Thank you for joining our coverage of the final night of the Republican convention, where Donald Trump gave a major speech as he accepted the party's nomination to run for a second term as president.

Some of tonight's major moments:

• President Trump was in the spotlight as he appeared live from the White House South Lawn on a stage build specially for the occasion to accept the nomination
• He touted his record in office, and warned of "mob rule" and anarchy in the streets of US cities if his challenger Joe Biden were to defeat him in November
• He was introduced by his daughter, Ivanka, who acknowledged her father's "tweets can feel a bit unfiltered. But the results, the results speak for themselves."
• In a reference to protests against the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin, he condemned "the rioting, looting, arson and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities like Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, and New York"
• Hundreds of protesters gathered around the White House, some held a sign reading "Trump failed, 180,000+ died" in a reference to the coronavirus death toll
• The race for the White House is now officially on, with Trump scheduled to debate Biden on 29 September

Live reporting by Matthew Davis, Boer Deng, Anthony Zurcher, Holly Honderich, Max Matza, Sam Cabral, Robin Levinson-King, Marianna Brady, Josh Cheetham, Ben Bevington and Tom Geoghegan.

Donald Trump is known for his at-times-bombastic speeches. But during his address at the Republican convention, the president seemed surprisingly low-key. On Twitter, the hashtag #lowenergydonald was one of the top trends of the night, with people accusing him of rambling through his 70-minute keynote.

Meawhile, his daughter Ivanka walked away with one of the most talked about lines of the night:

"Whether you agree with him or not, you always know where he stands. I recognize that my dad’s communication style is not to everyone’s taste," she said.

I know his Tweets can feel a bit ... unfiltered. But the results, the results speak for themselves."

Meghan McCain, the daughter of John McCain, had a difference of opinion: "It's not a communication style, it's cruelty" she tweeted.

President Trump is famously attuned to his own ratings. So what did the press make of his big speech?

The New York Times notes Trump's warning on Biden (he mentioned his rival 42 times by name tonight), a theme echoed by the Wall Street Journal. The Washington Post, too, noted the Biden-bashing and the broader attacks on Democratic leaders across the country.

Fox News online is fairly measured, focusing on Trump's law and order message, which was a theme we have seen repeated throughout the four days of the Republican convention.

Image source, New York Times

Image source, Wall Street Journal

Image source, Fox News

Image source, Washington Post

Phillip Robinson, 50, Independent - “A speech is there to provoke an emotional response to a candidate and sadly I lack emotion. A lot of what was said was not the whole truth, and a lot of fear-mongering. It created a narrative. The speech was powerful. The end of the speech was brilliant. But I have not been swayed by it. If I had to vote today, I would vote for Joe Biden only because I am really tired of hearing the president say things that are not the truth or not the whole truth. I would have to vote for anyone who tells the truth.”

Cat Lewis, 56, Republican - “It met all my criteria I wanted in an acceptance speech. The base is going to feel really good about it – to go vote and to take five people to the polls with them. It did what it was supposed to do."

Miriam Weinraub, 19, Democrat -“I agree this speech was for the base. My bar for his ability to stick with the script is very low, so he did well. I have a lot of problems with the lies. It was very repetitive and rambling. Here is the Republican Party, here are our beliefs and nobody else is right… I wanted to hear more, as a young voter, about being a united country, rather than right or left.”

Gabriel Montalvo, 21, Republican - “The speech was for the Republican base that knows they’re gonna be voting for him. He hit what I, and I'm sure others, believe are key points. He hit those points that I think many people want to hear his thoughts and opinions on, then looped back to his accomplishments. It’s very important for me, as a Hispanic American, to hear him talk about the differences between right and left.”

By Adam Gingrich, political consultant and former Trump campaign operative.

Hurricanes, wildfires, a pandemic and urban riots. You might think Americans were having a bad week. Donald Trump has a different view.

