win back control of the House, Democrats will kill ‘every tax cut, the border bill he proposes, they’ll hold sham investigations and hearings to bog down the agenda, they’ll impeach him for doing his job.’

He promised to eliminate taxes on tips if Trump wins – a priority for Trump but a longshot in Congress.

Hunter Biden is desperately trying to throw out his criminal gun conviction charges and a separate tax evasion case by claiming the person prosecuting him was unlawfully appointed.

The younger Biden’s lawyers referenced a federal judge’s decision Monday dismissing charges against Donald Trump for illegally holding onto classified documents after office.

In that decision, Florida District Judge Aileen Cannon found the appointment of Jack Smith, the special counsel in the classified documents case, violated the Constitution because he was not authorized by Congress to pursue the charges.

The legal maneuver comes after the Supreme Court‘s decision weeks ago to grant Trump presidential immunity in the documents case in which Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that Smith was improperly appointed.

Smith’s office is appealing the ruling.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley gave a nod to Donald Trump’s granddaughter Kai Trump as he gaveled in the final day of the Convention on Thursday.

We’ve heard from the Trump family. Donald Trump Jr., Laura and Tiffany. You have all been incredible. Almost as good as the president’s granddaughter Kai.

Kai, 17, made her political stage debut on Wednesday evening with brief remarks showing the ‘real’ size of her grandpa.

Read all about Kai Trump’s first speech:

When Donald Trump addresses the Republican National Convention on Thursday evening it will be with his biggest poll lead over Joe Biden so far.

A new CBS poll gives him a five-point advantage nationally and is up three points in key swing states.

It follows a string of other polls showing similar results. Our own DailyMail.com/J.L. Partners poll showed he had gained two points over Biden since their first debate, putting his lead at six points.

The former president overtook Biden in the fall of last year and has not looked back.

By Emily Goodin, senior White House correspondent

Joe Biden is holed up at his Rehoboth Beach home with wife Jill, as his campaign prepares for him to return to the road next week even as yet another Democrat calls on him to exit the presidential race.

No other members of the Biden family are with the president and first lady. Jill was already at their $3.4 million beach home when the president arrived there Wednesday night, the East Wing said.

President Biden has been resting after his COVID diagnosis but he is preparing to get back to work.

Later in the week, he’s scheduled to do a fundraising swing to Texas and California.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers tried Thursday to have cases in California and Delaware dimissed by using the same argument Donald Trump used successfully in his documents case.

In a legal filing, Biden’s team says the appointment of a special counsel to investigate him was ‘unconstitutional.’ That is the same strategy that Trump used to have Special Counsel Jack Smith’s dismissed in Florida.

The president’s 54-year-old son was convicted in Delaware federal court in June of three felony charges related to his purchase of a handgun while using drugs.

He is awaiting trial in Los Angeles on federal tax charges.

Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar slammed Democrats ‘lack of leadership’ amid the slow drip information being leaked over whether President Biden will stay in the presidential race.

‘I can’t tell you all how shameful it feels to hear all these leaks about what Democratic leaders are staying and not to have a single one of them out here confirming or denying it,’ she wrote on X.

‘It’s a lack of leadership and it’s making all Democrats look bad. Whatever this mess leads to will not undo the damage that has already been inflicted.’

‘May God help us all,’ she wrote.

A Republican senator who confronted Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle told DailyMail.com that she tried to run from him when he asked her about Donald Trump‘s near assassination while refusing to answer basic questions.

On a call Wednesday with Cheatle, FBI Director Christopher Wray and lawmakers, officials revealed Trump’s protective detail spotted the shooter 20 minutes before he opened fire.

On that call, Cheatle refused to respond to questions about why Trump was allowed to take the stage.

Taking matters into their own hands on Wednesday, a group of senators including Cramer cornered Cheatle at the convention in a luxury suite.

She then ‘took off’ running once they started demanding answers, the senator disclosed.

By Emily Goodin, senior White House correspondent

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who led the investigation into the January 6th insurrection, wrote to President Joe Biden, asking him to reconsider his re-election bid.

In a four-page letter, dated July 6th and obtained by The New York Times, Raskin begins with lavish praise for the president.

Then, however, he changes his argument and compares Biden to an exhausted pitcher about to give the winning run to the competition in the big game.

Raskin used the example of Boston Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martínez, the pitcher who was left on the mound for the eighth inning of Game Seven of the 2003 American League Championship Series despite being tired.

Martínez allowed three runs, tying the game before the Yankees won with a walk-off home run in the 11th inning that denied the Red Sox a trip to the World Series.

‘There is no shame in taking a well-deserved bow to the overflowing appreciation of the crowd when your arm is tired out, and there is real danger for the team in ignoring the statistics,’ Raskin wrote.

‘Your situation is tricky because you are both our star pitcher and our manager. But in democracy, as you have shown us more than any prior president, you are not a manager acting all alone; you are the co-manager along with our great team and our great people. Caucus with the team, Mr. President. Hear them out. You will make the right decision.’

