Trump makes first public appearance since assassination attempt (VIDEO)

Former US President Donald Trump was greeted with thunderous applause on the opening night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

The four-day convention began with the official nomination of Trump as the party’s presidential nominee for the November election, just two days after a failed assassination attempt against him.

The crowd cheered wildly when he walked from backstage to the convention floor to a live version of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” with a white bandage on his right ear.

After greeting his supporters, who were chanting “USA! USA!” and “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Trump climbed the stairs to the VIP section. He stood flanked by his new running mate, J.D. Vance, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Florida Rep. Byron Donalds and journalist Tucker Carlson on the right.

Trump tapped Vance as vice presidential candidate but did not address the convention on Monday. He is expected to deliver a speech, which he revised in the wake of the shooting, on the final day of the gathering on Thursday.

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”I am not supposed to be here; I am supposed to be dead,” Trump said in an interview with the New York Post on Sunday. The former president said he had prepared “an extremely tough speech... all about the corrupt, horrible administration” for the event in Milwaukee, but “threw it away” after the assassination attempt.

”I want to try to unite our country… but I do not know if that is possible. People are very divided,” he added.