Tonight, Trump was the first president since Franklin Roosevelt to accept his party’s nomination from the White House. While not unprecedented, it’s certainly a new optic for the American voters. But, then again, in 2020, what isn’t?

Trump used his prime time spot to illustrate his strengths, capitalise on good economic news, and spoke with grave sincerity about the damage that Covid-19 has wrought upon our nation.

He eloquently contrasted his record of achievement in one term with Biden’s 47 years in DC, and he did it effectively. But in my opinion, the president was overshadowed by the incredibly emotional prior speeches by the widow of slain Captain David Dorn, the parents of Kayla Mueller and the face of Trump’s “First Step Act,” Alice Marie Johnson.

As Trump reinforced his message tonight, he stood little chance of eclipsing the night that unfurled before him. Overall, the night was an emphatic and emotional win, not just for Trump, but for all Americans. A win tonight for Trump, but above all: a win for the Republican ticket nationwide.

The year 2020 is a year of chaos. Well, year 2020, meet the man who was born to lead in this environment; and that man is not Joe Biden. That’s what we learned tonight.

Deanna Lusk, a 37-year-old legal assistant in Derby, Kansas, has just given us her reaction to Trump's acceptance speech.

“I really like the fact that he spoke about Alice Johnson regarding the justice reform that’s affecting a lot of Americans,” she tells BBC News, referring to the woman who spent 22 years in prison, had her sentence commuted by Trump and spoke tonight.

“He said America is the torch that lights the rest of the world I thought that was pretty accurate,” Lusk continues.

On Covid-19, Lusk says Trump "has more of a detailed plan for the country moving forward, given everything that we’ve been through this past year” compared to Democrat Joe Biden.

“I think he has more of a direction. Biden may have a plan but nobody really knows what that’s going to be - what that entails. [Trump] comes across as more organised about what needs to happen.”

She says she is planning to vote for Trump in November.

Image source, Brooke Riske

Brooke Riske is a 34-year-old mother and an independent voter from Roanoke, Virginia. Up until recently, she has felt disengaged from politics, and voted for Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson in 2016. This year, however, she will cast her vote for Trump's re-election.

"Cancel culture... that's what drew me to Trump," Riske says, just after watching the president's speech. "It doesn't even feel like America anymore, it feels like we have to walk on egg shells."

Riske says she liked Trump's performance tonight.

"I wasn't blown away, but I didn't see any yellow or red flags," she says. "I feel affirmed in my vote."

And Trump's uncharacteristically level delivery appealed: "I felt like he was very even keeled compared to how he can be at times," she says.

Now, Riske is looking forward to November's election.

"I'm really hopeful that some of this negativity will dissipate," she says. "I'm ready to close the election chapter and just get back to living."

Reality Check

Mr Trump criticised Joe Biden’s tax plan which he said would hit American families.

“He has pledged a $4 trillion tax hike on almost all American families, which will totally collapse our rapidly improving economy and once again record stock markets.”

Trump is correct that the Biden plan would lead to $4 trillion in revenues – over the next decade - according to analysis by the Tax Policy Centre.

However, the claim is misleading as the taxes would target the wealthiest Americans - not “almost all families”.

The Tax Policy Centre found that 93% of the tax increases would be paid by taxpayers in the top fifth of households.

The high earners would see “substantially larger tax increases than households in other income groups, both in dollar amounts and as share of their incomes.”

Joe Biden has also told ABC News that he would not raise taxes for anyone making under $400,000 a year.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

In a ponderous, hour-long speech more akin to a State of the Union address than a nomination acceptance, Donald Trump alternated between ticking through his record as president and circling around, like a prize fighter, to launch strikes on his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.

It was a blunderbuss of attacks, of varying levels of validity, in the hope that some will draw blood – on trade, immigration, education, energy and foreign policy. But most of all, Trump sought to paint Biden as in league with the protesters on the streets and the more left-wing members of the Democratic Party.

