Unity at the RNC, knocks on Trump’s prosecutions and Senate politics: Takeaways from day 2
MILWAUKEE — The Republican National Convention entered its second day on Tuesday, focusing on classic GOP themes such as border security and public safety, which became focal points of former President Donald Trump’s campaign.
When Trump’s main rivals took the floor, it was also an opportunity for the GOP to show its unity, a stark contrast to the Democratic Party’s growing concerns about the viability of President Joe Biden.
Here are some conclusions from the second day of the conference.
Donald Trump is not known for getting over grudges easily. He was so frustrated that some of his fellow Republicans dared to challenge his candidacy for this year’s nomination that he refused to participate in the party’s debates.
But on Tuesday, Trump watched from his box in the convention hall as two of his most prominent challengers in the primaries — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley — urged the party to unite behind their candidate.
Such moves are not entirely unusual at a political convention, where the goal is largely to unite the party after a heated primary. Bernie Sanders nominated Hillary Clinton after their contentious battle in 2016. After a bitter primary, John McCain gave a friendly speech in support of George W. Bush at the Republican convention in 2000.
But the performances by Haley and DeSantis were notable not just for their outreach to Trump. They represented the kind of unity that seems increasingly out of reach for Democrats, who are openly wondering whether President Joe Biden is the right person to lead them into what both parties see as a historically important election in November.
Still, the GOP’s attempts at unity didn’t go far. Haley acknowledged that there are many voters who don’t always agree with Trump and encouraged Republicans to appeal to a broader audience.
“We must not only be a united party,” she said. “We must also expand our party.”
Meanwhile, DeSantis provided a crowd with red meat, who greeted him with more enthusiasm than Haley.
“Let’s send Joe Biden back to his basement and let’s send Donald Trump back to the White House,” DeSantis said as he took the stage. “Donald Trump has been demonized, he’s been indicted, he’s been prosecuted, he’s nearly lost his life. We cannot let him down and we cannot let America down.”
The theme of Tuesday’s RNC festivities was “Make America Safe Again,” with a central message of restoring “law and order,” standing up for law enforcement and ending a “senseless crime wave.”
“We believe in the rule of law,” former Republican Party presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy thundered from the stage.
That sentiment apparently does not apply to Trump or the long list of his associates and allies who have been charged, jailed and, in some cases, pardoned by Trump.
Trump himself was convicted in May of 34 felonies related to a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election by making a hush-money payment to a porn actor, making him the first former president to be convicted of a crime.
His longtime ally Steve Bannon is currently serving a four-month sentence for contempt of court after ignoring a congressional subpoena. Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, two of Trump’s political advisers, were pardoned by Trump in his final weeks in office — Stone for coercing witnesses and lying to Congress, Manafort for financial crimes.
And then there’s the web of people who have been sued in Trump’s scheme to overturn the 2020 election. Trump falsely claimed it was stolen. That claim has been rejected in more than 60 lawsuits and by his own attorney general.
“We have a two-faced justice system,” Savannah Chrisley, whose reality TV star parents are serving prison sentences for bank fraud and tax evasion, told the gathering of GOP delegates. “Look at what they’re doing to Trump … while Hunter Biden walks free.”
Like Trump, the president’s son Hunter Biden was recently convicted of a crime. Also like Trump, he is free while he decides whether to appeal the case ahead of his sentencing date.
The presidential race was clearly at the top of everyone’s agenda in Milwaukee. But Republicans also want to flip the Senate, and they’ve highlighted seven of their candidates who hope to steal seats from Democrats.
Only one was greeted with much applause. That was Arizona’s Kari Lake, a staunch Trump supporter who became a conservative celebrity when she denied that Trump had lost his 2020 race or that she had been defeated in her bid for governor. All the Senate candidates had a common approach: They criticized Biden for his stewardship of the country and then linked their opponent to the president.
“Americans are waking up to the truth about the disastrous Democratic policies of Joe Biden and his favorite congressman, my opponent Ruben Gallego,” Lake said.
“Tammy Baldwin called the Biden administration the most successful in generations,” said Eric Hovde, who named Wisconsin’s top Democratic senator whom he hopes to defeat.
“Sherrod Brown votes with Biden pretty much 100 percent of the time,” Ohio Rep. Bernie Moreno said of that state’s senior Democratic senator. “I don’t know if I agree with my wife 100 percent of the time. But Sherrod and Joe seem to have a very close bond.”
The candidates had only a short time to speak. Only one — Sam Brown of Nevada, whose face is scarred by a serious injury he sustained while serving in Afghanistan — provoked a response with his own story.
Overall, the Senate candidates didn’t really outline individual agendas, instead hoping to tie their races to the presidential election. Given that most Senate elections go to the winner of the state’s presidential election, and Republicans are optimistic about Trump’s chances, it’s not an unreasonable calculation.
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Slodysko reported from Washington.