(MILWAUKEE, W.I.) — Virginia Breedlove, a guest at the Republican National Convention, teared up recounting the moment she witnessed Donald Trump enter the Fiserv Forum just 48 hours after being shot.
“I was holding it together,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. “But when he turned his head and I saw the bandage on his ear, I just — I lost it, because that’s a physical scar that he has.”
“But he has many years of other scars of attack from Americans that don’t want him in office,” she continued. “But he’s done everything he said he would do. He’s done everything and he’s helped keep our country safe.”
This week, thousands of Trump’s biggest supporters are gathered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to see him accept the party’s nomination for president.
In their eyes, Trump hasn’t done — and likely can’t do — any wrong.
Heading into the convention, an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll found 59% of Americans said he was rightfully convicted of 34 felonies in his New York hush money trial and many fewer, 38%, accepted Trump’s claim that the convictions were unjust.
But two dozen RNC attendees who spoke with ABC News Digital, including delegates and guests, said Trump being found guilty of 34 felony counts gave them no reservations about backing him this election cycle. Many said their support has only grown, waving off entirely the criminal cases (totaling 88 counts) against the former president.
“Do the two words ‘weaponized DOJ’ ring a bell?” said one Illinois delegate.
“We have 54 in our delegation, and we have T-shirts that we’re all going to be wearing that’s like, ‘The year of the felon.’ We’re good. We’re voting for the felon,” said Barbara Jernigan, an alternate delegate from Missouri.
“No pause about him at all,” said Francine Gargano, a delegate from New Jersey. “Not at all. Not even a little bit. I mean, I wish I could say even a tiny bit, but no. Every day, I think we love him more and more and more.”
Others blamed a “kangaroo court” or said that the guilty verdict by a jury of Trump’s peers was “engineered.”
Just one person said Trump being a convicted felon concerned him “a little bit.”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” said Jim Walsh, an alternate delegate from Connecticut. “I personally feel some of it is a little bit trumped up. I think he’ll be okay. You prefer that none of that did happen, but it did. So, you just got to hopefully go with it.”
If this week here has shown one thing, it’s that Trump’s grip on the party is more ironclad than ever before.
His bitter rivals in the Republican primary all spoke on stage and offered their support. Even Nikki Haley, who once said there was “no way” the American people would vote for a convicted felon, gave her “strong endorsement.” JD Vance — previously a so-called “Never Trumper” — is now his running mate.
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