Former President Donald Trump announced Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, via his social media platform Truth Social.
“As Vice President, J.D. will continue to fight for our Constitution, stand with our Troops, and will do everything he can to help me MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” he posted. “Congratulations to Senator J.D. Vance, his wife, Usha, who also graduated from Yale Law School, and their three beautiful children. MAGA2024!”
Today's schedule includes two official sessions, including screenings of the movie Reagan (which will hit theaters later this summer and stars Dennis Quaid as the 40th president), as well as several events for different state delegations.
You can find the full schedule here.
How to follow from home:
NPR will have live analysis and coverage from Milwaukee on air and in a video livestream starting at 8 p.m. CT.
After the shooting
Trump and his campaign are retooling his messaging for the Republican National Convention. The campaign is shifting its message after Saturday’s assassination attempt.
Trump is tweaking his speech to focus more on unity and less on attacking President Joe Biden, according to a source familiar with the campaign’s plans who is not authorized to speak publicly.
Biden, who is also calling for lowering the temperature of political rhetoric, ordered a review of the security plan for the Republican National Convention.
Trump gave a series of interviews to newspapers Monday where he says he’s alive only because he turned his head slightly.
He told the New York Post "I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead."
He says he remembers hearing the whizzing sound before feeling the bullet ripping through his skin.
The platform
The Republican Party released its 2024 platform last week, after skipping it in 2020. Click here to read the 16-page document in full.
Dedicated to the "To the Forgotten Men and Women of America," it reads like the transcript of a Trump rally speech.
The Republican National Committee’s Platform Committee adopted former President Donald Trump’s platform, a document that leans into Trump’s preferred “America First” stances and steers away from traditional GOP social issues.
The platform starts with 20 promises, largely pulling from the tag lines of the former president, including “STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION” and the simplistic “END INFLATION.” Trump’s campaign sought to pare down the party platform.
More recently, Trump has made sure to try to distance himself from the controversial (and lengthy) Project 2025 policy document put together by some of his allies.
Notably, the promises don’t mention anything about abortion, as Trump attempts to de-emphasize the issue and appeal to swing voters. In the entire platform, the word appears just once, in a statement about the party's dedication to protecting "the issue of life." It reads: "We will oppose Late Term Abortion."
After appointing the Supreme Court justices who helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion, he has said the issue should now be up to states.
Other social issues appear more frequently, including promises related to limiting federal funding for schools teaching so-called critical race theory and keeping "men out of women's sports."
Why Milwaukee
The Republican National Convention is happening in Milwaukee four years after the Democratic National Convention was mostly canceled here due to COVID-19. Milwaukee’s preparations for the DNC in 2020 made it “turnkey” ready for the RNC, according to city officials who lobbied for the RNC in 2024.
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, a Democrat, supported the RNC coming to Milwaukee because of its potential economic benefits. The city’s tourism arm, VISIT Milwaukee, estimates the RNC could bring $200 million in spending to Milwaukee.
Another selling point for Milwaukee is Wisconsin’s role as a swing state in presidential elections. In 2020, Biden won Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes. Both Democrats and Republicans are working to boost their margins in Wisconsin ahead of the November election.
Ripon, Wisc., is known as the birthplace of the Republican Party.
NPR's Franco Ordoñez, Emily Alfin Johnson, Megan Pratz, Rachel Treisman, WUWM and Wisconsin Public Radio contributed to this report.