The Republican primary race began with a debate 11 months ago at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum, the arena where Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Bucks play, the same venue where the Republican National Convention is being held this week. On August 22, eight candidates faced off, all of whom were snubbed by Donald Trump. Among them were former South Carolina governor and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida governor Ron DeSantis, perceived as the former president’s two main rivals. On Tuesday, in the same venue, Haley and DeSantis paid homage to the party leader, unanimously proclaimed the Republican candidate. Convention attendees booed Haley at times, but cheered DeSantis.
Nikki Haley was not initially invited to the convention. She and Trump took their confrontation to a personal level and the wounds have not fully healed. The former president wanted his rival to withdraw from the primaries as quickly as possible, but she refused. “I don’t feel any need to kiss the ring,” she said at the time. When she threw in the towel, she avoided asking for the vote for the New Yorker.
However, after the attack on Trump last Saturday, the former president’s campaign asked her to come to Milwaukee and she agreed. When she appeared, she was greeted with a mix of applause and boos. Trump stood up to applaud from his box, but that did not help Haley to completely escape the boos throughout her speech. “My Republican colleagues: President Trump invited me to speak at this convention in the name of unity. It was a kind invitation and I was happy to accept it,” she began, as if justifying herself. And then she said: “I will start by making one thing very clear. Donald Trump has my strong support.”
In May, Haley said she would vote for Trump, but it was a whispered announcement that she presented as a personal decision, without openly asking her supporters to vote for the former president. Even after dropping out of the presidential race, the Republican received hundreds of thousands of votes in the primaries, which gave the impression that a moderate segment of the Republican Party refused to align itself with Trump. Her expressed support may overcome those reticences, but the Biden campaign continues to try to court Haley’s voters and on Tuesday released a statement recalling her criticism of the former president.
In her speech, Haley tried to appeal to the moderate vote. “There are Americans who don’t agree 100% with Donald Trump. I happen to know some of them. My message to them is: you don’t have to agree with Donald Trump 100% of the time to vote for him: do as I do. I haven’t always agreed with him, but we agree more often than we disagree. We agree on keeping America strong, we agree on keeping America safe, we agree that the Democrats have moved so far to the left that they have put our freedom in jeopardy,” she said.
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“I’m here because we have a country to save and a united Republican Party is essential to saving it,” said the former governor of South Carolina, who said that the country is too divided, “whether it’s on college campuses, or on a field in Butler, Pennsylvania,” referring to the site of the attack on Trump. And she appealed to focus the Republicans to capture the moderate vote: “We must not only be a united party, but we must also expand our party.” “No president can fix all of our problems alone. We have to do it together,” she added.
He also reviewed foreign policy, his specialty, although with somewhat basic reasoning. “A strong president does not start wars, a strong president prevents them,” he said, after assuring that the fact that Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of Crimea during Barack Obama’s term and the whole of Ukraine during Biden’s, but did nothing with Trump in the White House, was not a coincidence.
Following Haley, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appeared on the scene and launched into a forceful and devastating speech against Joe Biden. He said that “America cannot afford four more years of This dead man is very much alive.”He contrasted his figure with that of the Republican candidate: “Donald Trump has been demonized, he has been sued, he has been prosecuted and he almost lost his life,” he said, adding: “We cannot let him down, and we cannot let America down.”
Trump repeatedly humiliated DeSantis when the two were running. He called him a prude, claimed he needed a personality transplant because he couldn’t even say his last name, and mocked him over and over again. But they made up later, and convention-goers cheered him on from the start.
The governor did not disappoint and touched on the most beloved themes of American radical conservatism, from the border to the pandemic, through inflation, taxes and even electoral issues. He attacked “gender ideology” and the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion, which he blames for fostering “division, exclusion and indoctrination.” “They cannot even define what a woman is,” he said of the Democrats.
“They forced proof of a Covid vaccine to go to a restaurant, but they oppose requiring proof of citizenship to cast a vote,” was one of his most acclaimed phrases. “Let’s send Joe Biden back to his basement and send Donald Trump back to the White House,” was also widely celebrated. And he ended his speech with the same words that Trump said when he stood up after the assassination attempt on Saturday, as he called for following Trump’s slogan of “fighting, fighting, fighting” for the United States.
Image of unity
The Republicans are presenting an image of unity that they want to contrast with the division of the Democrats around Biden. Another of those eight candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy, has also expressed his unconditional commitment to Trumpism on Tuesday, also calling for unity. “Trump is the president who will truly unite this country, not through empty words, but through action. Success is unifying. Excellence is unifying. That is who we are as Americans.” The entrepreneur also appealed in his speech to young people and the black vote. “Our message to black Americans is this: we want for you what we want for all Americans: safe neighborhoods, clean streets, good jobs, a better life for your children and a judicial system that treats everyone equally, regardless of the color of their skin or their political beliefs.”
On Monday, Senator Tim Scott was the one to give himself over to Trump, with a roar included: “The devil came to Pennsylvania with a rifle, but the American lion stood up,” he said. And Doug Burgum, who has not yet spoken at the plenary, has been making his support for Trump clear in the corridors.
Also joining the president at Tuesday’s session were Texas Senator Ted Cruz and his Florida counterpart Marco Rubio, who were Trump’s rivals in the 2016 primaries. Both had tough clashes with him then, but the wounds have apparently healed. Rubio was once among the favorites as a possible vice presidential candidate.
Donald Trump appeared triumphant again at the convention, with his bandage on his ear, shortly before the interventions of his two main rivals in the primaries. The president was again showered with crowds to the euphoria of the attendees. Before him, the brand new vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, had arrived.
Shortly after Trump arrived, a video against Joe Biden was broadcast on giant screens, criticizing his border policy, but also showing some stumbles and moments of lapses. The video linked immigration and crime, as the Republicans have been doing without any shame. Just in case, there was also a broadside against Kamala Harris.
The three most anti-Trump candidates of the eight in that debate (Mike Pence, Chris Christie and Asa Hutchison) are outlaws in the Republican Party and are not in Milwaukee. Notable absences from the convention also include George W. Bush, the only living Republican ex-president besides Trump, his vice president, Dick Cheney, and the party’s 2012 candidate, Senator Mitt Romney, who, when announcing his withdrawal last September, called for Biden and Trump to make way for a new generation.
Police kill man armed with knives
Police have sealed off the Republican convention and have stepped up their surveillance following Saturday’s attack on Trump. There are checkpoints everywhere, helicopters are flying overhead and heavily armed police from different forces are patrolling the convention and its grounds. In the first two days, two serious incidents have occurred outside the protected perimeter, in one of which the police killed a man and in another of which they arrested a man with a rifle.
Five Ohio police officers who were in Wisconsin for the convention shot and killed a man who was involved in a knife fight near the convention, Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said. The man shot by police had a knife in each hand and was defying police orders, Norman said.
Separately, a man armed with an AK-47 and wearing a ski mask was arrested Monday, the first day of the convention, near the Fiserv Forum, where the convention is being held, authorities said Tuesday. The 21-year-old was arrested after being encountered by U.S. Capitol Police and Homeland Security Investigations officers who said he was acting suspiciously. Police found the gun in his backpack, the AP said.
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