Trump greets supporters at Republican national conventionDonald Trump is now walking into the VIP seating of the Republican national convention, pumping his fist in the air.
Country singer Lee Greenwood is on stage, singing his hit God Bless the USA.
Key events
Show key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this feature
Teamsters president Sean O’Brien is now onstage.
Some senior members of his union are not happy that he is addressing the Republican convention. Here’s more about that:
Actor and model Amber Rose was up next, rebutting the assertion that Donald Trump is racist.
“The first person I knew who supported Donald Trump was my father. I was shocked. My entire family is racially diverse, and I believed the leftwing propaganda that Donald Trump was a racist. My father said: ‘No, he’s not Amber, what are you talking about?’ And when I insisted, he said, prove it. So to prove my father wrong, I did my research and looked into all things Donald Trump,” Rose said.
“People have to do their research. I watched all the rallies, and I started meeting so many of you, his red-hat wearing supporters. I realized Donald Trump and his supporters don’t care if you’re Black, white, gay or straight – it’s all love.”
Donald Trump listened to a story from western Michigan resident Mark Laws, who was talking about how inflation has affected him.
JD Vance is sitting to Trump’s left, and to his right is congressman Byron Donalds. Next to him is Tucker Carlson, the conservative former Fox News commentator. Carlson appears to be leaning over Donalds to talk to Trump.
The crowd has broken into chants of “USA! USA! USA!”
As well as “Fight! Fight! Fight!” and “We want Trump!”
Trump is standing next to JD Vance, who he just selected as his running mate.
They’re in a VIP section alongside members of Congress, including House speaker Mike Johnson.
Trump greets supporters at Republican national conventionDonald Trump is now walking into the VIP seating of the Republican national convention, pumping his fist in the air.
Country singer Lee Greenwood is on stage, singing his hit God Bless the USA.
Trump appears with bandaged ear at conventionThe jumbotron at the Republican national convention is now showing video of Donald Trump, apparently backstage.
His right ear is covered in a bandage, after it was hit by a bullet during the assassination attempt targeting him on Saturday. He motioned to the camera, as if signaling he could still hear the convention crowd through that ear, drawing cheers.
Joan E Greve
Amid widespread concerns about Joe Biden‘s ability to serve another four years in office, JD Vance boasted that Donald Trump is in great health because of his “ridiculous genes”.
“Donald Trump is as healthy as anybody I’ve ever met. I tell him all the time, he’s got ridiculous genes,” Vance told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “I plan to be a very good vice-president to Donald Trump for four years.”
Joan E Greve
In his Fox News interview, JD Vance echoed Donald Trump’s call to “deport a large number of people who have come here illegally”. Trump has previously expressed his wish to deport 15 to 20 million undocumented migrants if he wins in November.
Vance agreed with Fox News host Sean Hannity’s description of the US-Mexico border as the country’s “number-one national security threat”.
“We have to deport people. We have to deport people who broke our laws who came in here. And I think we need to start with the violent criminals,” Vance said.
Pointing to polls showing declining support for immigration, Vance said the proposed mass deportations would represent “a policy victory for the American people”.
JD Vance claims media to blame for his previous critical views of Trump
Joan E Greve
Vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, who once described Donald Trump as “America’s Hitler”, blamed his past criticism of the former president on “the media’s lies and distortions”.
Speaking to Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Vance said: “I bought into this idea that somehow he was going to be so different, a terrible threat to democracy. It was a joke.”
As a reminder, Trump’s presidency ended with a violent attack on the US Capitol after a group of his supporters stormed the building in an effort to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Vance told Hannity: “Joe Biden is the one who is trying to undermine American law and order. President Trump did a really good job. And I actually think it’s a good thing, when you see somebody [and] you were wrong about them, you ought to admit the mistake and admit that you were wrong.”
PayPal co-founder and tech entrepreneur David Sacks just came on stage to give what was perhaps the worst-received speech of the night thus far.
His lines just were not hitting with a crowd that has been generous with its applause throughout the night.
“The Biden-Harris administration has taken a world that was at peace under President Trump and they lit it on fire,” Sacks said, pausing for cheers that never really came.
“First, President Biden botched the Afghanistan withdrawal, displaying incompetence and weakness for the whole world to see. Then, he provoked, yes, provoked, the Russians to invade Ukraine with talk of Nato expansion,” he said, to not much more reaction.
After saying, to indifference, that Biden was taking the world “to the brink of world war three”, Sacks went on for a few minutes more before walking off stage.
Meanwhile, it’s now more than 20 minutes past 8pm in Milwaukee and there are no indications of Donald Trump stopping in at the Republican national convention.
But there’s still time. The night’s session has about an hour and a half more to go.
Blocks away from the Fiserv center in downtown Milwaukee, where Republicans are holding their convention, protesters converged to demonstrate against the party’s policies.
Here are images from the news wires of the protests, which are expected to continue throughout the convention:
A protester displays a sign against Project 2025, the rightwing plan to remake the US government. Photograph: Dave Decker/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/ShutterstockProtesters display anti-Trump signs in downtown Milwaukee. Photograph: Dave Decker/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/ShutterstockPro-Palestinian activists rally in Milwaukee as the Republican national convention takes place. Photograph: Dave Decker/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/ShutterstockHere’s more on the protests today outside the Republican national convention: