WWII veteran receives standing ovation, ‘USA’ chants after moving speech
Decorated WWII and D-Day veteran Sgt. William Pekrul, 98, received a standing ovation and loud cheers following his emotional RNC speech on night three of the RNC, which was themed, “Make America Strong Once Again,” as he recalled poignant war experiences and enduring patriotism. “It hurts my heart to see what our current president and vice president have done to the country I love so well,” Pekrul said of President Biden. “As we [get] pushed around by China, terrorists run wild in the Middle East, and they let our own southern border get overrun.” Pekrul called “America the greatest nation in the history of the world” and said that when he came back from war in Europe, he “kissed the ground” and thanked God for his return. VANCE SAYS HIS MISSION AT GOP CONVENTION SPEECH IS ‘TO FIRE UP THE CROWD TONIGHT’ RNC delegates gave Pekrul a standing ovation and chanted, “USA,” while former President Trump, who has been in attendance each night of the convention since Monday, smiled and applauded. The veteran recounted some of the horrors of WWII and said he would never forget the horrors he saw when battling the Nazis. “I will never forget and witness the horror of the Nazi war camps and the Battle of the Bulge,” Pekrul recalled. “My friends and I fought to stop the Nazis, the last major push in the Western Front.” “We worked, and we gave thanks to Almighty God for deliverance from evil,” he continued. “But not many of us came home. I still miss a lot of my friends on that beach.” Pekrul earned two Bronze Stars and a Silver Star for his WWII service. Locally recognized, he was Grand Marshal of Milwaukee’s Veterans Day Parade in 2019. TRUMP ANNOUNCES JD VANCE AS HIS RUNNING MATE During his RNC speech, Pekrul threw in his strong support for Trump, saying that with “President Trump back as commander in chief, I would go back to re-enlist today.” “And I would storm whatever beach my country needs me to,” Pekrul concluded. “God bless you, God bless our home and the United States of America.” The tone of night three of the RNC subtly shifted to one of somberness, as family members of the 13 U.S. service members who lost their lives during the final days of the U.S. war in Afghanistan spoke about their loved ones. Most of the audience remained standing on their feet as the Gold Star families made their remarks. At the end of their statements, the names of each service member who died were read to the audience, with those in attendance shouting the names back in return. LIVE UPDATES: REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION Other notable speakers who packed a punch and added to the unifying energy behind Trump – who will speak on Thursday night and formally accept the Republican Party’s nomination for president – included Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. and granddaughter, Kai Trump, VP nominee J.D. Vance, among others. A group of University of North Carolina (UNC) fraternity brothers who protected an American flag from anti-Israel agitators during a campus demonstration earlier this year also received a warm welcome as they each held their own flags. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Thursday night at the RNC will continue with the theme “Make America Great Once Again.” Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub. Fox News Digital’s Michael Lee contributed to this report.
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Trump to formally accept Republican presidential nomination in speech altered after assassination attempt
MILWAUKEE – Five days after surviving an assassination attempt, former President Trump on Thursday will formally accept the GOP presidential nomination during the culminating moment of the 2024 Republican National Convention. The shooting, at Trump’s rally Saturday in western Pennsylvania where one spectator was killed, along with the gunman, instantly impacted the tone and message of the convention, and altered the former president’s address. The Trump campaign has said this week that the former president – following his brush with death – will use his speech to call for unity in the face of tragedy instead of criticizing his political adversaries. CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS UPDATES FROM THE GOP CONVENTION Trump, in an interview Sunday with the Washington Examiner, said “honestly, it’s going to be a whole different speech now.” “It is a chance to bring the country together. I was given that chance,” he emphasized. And in an email to supporters on the eve of his address, Trump said “I will lay out my vision to UNITE OUR COUNTRY AND MAKE IT GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!” The push for party unity was on display during the first three days of the convention, with former GOP presidential rivals Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley – who battled Trump in a contentious primary season – delivered speeches from the podium in support of the former president. Republicans are using the convention as a venue to reunite the party and energize delegates and activists ahead of the final stretch of the campaign in Trump’s 2024 election rematch with President Biden. “This is obviously an opportunity to bring the country together,” Trump co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita said earlier this week. “But let’s not forget we’re in the middle of a campaign, and we have to win that campaign.” Trump is also expected to hit a major theme of his 2024 campaign – strength – and contrast it with what he argues is Biden’s weakness. Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller, in an interview on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime,” spotlighted the “strength and resilience from President Trump, especially only a few days after the assassination attempt.” CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Miller also noted that the “tone” and “approach” of the former president’s speech “is going to be notably different.” “President Trump has spent much of the last several days dictating what he wants that speech to look like in real terms, saying ‘I want to say this and I want to go into the following,’” Miller noted. The Biden campaign isn’t buying the Republicans’ unity message. Biden principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks told reporters this week that Trump and Republicans “will always choose big, greedy, anti-union extremists over the working men and women of America.” Trump’s address to the roughly 2,400 delegates and thousands of other attendees packed inside Milwaukee’s Fiserv Arena, and the millions of Americans watching the GOP convention, also comes less than two months since he was convicted of 34 felony counts in the first criminal trial of a former or current president in the nation’s history. But weeks later, Biden severely stumbled with a disastrous debate performance against Trump, which has led to a rising chorus of calls from within the Democratic Party for the president to end his 2024 re-election bid and bow out of the race. And now, in the wake of this past weekend’s assassination attempt, the presidential rematch has been further altered. On the eve of the convention’s final day, Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, acknowledged that “as we meet tonight, we cannot forget that this evening could have been much different. Instead of a day of celebration, this could have been a day of heartache and mourning.” Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Flashback: A look at Donald Trump’s remarks at the 2016, 2020 Republican conventions
As the Republican National Convention continues and preparations are made for remarks from former President Trump on Thursday, here is a look back at his two previous addresses at the conventions in 2016 and 2020: Following an unpredictable Republican presidential primary race in 2016, Trump made his debut at the RNC in Cleveland. In his speech, Trump decried political correctness, telling attendees, “It is finally time for a straightforward assessment of the state of our nation. I will present the facts plainly and honestly. … We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore.” CHUCK SCHUMER PUSHED TO DELAY DNC AS CONCERNS PERSIST OVER BIDEN’S CANDIDACY Much of his remarks emphasized his vision for returning the U.S. to law and order, particularly as it relates to crime and the southern border. “Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement,” he said at the time. Trump talked about crimes perpetrated by illegal immigrants as he pushed for a more secure border, starting a trend that has continued, with Republicans emphasizing heinous crimes allegedly committed by suspects who entered the country illegally. “One such border-crosser was released and made his way to Nebraska. There, he ended the life of an innocent young girl named Sarah Root. She was 21 years old and was killed the day after graduating from college with a 4.0 grade point average, No. 1 in her class,” he told listeners. “Her killer was then released a second time, and he is now a fugitive from the law. I’ve met Sarah’s beautiful family. But to this administration, their amazing daughter was just one more American life that wasn’t worth protecting, one more child to sacrifice on the altar of open borders.” ADAM SCHIFF CALLS ON BIDEN TO EXIT PRESIDENTIAL RACE AS DEM CONFIDENCE DWINDLES Trump’s 2016 remarks would preview what much of his presidency would go on to look like, with a strong emphasis on illegal immigration. In 2020, after Trump had served in the role of commander in chief for several years, his remarks began to focus on a different subject. By this point, the country was in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and a vaccination had yet to be made available. Due to the pandemic, many speeches were even delivered remotely. ALL ABOUT BABYDOG: THE GOVERNOR’S PET THAT STOLE THE SHOW AT THE RNC “In recent months, our nation and the entire planet has been struck by a new and powerful invisible enemy. Like those brave Americans before us, we are meeting this challenge,” then-President Trump said. “We are delivering lifesaving therapies and will produce a vaccine before the end of the year or maybe even sooner. We will defeat the virus, end the pandemic and emerge stronger than ever before.” He spent time during the remarks reflecting on accomplishments over the previous few years. Trump named a few, explaining how after he took office he immediately “withdrew from the last administration’s job-killing Trans Pacific Partnership. I then approved the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, ended the unfair and costly Paris Climate Accord, and secured, for the first time, American energy independence. We passed record-setting tax and regulation cuts, at a rate nobody had ever seen before.” COULD BOB MENENDEZ RUN FOR RE-ELECTION AFTER BEING FOUND GUILTY OF CORRUPTION? “Within three short years, we built the strongest economy in the history of the world,” Trump said. Laced throughout his 2020 remarks were warnings to voters, that all of the progress Trump had made toward his goals as president could be undone if he didn’t win again on Election Day. Trump’s 2024 remarks will likely touch on some of these same subjects. However, the former president has revealed that his speech will do one thing in particular: unify. After the assassination attempt on Trump at a rally on Saturday in Butler, Pa., that left him bloodied with a wound on his right ear, the former president said he ripped up his planned convention speech. “This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together. The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would’ve been two days ago,” he said in an interview after the shooting. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Trump VP pick JD Vance pledges to ‘commit to the working man’ as populism takes center stage at RNC
MILWAUKEE – Sen. JD Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate in the 2024 race for the White House, struck a populist tone as he formally accepted the Republican Party’s vice presidential nomination Wednesday night, pledging he will be a vice president who “never forgets” where he came from. Delivering his acceptance speech two days after Trump named the 39-year-old Ohio senator as his running mate, Vance said the GOP convention marked a “celebration of what America once was, and with God’s grace, what it will soon be again.” “It is a reminder of the sacred duty we have to preserve the American experiment, to choose a new path for our children and grandchildren,” he added. Vance – who described the Republican Party as being “united in our love for this country and committed to free speech and the open exchange of ideas” for the next four years – reflected fondly on his upbringing in a “small town where people spoke their minds.” WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT JD VANCE: FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR TO TRUMP’S VP PICK Vance also pointed to Biden’s decades-long career in politics, saying that when he “was a sophomore in high school, that same career politician named Joe Biden gave China a sweetheart trade deal that destroyed even more good American middle-class manufacturing jobs.” “When I was a senior in high school, that same Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq,” he added. “And at each step of the way, in small towns like mine in Ohio or next door in Pennsylvania or Michigan and states all across our country, jobs were sent overseas and our children were sent to war.” Vance also touched on housing and the economy during his remarks, declaring that “Joe Biden’s inflation crisis, my friends, is really an affordability crisis.” “Many of the people that I grew up with can’t afford to pay more for groceries, more for gas, more for rent. And that’s exactly what Joe Biden’s economy has given them,” he said. Vance, arguably as vice presidential nominee the MAGA movement’s heir apparent, made his comments in his address to the roughly 2,400 delegates and thousands of other attendees packed inside Milwaukee’s Fiserv Arena, and the millions of Americans watching the GOP convention from home. “Let me tell you about the future. President Trump’s vision is so simple and yet so powerful. We’re done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to Wall Street. We’ll commit to the working man,” he said. “We’re done importing foreign labor. We’re going to fight for American citizens and their good jobs and their good wages,” he continued. “We’re done buying energy from countries that hate us. We’re going to get it right here from American workers in Pennsylvania, in Ohio and across the country.” The convention kicked off just two days after the former president survived an assassination attempt at a Trump rally in western Pennsylvania where one spectator and the shooter were killed. “I want all Americans to go and watch the video of a would-be assassin coming a quarter of an inch from taking his life. Consider the lies they told you about Donald Trump, and then look at that photo of him, defiant, fist in the air. When Donald Trump rose to his feet in that Pennsylvania field, all of America stood with him,” Vance said Wednesday. “What did he call us to do for our country? To fight. To fight for America, even in his most perilous moment, we were on his mind,” he added. “His instinct was for us, for our country, to call us to something higher, to something greater, to once again be citizens who ask what our country needs of us.” Vance, a former venture capitalist and the author of the bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” before running for elective office, said at a financial event house before his prime time address at the convention that “we’re gonna get out there and try to fire up the crowd tonight.” And from the reactions of the audience of party faithful and MAGA minions inside the arena, Vance succeeded. Vance gave a moving tribute to his mother, Beverly Aikins, during his remarks Wednesday night. HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING FROM THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION “It’s about single moms like mine, who struggle with money and addiction but never gave up,” Vance said as his mother sat watching in former Trump’s Friends and Family box for the speech. “I am proud to say that tonight my mom is here, 10 years clean and sober. I love you, mom.” Vance stepped aside and acknowledged his mother while the crowd belted out a chant of “JD’s Mom! JD’s Mom!” Trump, in making his greatly anticipated and high-stakes running mate announcement as the GOP convention kicked off in Midwestern swing-state Wisconsin’s largest city, will now share the ticket with one of his top supporters in the Senate and a one-time Trump critic who has transformed into a leading America First ally and MAGA champion. The former president and Vance teamed up on Monday and Tuesday nights in the family box above the floor of the GOP convention. Vance’s story began with Vance growing up in a working-class family in a small city in southwestern Ohio. His parents divorced when he was young, and as his mother struggled for years with drug and alcohol abuse, Vance was raised in part by his maternal grandparents. After high school graduation, Vance enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, including a deployment to Iraq. He later graduated from The Ohio State University and then earned a law degree at Yale University. Vance, who lives in Cincinnati, moved to San Francisco after law school and worked as a principal in a venture capital firm owned by billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who later became a major financial supporter of Vance’s successful 2022 campaign for the Senate. Before running for Senate, Vance grabbed national attention after his book “Hillbilly Elegy” – which tells his story of growing up
‘Ruined by negligence’: Dave Portnoy blasts Nantucket wind farm after broken blade shuts down beaches