“Biden is a Trojan horse for socialism,” Trump said. “If Joe Biden doesn't have the strength to stand up to wild-eyed Marxists like Bernie Sanders and his fellow radicals, then how is he ever going to stand up FOR you?”

The president’s speech ended with a laundry list of promises for his second-term goals.

“This is the unifying national agenda that will bring our country together,” he said.

The setting of the speech was majestic – on the grounds of the White House and in view of the Washington monument. The delivery from a president who thrives more on rousing rallies than rhetorical set-pieces, however, frequently landed with a thud.

Trump has now laid out a laundry list of second term promises, pledging to put a woman on the moon and a US flag on Mars, winning the race to develop 5G technology and creating a "unifying national agenda that will bring our country together".

He's taken numerous shots at his challenger, Joe Biden, saying that the Democrat is on the side of radical socialist mobs and the elite political class, and that he is owned by the Chinese communist government.

This speech has laid out the clearest contrast between him and Biden, who promised last week to restore American "dignity" with Trump out of the White House.

Ending his speech he declares: "Together, we are unstoppable.

"Together, we are unbeatable. Because together, we are the proud citizens of the United States of America

"And on November 3rd, we will make America safer, we will make America stronger, we will make America prouder, and we will make America greater than ever before."

A huge firework display around the Washington Monument caps the end of one of the longest acceptance speeches in US political convention history.

Image source, Getty Images

Images from the convention tonight show social distancing isn't being practiced by crowds of Trump supporters seated outside the White House.

It's not gone unnoticed by Kamala Harris - the Democrats' vice-presidential candidate.

Tonight, Trump has talked about Covid-19 - "the silent enemy" - which he frequently calls the "China virus". How American voters think he handled the US outbreak will surely be on their minds when they cast their ballot in November. Here's what some are thinking tonight:

Phillip Robinson, 50, Independent - “Labeling a virus by a group of people is by definition racist... The economy cannot dictate the response to this virus… We have no choice but to hide.”

Cat Lewis, 56, Republican - “I live in North Carolina and we’re in Phase Two, so there’s a lot of our state that is shut down right now. This virus is destroying the economy. We have to open up. We have a lot of people out of work. More shutdowns will not work.”

Miriam Weinraub, 19, Democrat – “I find it surprising how he talked about the pandemic because they’ve barely discussed the coronavirus throughout this convention. I’d rather have a struggling economy than people dying. It is incredibly disheartening to hear how the economy is more important than America citizens.” (Miriam has lost family members to the illness)

Gabriel Montalvo, 21, Republican – “I am from Queens, New York, the epicentre of the virus. We are moving past it and states are starting to open up... Kamala Harris blamed the Chinese government, too, earlier today. Both sides of the political aisle can agree that this started in one place: Communist China."

Reality Check

Image source, Getty Images

Trump has been defending his government’s record in tackling the coronavirus pandemic at the Republican National Convention.

He said “the United States has among the lowest case fatality rates of any major country in the world".

This is the ratio of deaths to confirmed cases measuring the number of death per positive tests of coronavirus.

It’s true this figure is relatively low for the US compared with most major European countries, including the UK.

However, the numbers in Norway, Japan, and South Korea are all lower than the US though.

Moreover, different countries are testing to find coronavirus cases in different ways, meaning the statistic is a hard comparison to make.

A low case fatality rate could mean that widespread testing identifies lots of mild cases who were unlikely to die in the first place.

You can read more about the US record on tackling Covid-19 here.

Trump has just addressed the protests against racism and police brutality that have swept the nation since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.

He says that the majority of police officers are good, but adds: "When there is police misconduct, the justice system must hold wrongdoers fully and completely accountable, and it will."

"But what we can never have in America – and must never allow – is mob rule. In the strongest possible terms, the Republican Party condemns the rioting, looting, arson and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities like Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, and New York."

He says Democrats are on the side of violent protesters, and have allowed anarchy on the streets of US cities.

