2024 Election Latest: Republicans shift their gaze to national security as RNC enters third day
The third day of the Republican National Convention starts Wednesday with Republicans – led by the newly nominated Donald Trump and his running mate, the US Senator. JD Vance of Ohio — and shifted their focus to issues of national security and foreign policy.
Republicans are expected to target the Democratic president Joe Bidens dealing with the ongoing crises in Europe and the Middle East. Former Trump administration officials are also expected to take the stage to outline what foreign policy would look like if he returns to the White House for a second term.
Vance will also introduce himself to a national audience Wednesday night when he delivers his first speech as the Republican vice presidential nominee.
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Democrats Try to Offer Political Counterprogramming the RNCand announced $15 million to fund campaign activities in seven key swing states, even as some in the party have insisted President Joe Biden to withdraw from Elections in November.
The Democratic National Committee announced Tuesday that it is investing $15 million in state parties, intended to help them open more field offices and bolster staffing. The funding will allow them to add to the 217 existing coordinated campaign offices working collectively for Biden’s reelection bid and state parties that already employ more than 1,100 staffers in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the DNC said.
The investments will pump nearly $3 million into Wisconsin; nearly $2 million into Pennsylvania, Michigan and Nevada; nearly $1.5 million into Arizona; more than $1.2 million into North Carolina; and more than $1 million into Georgia.
Usha Chilukuri Vance, JD Vance’s wife, is a Yale law graduate and attorney.
She stood next to her husband on Monday as he was named the Republican nominee for vice president at the Republican Party convention.
Chilukuri Vance, 38, was raised in San Diego by Indian immigrants. Her mother is a biologist and provost at the University of California, San Diego; her father is an engineer, according to the J.D. Vance campaign.
She received a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Cambridge on the Gates Cambridge Scholarship.
▶ Read more about Usha Vance
Trump and Vance are scheduled to appear in the hall each night of the convention, with Vance speaking on Wednesday and Trump speaking on Thursday.
Trump, who has long criticized rivals with harsh language And spoke about prosecuting opponents if he wins a second termappeared poised to deliver a more subdued speech. His eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said in an Axios interview outside the RNC that he spent three or four hours reviewing his father’s convention speech with him, “to try to de-escalate some of that rhetoric.”
But there were hints in Tuesday’s programming of some of Trump’s old grievances, including several references to Trump’s debunked theories of election fraud. One of the prime-time speakers, Madeline Brame, railed against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office prosecuted Trump for illegally orchestrating a hush-money scheme to influence the 2016 election, making Trump the first former president to be convicted of a crime.
Brame accused Bragg of mishandling the cases against the people accused of killing her son. Of Trump, she said, “He’s a victim of the same corrupt system that I and my family were.”
Trump’s survival of a attempted homicide On Saturday, a rally in Pennsylvania was on the minds of many in the convention hall. One delegate in the crowd could be seen with a folded piece of white paper over his ear — an apparent homage to the bandage Trump wore when he entered the hall to a roaring crowd on Monday.
He wore it again when he arrived Tuesday night, even showing up earlier than the night before, arriving just minutes after his newly elected running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio.
Many speakers have so far referred to the assassination attempt on Trump, something we expect to hear more of in future speeches.
As Trump’s main rivals spoke, the second day of the RNC was an opportunity for the GOP to show its unity, a stark contrast to the Democratic Party’s growing concerns about Biden’s viability.
▶Read the APs takeaway meals from night 2
Madeline Brame, whose son was stabbed to death in Harlem in 2018, drew the public’s attention Tuesday night to one of the right’s biggest bogeymen: New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Brame has publicly criticized Bragg for being soft on crime, including in the case of her son’s alleged killer. The crowd responded with thunderous applause, as Bragg is one of several officials involved in Trump’s various legal battles. “They betrayed us and stabbed us in the back,” Brame said of the Democrats. “Trump was right when he said they were coming for us, he’s just in the way.”
During the congressional “Make America Safe Again” session, family members of people who lost loved ones to fentanyl overdoses appeared back-to-back on the RNC stage to make powerful and at times emotional arguments for Trump to address the epidemic.
Michael Morin, the brother of a woman murdered by a man in the country illegally, said Trump would do more to address the drug crisis than Biden and Harris have in the past three and a half years. Another speaker, Anne Funder, lost her 15-year-old son Austin to an overdose two years ago. As she stood onstage crying, the audience chanted, “Joe’s got to go!” to which she responded, “Yes, he has to.”
Tom King, a state representative from Butler, Pennsylvania, said he spoke to Trump at the rally 10 minutes before the shooting broke out on Saturday. He said he was sitting about 20 feet in front of Corey Comperatore, the former fire chief who was killed.
“It was a great day to see the president,” said King, who is general counsel for the Pennsylvania Republican Party. “He was in a great mood. He was energetic, but he was very serious about what we needed to do in Pennsylvania to win the election.” When asked by an AP reporter to specify what he thought needed to be done in Pennsylvania, King said, “I won’t say what he said.”
“We promised to do everything we could to help him,” he said. “He’s a great guy.”