Lara Trump uses Saturday's shooting to illustrate father-in-law's softer side

In her speech Tuesday at the Republican National Convention, Lara Trump, co-chair of the RNC, sought to soften the image of her father-in-law, former President Donald Trump, much in the way that his eldest daughter had done in 2016.

But unlike Ivanka Trump, Lara Trump relied heavily on Saturday's shooting at Trump's Pennsylvania campaign rally that left him wounded, took the life of a spectator and seriously injured two others.

As she began her remarks, she noted that she “had a very different speech that I was prepared to give” and “that all changed at 6:11 on Saturday evening,” when a gunman opened fire.

"Nothing prepares you for a moment like that," she said of the shooting, adding that she had quickly reached for the remote and shielded her "young children" from the television "so that they're not witness to something that scars the memory of their grandpa for the rest of their lives."

A fierce supporter of her father-in-law, who for years defended his presidency as a Fox News analyst, Lara Trump, 41, said, "Maybe you got to see a side of Donald Trump on Saturday that you were not sure existed, until you saw it with your own eyes."

While many other speakers at the nominating convention have invoked the shooting, Lara Trump, who is married to Trump's son Eric and whom the former president recruited to head up the RNC, did so with a personal touch that other speeches lacked.

"There's no doubt that Saturday was one of the most frightening moments of my father-in-law's life. Millimeters separated him from life and certain death," she said. "And yet, it was in the midst of it all, as he was jostled off-stage by Secret Service that he knew how defining that moment would be for our country and he foisted his fist in the air."

Ms. Trump, the mother of two of Donald Trump’s grandchildren, then pressed her case that the fist represented more than a spontaneous moment of defiance. “It was not just for the audience at the rally, not just for his supporters tuning in, but for all of America, and as a signal to the world that no matter what, America will always prevail.”

To hear her tell it, Trump’s gesture “reminded us” that we were “the country of Thomas Edison, Susan B. Anthony, Henry Ford and Harriet Tubman. We are the country that fought and won two world wars and we are the country that always rises to meet the moment, no matter how insurmountable the task.”

“That is the Donald Trump that I know,” she said.

In her 2016 convention speech, Ivanka, too, earned praise from voters when she told them that her father represented more than met the eye. That if he was elected, the country could “hope and dream and think big again. No one has more faith in the American people than my father. He will be your greatest, your truest and your most loyal champion.”