However, he never once mentioned Jacob Blake, the black man who was shot seven times in the back by a police officer on Sunday, spurring the latest protests in Kenosha.

Reality Check

Image source, Reuters

The president claimed the United States had “obliterated 100 percent of the Isis Caliphate”.

It’s true the Islamic State group’s territory - a “caliphate” declared in 2014 - came to an end during the Trump era.

The US-led alliance overran the group's last stronghold in Syria in March 2019.

But as the BBC reported at the time, “despite the demise of its physical caliphate, IS remains a battle-hardened and well-disciplined force whose 'enduring defeat' is not assured.”

On 12 August a senior US military official laid out what was still needed, external for an enduring defeat against Isis, noting the group still poses a threat.

Image source, Getty Images

Nominating conservative judges was a big campaign promise for Trump in 2016, and he's taking about it tonight - the selection of "two great new Supreme Court Justices".

And that he did: With two appointments already in the president's first term, the bench's ideological balance tilts right, favouring conservatives in a 5-4 split. The court is now called the most conservative-leaning court in modern US history.

But how have the justices issued their decisions?

The BBC's Anthony Zurcher takes a look at the last Supreme Court term, to see if this conservative-leaning court actually votes that way.

Trump is going through a laundry list of his first-term accomplishments, telling voters he can do more with another four years. But do voters agree? Here's what our voter panel told us:

Cat Lewis, 56, Republican – "He has kept his promises. Built the wall, healthcare, the trade agreements with China, getting out of Nafta. Some of the things he promised on the campaign trail, he came through.”

Miriam Weinraub, 19, Democrat – "A lot of the promises - he hasn't done them in the way he said", she says, citing his failure to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.

Gabriel Montalvo, 21, Republican – “I certainly think President Trump has kept his promises. He has worked on immigration reform. He has built the economy. We have had justice reform, which had not been touched. He has made us energy independent.”

Katty Kay
World News America presenter

Image source, Getty Images

The choice of the White House as a venue for a party convention speech might have been controversial, but Trump is not making any apologies for it. And the stagecraft is stunning.

Trump usually prefers to speak without a prompter – he’s sticking to it tonight but it’s certainly not his strength. His attacks just don’t land as hard when delivered like this. The speech doesn’t have same energy as when he just riffs at a rally.

This increasingly feels like a State of the Union Address - with a laundry list of achievements - rather than a campaign speech. I’m willing to bet this speech (so far) will be remembered in history more for the setting than the content.

Referring to the coronavirus as the "China virus", Trump has spent much of his speech attacking China for unleashing the Covid-19 pandemic on the world.

He repeatedly says that Biden is a puppet of China, and at one point asks nurses and first responders in the audience to stand for applause.

"China would own our country if Joe Biden got elected. Unlike Biden, I will hold them fully accountable for the tragedy they caused."

He adds that he himself has lost friends and loved ones to Covid-19 and touts the administration's role building ventilators for patients in the early days of the US outbreak.

"Unfortunately, from the beginning, our opponents have shown themselves capable of nothing but a partisan ability to criticise," he continues.

"When I took bold action to issue a travel ban on China, Joe Biden called it hysterical and xenophobic. If we had listened to Joe, hundreds of thousands more Americans would have died."

Reality Check

Image source, Reuters

President Trump said 300 miles of border wall have been built since he’s been in office.

Since January 2017, when he assumed the presidency, 275 miles of wall have been completed, according to the latest US Customs and Border Protection report.

However, most of that was to replace existing structures on the border.

A total of 245 miles of wall has been built in place of old barriers.

Only 30 miles of new wall, where no barriers previously existed, have been newly erected.

Out of the 275 miles of wall built, 41 miles are so-called “secondary wall”, which is constructed behind the primary border barrier.

In the 2016 race for president, Trump made building a wall along the US’s southern border with Mexico a key policy of his campaign, promising a "big, beautiful" structure along the 2,000 mile frontier.

About 650 miles of fencing was built under President George W Bush.