Barstool Sports President and CEO Dave Portnoy is speaking out after an offshore windmill blade snapped and sent nonbiodegradable fiberglass shards into the water, washing up on Nantucket shores and forcing the town to close its beaches. On Tuesday, the Nantucket harbormaster announced that six of the Massachusetts town’s beaches would be temporarily closed after pieces of fiberglass washed ashore and said anyone walking the beach should wear footwear to protect themselves from the sharp debris. Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between foreign entities Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which built wind farms off the coast of Massachusetts, said Tuesday that a blade from a turbine had snapped and that power production from the turbines was stopped immediately. The company also said “nearly the entirety of the blade remains affixed to the turbine.” But a photo obtained by Fox News Digital depicts the blade mostly severed from its base. SUPREME COURT SIDES WITH FISHERMEN IN LANDMARK CASE DECIDING FATE OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE Portnoy, a Nantucket homeowner, told Fox he thinks it should be a “one-strike you’re out policy” for Vineyard Wind and that “they should no longer be allowed to operate these windmills.” “Everybody wants a healthy planet, but when the ones advocating for a green planet are the ones damaging it, it makes you pause,” he told Fox News Digital. Portnoy also suggested the company should “be forced to refund every person who rented a house on Nantucket for as long as the beaches are closed.” “Families save up for years to take a vacation to Nantucket only to have it ruined by negligence,” he said. “Also, there is no telling how much sea life will be affected,” he added. LOCAL FISHERMEN SLAM BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S NEWLY UNVEILED PLANS TO INDUSTRIALIZE GULF OF MAINE New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) CEO Jerry Leeman also reacted to the incident, saying that “the scariest thing” is that “it could happen again.” “As a fisherman, I know how powerful and volatile the North Atlantic is. If this blade fell off on a beautiful summer day, what would happen during a winter squall or a hurricane?” he told Fox News Digital. He went on to say that “the environment effects are tragic.” “Shards of fiberglass, which are not biodegradable, are a huge threat to whales, dolphins and porpoises, some of which are endangered,” he said. “Nanoparticles from the fiberglass could even enter the food web if zooplankton mistake particles for forage. This slow-rolling disaster is a serious threat to fishery sustainability,” he added. In a statement to Fox News Digital, Vineyard Wind said it “deployed services vessels immediately to recover three large blade pieces from the ocean” and that “debris of non-toxic blade material has washed up on Nantucket beaches and are being recovered.” “The cause of the breakage is unknown at this time. GE, as the project’s turbine and blade manufacturer and installation contractor, will now be conducting the analysis into the root cause of the incident,” Vineyard Wind said. Vineyard Wind also said that upon ceasing power production, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) issued a work suspension order on Monday afternoon. “Vineyard Wind is in full compliance with the order, and is working in collaboration with BSEE to support its assessment and advance critical safety response and debris recovery efforts,” the company said. BLUE-STATE LOBSTERMEN SAY BIDEN’S ‘DESTRUCTIVE’ GREEN ENERGY PLANS COULD COST THEIR LIVELIHOOD Offshore wind farming has been a contentious push by the Biden administration, which aims to hit aggressive green energy goals by 2030. Agencies within the Biden administration have been accused of moving too fast to approve wind projects at the expense of both environmental and marine life. Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, testified in March last year before a House Committee that “[w]hile some offshore wind may hold promise, federal and state levels have moved forward without transparency, robust and sound science or good governance.” Zipf testified that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) previously found that offshore wind can increase ocean noise, which can affect behaviors of whales; introduce electromagnetic fields that impact their navigation, predator detection and communication; and change species composition and survival rates, among other things. “The NMFS concludes with, ‘Offshore wind is the new use of our marine waters, requiring substation scientific and regulatory review,’” Zipf testified. “So, where is the substantial review? Where is the commitment to the precautionary principle?” Clean Ocean Action noted last February following the ninth whale death in the Northeast that the “alarming number of [whale] deaths is unprecedented in the last half century.” The only unique factor from previous years is the excessive scope, scale and magnitude of offshore wind power plant activity in the region, the group noted. Zipf emphasized that “climate change is real” and “living resources on the planet are in crisis.” But offshore wind projects should only be approved after pilot-scale projects are proven to be successful and when science supports industrial-scale plants. In April, NEFSA, a fishing advocacy group that represents wild harvesters in fisheries across New England, criticized the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) recently unveiled plans to lease 2 million acres of ocean in Maine for more offshore wind development – an unprecedented leasing area that would allow for construction of enough wind turbines to produce 32 gigawatts of energy. NEFSA, along with Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, said the administration is “rushing” to “political-proof” a green energy plan insulated from a possible administration change in November. BOEM told Fox News Digital that it will conduct a “phased leasing approach, and that BOEM does not intend to lease the entire final WEA (wind energy area) … but rather BOEM will now consider proposed lease areas from within the final WEA based on certain criteria.” They said the WEA was finalized “after extensive engagement with lobster fishermen in fishing communities” and “avoids several other important fishing areas and habitats, including important groundfish areas.”
IAS trainee Puja Khedkar’s mother detained over viral gun video
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