- The failed attempt to assassinate Trump is already impacting his Thursday speech.
- He says he'd planned an "extremely tough speech" focused on Biden but will now seek unity.
- "It is a chance to bring the country together," Trump said. "I was given that chance."
In the wake of a failed assassination attempt at a rally on Saturday, former President Donald Trump says he's torn up the speech he originally planned to deliver at the Republican National Convention.
"It is a chance to bring the country together," Trump told the Washington Examiner. "I was given that chance."
Trump is scheduled to deliver his speech in Milwaukee on Thursday, when he formally accepts the GOP nomination for President of the United States.
Historically, Trump has been known to give pugnacious speeches, tearing into his political foes while making grandiose claims about his own accomplishments and attributes.
But in interviews with both the Examiner and the New York Post, the former president said that he plans to cast that approach aside.
"I had all prepared an extremely tough speech, really good, all about the corrupt, horrible administration," Trump told the Post. "But I threw it away."
He added that he wanted "to try to unite our country" but that he doesn't "know if that's possible."
Speaking with the Examiner, Trump said that his Thursday address will be a "whole different speech now."
While Trump himself may be aiming to give a more unifying speech, it's far from clear that the rest of the convention's speakers will follow suit.
Some Republican lawmakers have publicly blamed Democrats and the media for the assassination attempt, though the motive of the shooter appears unclear as of Monday.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, just hours after the shooting, wrote on X that Democrats "wanted this to happen."