RNC 2024 Day 1 live updates: Trump makes VP pick, passes on Rubio and Burgum

(MILWAUKEE) — The Republican National Convention is set to kick off in Milwaukee on Monday — just two days after Donald Trump was wounded in an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday evening.

Despite the shooting, the gathering of more than 50,000 attendees, including an expected 2,400 Republican delegates, is slated to maintain its original programming as a time to bring the party together — but now newly energized by Trump’s amazing survival and raised-fist show of defiance.

Here’s how the news is developing:

RNC officially underway
The Republican National Convention is underway. A live rendition of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” filled the convention center in Milwaukee. Groups of delegate were seen before and during these opening ceremonies pumping their fists and chanting “fight, fight, fight,” taking up former President Trump’s gesture after the shooting at his rally as a symbol for the party’s nominating convention.

Crowds continued the chant during “God Bless the USA” ahead of a vote on the party’s platform.

RNC co-chair Michael Whatley gaveled the convention to order and asked for a moment of silence to honor the shooting.

As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was announced as an honorary co-chair, audible boos were heard from the crowd. The Senate leader, who will step down from his perch atop the GOP conference, has had a frosty relationship with the former president since Jan. 6, 2021.
-ABC News’ Jay O’Brien

Burgum told he is not Trump’s running mate
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has been told he is not Trump’s running mate pick, three sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

Trump’s pick is expected to be announced at some point Monday.

-ABC News’ Rachel Scott, Rick Klein, Katherine Faulders

Rubio told he is not Trump’s running mate
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has been told he is not former President Donald Trump’s running mate pick, five sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

Trump’s pick is expected to be announced at some point Monday.

-ABC News’ John Santucci, Katherine Faulders, Rachel Scott, Rick Klein

Trump has made his VP selection
Trump has selected his running mate, a senior campaign official told ABC News.

-ABC News’ John Santucci

Trump has made his VP selection
Trump has selected his running mate, a senior campaign official told ABC News.

-ABC News’ John Santucci

Vivek Ramaswamy recounts ‘anger’ after Trump shooting, calls for unity
Vivek Ramaswamy, speaking with reporters after his speech at the Heritage Policy Fest, joined Trump in stressing unity after the shooting at the former president’s Pennsylvania rally.

ABC News asked Ramaswamy for his response to Republicans like J.D. Vance going after Democrats and President Joe Biden in the wake of the attempted assassination attempt.

“Look, I think that there is a lot of understandable anger. I was … my first reaction was anger,” Ramaswamy said. “And the reason my first reaction was anger was that the only thing more tragic than what happened on Saturday is that if we’re being really honest with ourselves, all of us, it wasn’t totally a shock, actually. And that, that is maddening. And that … makes me angry as a citizen of the United States of America. But the question is, how do we channel that anger?”

Ramaswamy said Republicans have a “second chance that Lincoln didn’t have: to unite a country that this time didn’t have to fight a civil war, but avoids one.”

“If that bullet hit Donald Trump, we’d be in a very different place now,” he said. “And the fact that we’ve been given that chance, I think it’s our responsibility to step up and seize it not by compromising on our principles, but by actually reviving the principles that unite all of us. And by seeing the enemy as the ideology that we’re up against, rather than our fellow neighbors as our enemy combatants, and that’s what I call on not only the Republican Party but every American to do in the wake of what happened on Saturday.”

-ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler

Pre-planned group of 1,700 National Guardsmen and other troops supporting RNC security
As part of a plan that predates the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, roughly 1,700 National Guardsmen and several active-duty troops will assist other agencies with security at the Republican National Convention, according to Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh.

“In regards to the Republican National Convention, approximately 1,700 National Guard and a small number of active-duty personnel will be providing support to civil authorities from July 13 through 19. These personnel are supporting the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and Milwaukee Metro Police Department for 24/7 operations,” Singh said.

Singh emphasized that this support was pre-planned, and not related to the shooting at Trump’s rally over the weekend, nor was the force augmented as a result.

-Matt Seyler

Trump says he will announce VP pick today
Former President Donald Trump told Fox News’ Bret Baier on Monday morning that he will announce his pick for vice president on Monday.

The decision will come after months of speculation about who his running mate will be.

There will be a roll call vote on the presidential ticket, which includes the vice president, on Monday at the RNC.

Trump in Milwaukee as RNC set to begin
The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump has thoroughly altered the stakes and tone of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, which kicks off Monday, just two days after a shooter opened fire at the former president’s Pennsylvania rally on Saturday, grazing Trump’s ear and leading to a spectator’s death.

Trump arrived in Milwaukee Sunday afternoon, ahead of the RNC’s start on Monday.

In a social media post Sunday, Trump indicated that he was going to delay his trip, but decided he wouldn’t allow a “shooter” to change his scheduled plans to head to the RNC.

U.S. Secret Service and other officials said Sunday there are no plans to expand the security perimeter and that there are no known threats. Ahead of the shooting at his rally, the GOP convention was gearing up to be an extravagant event centered around symbolic, Trump-era Republican ideas and party unity, sealed on Thursday with the third nomination of the former president.

-ABC’s Brittany Shepherd, Kelsey Walsh and Isabella Murray

Trump says he’s scratching planned speech to stress unity instead
As the Republican National Convention begins, the atmosphere will feel entirely different following former President Donald Trump’s attempted assassination.

A day after being grazed by a bullet, Trump indicated he plans to take advantage of the moment and deliver a message of unity.

The former president said he is scratching his original convention speech from rallying his base against President Joe Biden to now attempting to draw the country together, according to an interview he did with the Washington Examiner conducted as he boarded his flight to Milwaukee Sunday evening.

During the first official session, delegates — nearly 2,400 from across the nation — must approve the committee platform and formally designate a presidential ticket. The ticket will include Trump’s vice president who he has yet to name.
The evening session’s theme is “Make America Wealthy Again.” Speeches will include issues focused on beating inflation, rising costs and creating more jobs.

-ABC’s Kelsey Walsh