Republican calls for "unity" after the shooting didn't last a day at the RNC. Here's what our reporters are seeing.

For about 24 hours following an assassination attempt on Donald Trump at his rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Republicans flooded the airwaves to call for "unity" and for Democrats to "turn the temperature down" on the anti-Trump rhetoric.

It was a stark contrast from the right's own violent and anti-Democratic sentiment that pervaded their politics over the past eight years — and the niceties didn't last long.

HuffPost has multiple reporters covering the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this week, so we asked a few of them what they're seeing on the convention floor as Trump and his allies grapple with the deadly shooting over the weekend.

FRINGE: In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Republicans called for "unity" and softened rhetoric in regards to Trump. Did you see that sentiment echoed at all on the convention floor? What tone did lawmakers and Trump supporters take on Monday and Tuesday?

Igor Bobic, senior politics reporter: Republican speakers at the convention definitely leaned into the unity theme following Trump’s attempted assassination. Many referenced the shooting, pointing to the near miss as evidence of a higher power watching over Trump and of a need to come together. Two of the GOP’s most incendiary speakers on Monday — Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mark Robinson — toned down their speeches or avoided controversy altogether.

Yet some of the speakers just couldn’t help themselves, attacking Democrats, immigrants, and trans people. One GOP senator even called Democratic policies “a clear and present danger.” What stuck out most to me, though, was Trump’s announcement of Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate. If the GOP wanted to project unity, he’d have gone with a more toned-down, traditional pick who could expand the party and attract more voters. Vance, a combative MAGA fire breather, could help win over blue-collar voters, but he could have trouble appealing to minorities, women, and Trump-skeptics in the GOP.

Read Igor's story on the right's tone shift here.

FRINGE: Trump picked JD Vance as his running mate on Monday. You noted that Vance has called the former president “America’s Hitler,” among other shade. What is Trump’s strategy with this pick, and do you think Republican voters are happy with it? Does it even matter after the shooting?

Arthur Delaney, senior politics reporter: The conventional wisdom was that Donald Trump should choose a woman or a person of color as his running mate since those groups favor Biden by wide margins, and a little representation could help Trump win. It’s possible J.D. Vance’s white, working-class background could boost the ticket in the crucial rust belt states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania among voters who already like Trump. It’s also possible that Trump feels so confident he’ll win he simply went with the most loyal running mate he could find.

Vance trashed Trump all through 2016 and then simply took it all back in order to get Trump’s endorsement so he could win his Senate election. Since coming to Congress, he’s been one of Trump’s biggest defenders. Trump seems to appreciate when Republicans humiliate themselves to get in his good graces, and Vance has said he would have done what Trump wanted on Jan. 6, 2021, if he’d been in Mike Pence’s shoes. So maybe Trump thinks Vance will be more faithful than his last VP.

Read Arthur's story on Trump's VP pick here.

FRINGE: You've covered a lot of right-wing rallies and conventions for HuffPost, though perhaps none like this. How has the shooting changed the atmosphere and rhetoric at the RNC? How did Republicans react to seeing Trump?

Christopher Mathias, senior extremism reporter: I was anticipating a lot more discussion about the shooting, but the mood around the attempted assassination was oddly muted. When I asked people, for example, about JD Vance’s tweet blaming the shooting — without evidence — on the Biden campaign’s assertion that Trump represents an existential threat to American democracy, most of the convention delegates demurred, saying it was possible the shooting may have been caused by Democratic rhetoric, but they really didn’t know.

I think because so little is known about the shooter’s motivations, the GOP has thus far been robbed of the ability to exploit it the way they might want to. All that said, so many convention goers cited the photo of Trump after being shot — standing up, surrounded by Secret Service agents, blood dripping down his face, fists raised and screaming “Fight!” — as “iconic.” They said that the photo had likely guaranteed Trump’s victory, a feeling that is probably shared across the political spectrum. Moreover, multiple times on Monday, the crowd broke into a chant of “Fight!” — a clear reference to Trump’s words after the bullet clipped his ear.

And yet, as relatively muted as the convention’s response has been to the shooting so far, that could likely all change on Thursday night, when Trump himself takes the stage and gives his definitive account of the assassination attempt. It’s hard to imagine the GOP’s presidential nominee will be measured in his comments, and whatever he says will set the tone for what is sure to be a tumultuous five months until election day.

Read Christopher's story on JD Vance, the "GOP's Next-Gen Authoritarian," here.