The GOP Called For Unity After Trump Assassination Attempt. It Didn't Last Long.

MILWAUKEE ― After the attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life over the weekend, Republicans and Democrats alike called on the country to turn down the political rhetoric and unite as Americans.

It didn’t last long. On Monday morning, Trump railed against his criminal indictments, called the Jan. 6 insurrection a “hoax,” and accused Democrats of orchestrating all his legal troubles in a post on his social media site, Truth Social.

Later that afternoon, Trump announced he was selecting Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his vice presidential running mate, a loyal MAGA firebrand who blamed President Joe Biden’s rhetoric for the shooting at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, saying it “led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

And although speakers at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee were more subdued than usual during the evening prime-time hours, calling for unity after the shooting, there were still notable attacks on Democrats and their policies.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), for example, opened the slate of GOP speeches by attacking the “radical far-left agenda,” which he defined as a “fringe … that includes biological males competing against girls and the sexualization and indoctrination of our children.”

He went on to call Democratic policies “a clear and present danger to our institutions, our values and our people,” drawing cheers from the audience.

Asked later about the comment by a PBS reporter, Johnson blamed the teleprompter, saying it mistakenly loaded an older version of his speech.

“Americans don’t want welfare, they want work,” he also said in his RNC speech. ”They don’t want woke equity, they want God-given equality.”

Other RNC speakers took aim at Biden’s age