[MILWAUKEE] The founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition told RedState he was overwhelmed by the emotion here in Fiserv Forum when President Donald J. Trump joined delegates and activists Monday night at the opening session of the 2024 Republican National Convention.

“It was amazing,” said Ralph Reed, whose political career began at as a College Republican at the University of Georgia. “It was amazing. I mean, the place was electric.”

Reed said the thousands of convention attendees were responding to physically seeing the president so soon after a would-be assassin’s bullet pierced his right ear at Saturday's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“Obviously, we're all still stunned and still processing the attempted assassination, but I think we're all grateful as Trump supporters, as friends of the President, and most importantly as Americans, that his life was spared,” he said. 

“We believe, by the good Lord, and we hope and believe and expect that his life was spared so that he could return to the White House and make America great again,” the Portsmouth, Virginia, native said.

As country singer Lee Greenwood took the stage, Trump, wearing a bandage on his right ear, appeared on the big screens, showing him standing in one of the hallways waiting to come out. Delegates, who had stepped away from their seats during the musical interstitial, retook their seats, and their cheers rose up.

When Greenwood started singing his signature anthem, “God Bless the U.S.A.,” the president entered the arena and took his seat in the section for his family and guests. 

Those cheers were punctuated with “Fight! Fight! Fight!” — the same words the president chanted as Secret Service agents bundled him off the stage Saturday.

Trump took his seat with his running mate, Ohio’s Republican Sen. J.D. Vance, whom Reed said was the right pick.

“He is a big win,” he said.

“I'm a big fan of J.D. Vance's. He's a good friend. He's a star. He's a great talent. He's brilliant. He'll be a great vice president,” he said.

Reed, who has long been associated with the political activism inside the Evangelical Christian community, beginning with his own conversion to Christ and his 10-year tenure as the executive director of the Christian Coalition, said he was not surprised that GOP delegates have rallied behind the party’s new platform.

The Trump campaign achieved the first overhaul of the GOP platform since Ronald Reagan’s reworking of the Republican Party in 1980. 

Reed was not shocked that delegates have rallied behind the new platform despite external commentators predicting a fight over new language on social issues, such as protecting the unborn.

“It's a record of proven conservative results, and I have no concerns at all about having a shorter platform,” he said. “That's more of a concise campaign document because it reaffirms the fact that we stand with Israel and that the unborn child has a right to life under the Constitution.”

There is no fight over the platform because Trump established credibility with religious conservatives, he said.

“Trump has a track record,” he said. 

“People were not having to go on trust. He's the most pro-life president in American history. He's the most religious freedom president in American history, and he is the most pro-Israel president in American history.”