Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes. Well, it's been a brutal few weeks of the country, particularly for the Democratic Party for the broad pro-democracy coalition in this party.

Three weeks ago, we were all holding our breath ahead of the first presidential debate.

The earliest such a debate had happened in the modern era.

You know how that went. And the aftermath of that has been messy and

painful as Joe Biden and the Democratic Party try to find a way forward. And then

last weekend, Donald Trump was injured in a near-miss assassination attempt.

I mean, I was looking today, but near-miss understates how close this came to being

catastrophe. It was the first time in more than 40 years we saw shots fired at a president or

presidential candidate. And then just 48 hours, Trump named an extreme right-wing

Senator JD Vance of Ohio is his running mate.

I came on the first day of the Republican National Convention the day that

Judge Aileen Cannon hand-picked by Donald Trump threw out the entirety of the

documents, stolen documents case against him.

There at the RNC,

attended by thousands of MAGA devotees,

many sporting ear bandages

in solidarity with Trump,

waving signs joyously reading mass deportation now.

So it's no wonder many people were feeling a sense of anguish and dread leading

up to Donald Trump's speech,

formally accepting the Republican nomination last night.

But what I think we saw over the, honestly,

...