The White House argues Biden will stay in the race.

Anti-Trump Republican voters gathered less than 10 minutes away from the Republican National Convention main stage in Milwaukee where the former president is expected to accept the GOP nomination tonight.

The ‘Republican leaning’ group now often referred to as the ‘politically homeless,’ are unwilling to help send Trump back to the White House and sounding alarms.

‘I’m tired of using the phrase this is not normal, but this is not normal,’ said Charlie Sykes, an American political commentator who until 2016 hosted a conservative talk show in Milwaukee on a panel hosted by Principles First.

‘The Republican party is about to nominate a convicted felon, twice impeached. A man who is a serial liar,’ he said.

The breakout star of the convention so far is Donald Trump 17-year-old granddaughter Kai.

Her father, Don Jr., said it was all her idea to speak at the convention about her grandfather.

The White House has denied new reporting that President Joe Biden could end his reelection bid as early as this weekend.

Biden spokesman Andrew Bates posted to X, ‘Incorrect. Keep the faith.’

It came in response to the Axios report citing top Democrats who claim the rising pressure will finally persuade the president to drop out.

They show plummeting confidence in Biden, 81, after his disastrous debate performance and tensions among supporters of different candidates.

The angry messages were fired between Democrats even as their party leaders insisted that Biden had their full support.

Delegate Susan Bolle said more than 150 voters had contacted her asking her to demand Biden stand aside.

‘Obviously, the first step would be that President Biden steps down of his own accord and frees his delegates,’ she wrote in the private 2024 California DNC Delegate Group, which was obtained by Politico.

‘We should discuss this. This is a painful experience on every level, but we play an outsized role in history this election. This cannot be left to chance.’

Two polls taken since the assassination attempt on Donald Trump last week show him opening up a 4-point lead over Joe Biden.

An Emerson College poll has Trump on 46 percent and Biden on 42 percent.

In a statement the pollsters said:

Recent polling shows Biden losing support more significantly than Trump gaining it since the attempted assassination.

This raises questions about whether Biden’s decline is still influenced by the debate or if Trump has reached his support ceil

Another poll by Morning Consult also had Trump on 46 percent and Biden on 42 percent.

It is Trump’s biggest lead in that poll since February.

Chris Coons, the senator from Delaware, and a close ally of Joe Biden, criticized leaks of conversations about the president’s future.

He told the New York Times:

The president deserves the respect of conversations about our path forward, constructively and privately, and in a way that allows us as a Democratic caucus to come together and support our nominee, who I believe will be Joe Biden.

To work all this out in the press, I think, is not constructive.”

It came after a report in the Washington Post that Barack Obama had told allies Biden should seriously consider whether or not to run.

By Emily Goodin, senior White House correspondent

President Joe Biden still has ‘mild upper respiratory symptoms’ but no fever as he battles COVID, the White House said on Thursday.

The president is continuing to take Paxlovid, his physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, said in a letter released by the White House press office.

‘The president is still experiencing mild upper respiratory symptoms associated with his recent COVID-19 infection. He continues to receive Paxlovid,’ O’Connor wrote.

‘He does not have a fever and his vital signs remain normal.’

The president is isolating at his home in Rehoboth Beach.

Donald Trump’s former White House press secretary Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has words of advice for President Biden’s top spokesperson as Democrats enter ‘total meltdown’ mode.

It’s been a hectic three weeks since Biden and Trump’s first debate, during which the 81-year-old president had a self-proclaimed ‘bad night’ filled with gaffes and stumbles.

Over 20 elected Democrats have since turned on Joe, publicly urging him to exit the 2024 race and allow a fresh candidate at the top of the ticket. Even former President Barack Obama reportedly told allies Biden should ‘seriously consider’ whether he should stay in the race, raising speculation he could drop out in a matter of days.

Eric Trump teased the convention speech his father will deliver in prime time, saying it will be a ‘positive’ America First speech and says parts of it are ‘beautiful.’

‘People don’t stand a chance in this country right now. And again, you don’t have somebody fighting. You don’t have somebody trying to fix these problems,’ he told DailyMail.com and a gaggle of reporters outside the Fiserv arena.

‘We desperately need a fighter’ in office he said. ‘Our country deserves a lot better and our country deserves frankly the person who will stand up after getting shot in the face, blood running down his face, stand up and say “fight, fight, fight,’ he added – in the latest indication the campaign will use the assassination attempt to argue for Trump.

Of Joe Biden, who is getting pressure from Democrats to get out, he said: ‘I do think that Biden’s legacy is going to be largely marred by the fact that he was forced out by his own party, that he had to drop out. He had to drop out based on incompetency,’ he said.

Donald Trump’s lawyer and senior adviser Alina Habba did a runthrough ahead of her remarks to the Republican Convention Thursday evening.

