CLEVELAND _ A triumphant Donald Trump swooped into this convention city Wednesday as the new leader of the GOP, his arrival dampened by continued controversy and a less-than-enthusiastic reception from party holdouts.
Touching down at a lakefront airport on a cloudless afternoon, Trump switched to a helicopter stamped with his name and twice circled downtown before stepping off to a greeting party that included his adult children and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and their spouses.
Although the clan was enthusiastic and friendly, tensions simmered within the larger Republican family.
Supporters of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, gathered for an outdoor rally celebrating his unsuccessful bid for the nomination, booed when Trump's plane came into view. They began chanting "2020! 2020!" _ when, if all goes as Trump hopes, the Manhattan business mogul would be seeking a second White House term.
Cruz was part of the evening program scheduled to include two other vanquished Trump rivals, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and, appearing on video, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
The highlight was expected to be Pence's address, introducing himself to the country just a few days after he was chosen for the GOP ticket.
Trump will cap the convention with his acceptance speech Thursday night.
Before the evening of pomp and speeches began, much of the offstage focus was on the extended Trump family, which has played a major and not always beneficial role in the convention.
After more than two days of evasion, denial and contradictory explanations, Trump's campaign released a statement at midday _ addressed "to whom it may concern" _ ascribing the plagiarized passages in Melania Trump's Monday night speech to a staff writer attached to his corporate operation.
"In working with Melania Trump on her recent first lady speech, we discussed many people who inspired her and messages she wanted to share with the American people," said Meredith McIver, who has collaborated on some of Donald Trump's books and called herself a longtime family friend. "A person she always liked is Michelle Obama."
By McIver's account, Melania Trump read her passages from Obama's speech at the 2008 Democratic convention and they inadvertently made their way into the final draft Trump delivered.
"This was my mistake and I feel terrible for the chaos I have caused Melania and the Trumps, as well as Mrs. Obama," McIver said. "No harm was meant."
She said she offered her resignation, but it was rejected. "Mr. Trump told me that people make innocent mistakes and that we learn and grow these experiences."
Far from tamping down the issue, however, the statement reignited the matter, not least because it pointed to the persistent turmoil within the GOP nominee's campaign and actions that often seem to work at contradictory and cross-purposes.
McIver's account was one of several explanations offered by the Trump campaign and its representatives, including denial that any plagiarism had taken place. Before the controversy erupted, Melania told NBC she had written virtually the entire speech herself.
Earlier Wednesday, before McIver's statement posted, the Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, said in a television interview that it was time to move on.
Trump, who had remained silent on the matter, weighed in with a pair of tweets.
"Good news is Melania's speech got more publicity than any in the history of politics especially if you believe that all press is good press!" Trump wrote. He quickly followed up with more characteristic hyperbole.
"The media is spending more time doing a forensic analysis of Melania's speech than the FBI spent on Hillary's emails," he said, referring to the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private server as secretary of state.
Trump's oldest son, Donald Jr., meantime, demonstrated he could be as provocative as his namesake.
Following a well-received speech Tuesday night, Trump Jr. told reporters at a Wall Street Journal breakfast that the federal government needs to do more for the "hardworking men and women who built the great nation we live in" _ not members of minority groups who have status as a "protected class."
Responding to a question about the rise of "identity politics" on the political left, Trump Jr. said that the "hardworking men and women who built the great nation we live in, they're the only people who aren't protected anymore; they're the middle class."
Currently, he said, the government benefits people who can show "they're one-sixty-fourth of some protected class."
That has to stop, said the junior Trump, who jokingly described himself as a "Fifth Avenue redneck." He added that members of the middle class "are the people we actually have to start catering to. Those are the people that are forgotten."
The relative tranquility that has marked the week's protest scene ended for a brief time Wednesday afternoon when a group of demonstrators attempted to burn an American flag.
The protesters announced their intentions ahead of time _ they were vastly outnumbered by journalists and other onlookers _ and police officers swarmed the area soon after the scheduled 4 p.m. flag-burning began.
At least a half dozen protesters were seen wrestling with police and a few were led away in zip-tie handcuffs.
In some good news, California GOP officials expressed optimism that a highly contagious virus that led to the quarantine of at least a dozen staff members was contained.
"We've had no new outbreaks for the last 24 hours, which makes me feel like all of our efforts to fight it ... have worked," executive director Cynthia Bryant told the state's delegation at its breakfast meeting. "So knock on wood and say a prayer."