At the podium in Fiserv Forum, Habba had some fun with her mic check:

I’m Alina Habba and I have the privilege of being the most bad ass mother effer.

It’s customary for those checking the mic and doing walkthroughs to read off the teleprompter the Gettysburg Address so audio can get good levels.

Habba put her own twist at the end of the first sentence of the remarks:

‘Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal’ – unless you are a Republican in this America.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) weighed-in on whether he thinks Kai Trump has a future in politics and if it matters who ends up being the Democratic candidate in 2024.

Of Donald Trump’s daughter, the Florida senator told DailyMail.com:

She’s a very impressive young lady, but I’m telling you, that girl can golf. So she’s probably gonna go make a bunch of money at that first and she can play.

She did great. She almost upstaged her dad.

Rubio also said he doesn’t see a scenario where the Democratic nominee isn’t either President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris.

I don’t know how they bypass the vice president, right? Because Vice President Harris – they picked her, they put her there. And if you put her there, you’re telling people she’s qualified and good enough to be president. If you picked someone for vice president and you vote for them it’s because you think they can be president. So how can they remove her now? I mean, she’s the person that I believe that they will have to nominate and run. And they have no one to blame but themselves.

They knew Joe Biden – I don’t mean this to be cruel, okay – but they knew the condition that he was in, and they deliberately hid it from the world.

Barack Obama has told alles Biden, 81, should seriously consider whether to pursue a second term.

The shock revelation by the Washington Post is the most serious threat yet to Biden’s continued candidacy.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Kai Trump’s speech at the Republican Convention on Wednesday is leading to speculation from MAGA fanatics that she may have a future in politics.

The 17-year-old is the oldest grandchild of former President Donald Trump and the first to make a major step onto the national political stage with her remarks in Milwaukee on the third night of the Convention.

President Joe Biden could drop out of the presidential race as soon as this weekend, according to a bombshell new report.

Several top Democrats told Axios that Biden, 81, is resigned to the impossibility of continuing his campaign.

Despite the the avalanche of calls for him to step aside the President has publicly maintained he will go on.

However, privately he is starting to realize that might be untenable, the report said.

Polling shows him losing to former President Donald Trump amid widespread concerns over his age and health, the report said.

The man who shot Donald Trump on Saturday was in the ‘perfect location’ to kill the former president, a security expert revealed, highlighting how ‘massive’ the Secret Service’s failure is.

Twenty-year-old Thomas Crooks fired multiple rounds aimed at Trump’s head from a building nearly 165 yards from the stage the former president was speaking at during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.

A bullet clipped the former president’s ear while two others were critically wounded and former firefighter, Corey Comperatore, tragically lost his life while heroically defending his family from the incoming fire.

Darin Gaub, a retired Army Lt. Col. and operator of a private security company, exclusively told DailyMail.com that he is astonished the Secret Service did not secure the building from which Crooks was perched.

He simply called it the best possible place to kill the former president – something Secret Service should have known.

Hulk Hogan will speak on the final night of the Republican National Convention tonight as Donald Trump formally accepts the party’s presidential nomination.

The WWE legend is among the speakers lined up to addres to the crowd before Trump.

The wrestler and Trump have known each other for decades.

Dana White, chief executive of Ultimate Fighting Championship, will introduce Trump.

It means the President will not be making any public appearances today.

He arrived at his home in Delaware last night.

Several fraternity brothers from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill who defied pro-Gaza protestors by banding together to keep the U.S. flag from touching the ground received a loud and warm welcome from RNC attendees Wednesday.

When the group took the stage at the RNC Wednesday one could have believed a battalion of war heroes had just returned from service overseas, but that reception was not for the military but for the fraternity brother’s militant defending of the flag.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) sent an F-35 aircraft to intercept an undidentified aircraft.

The mystery plane breached a temporary flight restriction area southwest of Milwaukee, where the Republican convention is being held.

At 3:30 pm on Wednesday radar data picked up the plane inside the restricted airspace at 4,400ft.

It was escirted out of the area and there were no further immediate details.

At the Faith and Freedom breakfast in Milwaukee, Senator J.D. Vance reveals he was ‘crying backstage’ during his wife Usha’s introductory speech.

He says his ‘beautiful’ wife ‘has this just incredible relatability’ and joked he wasn’t ‘in the right mind’ to follow her remarks.

Then ‘I realized it was my idea,’ he said to laughter.

Vance also spoke of his journey in faith. Vance credits finding a wife and love as what brought him back to Christ.

At the breakfast, the senator pushed back on questions over whether the Republican party of the future will be welcoming to social conservatives.

‘Social conservatives have a seat at this table, and they always will, so long as I have any influence in this party,’ Vance said.

Donald Truimp will formally accept the Republican nommination tonight at the party’s convention in Milwaukee.

It will be his first speech since he survived an assaintion attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

Truimp has said it will be a ‘unity speech’ in which he will call for Americans to join together.