Summary
The Republican national convention has concluded. Here’s what happened on the fourth and final day:
- Donald Trump accepted the presidential nomination in an approximately 75-minute speech in which he promised to “restore law and order to our country”. A speech transcript is here.
- Trump described “a moment of crisis for our nation” born of a series of threats, from “illegal immigration” to violent crime to violence directed at law enforcement to transnational terrorism.
- The details of Trump’s dire picture of a darkly violent America did not stand up to scrutiny, but the sense he communicated of a nation under siege seemed to resonate deeply with the packed crowd at Cleveland’s Quicken Loans arena, which repeatedly leapt to its feet, chanted and cheered.
- “I have a message for all of you,” Trump said. “The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored.”
- Trump was preceded at the lectern by his daughter Ivanka, who promised the country that her father would work tirelessly to make America great again. The highest spike in Google traffic on the night, in terms of percentage, was for the question: “How old is Ivanka Trump?”
- Ivanka Trump noted she was a millennial and said her father would fight for equal pay for women and paid family leave.
- Donald Trump invited Bernie Sanders to join his “movement” and predicted that “millions of Democrats” would end up voting for him.
- Litigious tech billionaire Peter Thiel, in his speech, told the crowd: “I’m proud to be gay,” and was applauded. A call to protect “the LGBTQ community” by Trump was also applauded, and he thanked the crowd for applauding.
- At the end, thousands of balloons and confetti dropped from the ceiling as the candidates and their families took the stage.
- Cleveland officials reported no RNC-related arrests on the day – but that may have been before Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin was pulled from the arena for protesting Trump’s speech.
- Read our full news coverage here.
Great Trump Speech, America First! Stop Wars! Defeat the Corrupt elites! Protect our Borders!, Fair Trade! Couldn't have said it better!
— David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) July 22, 2016
FORMAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE NOMINATION! #TrumpPence16 pic.twitter.com/E6ZtVjSQZa
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2016
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Overall violent crime in United States down dramatically
Do the crime statistics cited by Trump to make the case that the country needs a law-and-order candidate hold water?
The 17% homicide spike that Trump referenced is statistically significant, “real and nearly unprecedented,” according to a Justice Department funded study.
The study was largely concentrated in ten cities with large African-American populations, the study found. You can read our in-depth coverage of the report here:
The researcher who wrote the report, criminologist Richard Rosenfeld, argued that the best explanation for the homicide increase might be linked in some ways to the high-profile incidents of police violence towards black Americans and the subsequent widespread protests against the police.
While he did not agree with the traditional conservative concept of a “Ferguson Effect,” he argued that there might be some connection between police violence, protests, and an increase in community violence, perhaps linked to deteriorating trust of citizens in the police.
The liberal Brennan Center has released a fact-check of Trump’s claims, highlighting the fact that overall violent crime is down dramatically over the past twenty years.
Ed Cox, the chair of the New York State Republican Party and president Richard Nixon’s son-in-law, noted some similarities to the Guardian.
“Certainly Donald Trump calls his supporters the silent majority unapologetically,” said Cox. “Now that was not a part of his acceptance speech in 68, that was November [19]69, the Vietnam speech. But Donald Trump has captured that silent majority completely for the first time since Reagan, and maybe even better than Reagan. But certainly like my father-in-law.”
Here’s some more interesting end-of-night data from the folks at Google. The biggest spike in search traffic, in terms of percentage, it appears to us, was a 4,900% spike in searches for “How old is Ivanka Trump?”
All top trending queries Trump-related
20 of the top 20 trending queries on Google in the U.S. were related to either Donald or Ivanka Trump’s speeches.
Top trending questions on Trump during his speech:
- What does LGBTQ mean?
- How long was Donald Trump’s speech?
- What is NAFTA?
- How old is Donald Trump?
- Where is Donald Trump from?
THE FIRST DAUGHTER? IVANKA TRUMP DEBUTS
- +1,500% spike in searches for “equal pay for equal work” during Ivanka’s speech
- +250% spike in searches for “Ivanka Trump dress” during her speech and 300% spike in searches for “Ivanka Trump Collection”
- 4,900% spike in searches for “How old is Ivanka Trump?” during her speech
- Most searched issues for Ivanka Trump: abortion, immigration, women, judaism, gay marriage
A SPOTLIGHT ON LGBTQ
- +15,000% spike in searches for “LGBTQ” during Donald Trump’s speech. It was also the top trending term across all of Google tonight
- +380% spike in searches for “Gay Republicans” during Peter Thiel’s speech
- Top related searches for Peter Thiel: gay, speech, net worth, Gawker, Silicon Valley
QUICK HITS
- Most Searched “What if” on Google in the last hour: “What if Trump wins”
- Ranking for Thursday speakers: Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, Peter Thiel, Tom Barrack, Reince Priebus // CHART
- +1,500% spike for “How old is Barron Trump?”
- +1,000% spike for “America First” in the past hour
We’re back! Seems that a thousand journalists simultaneously trying to upload videos of balloons falling on Republican delegates was more than the WiFi could handle.
The delegates are now taking group pictures with the signs from their states and taking group pictures onstage. Lots of balloons popping everywhere. Stands clearing out.
The end of Trump’s speech and the huge balloon drop seemed to knock out wifi in the arena. Normal service will be resumed on the blog very soon...
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Balloons
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The speech is over. The crowd goes, as they say, quite wild. Melania Trump takes the stage and is verily applauded. Barron Trump is next, dressed like a Blues Brother. Here come more Trumps. The band’s not playing, that’s the studio recording of All Right Now. Now there are Pences on stage too. There is handshaking and now... now... there is glitter-- the video screen shows fireworks..
and...
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Here’s the end:
To all Americans tonight, in all our cities and towns, I make this promise: We Will Make America Strong Again.
We Will Make America Proud Again.
We Will Make America Safe Again.
And We Will Make America Great Again.
THANK YOU.
Trump is close to the finish. CAPS below in original script:
I’m asking for your support tonight so that I can be your champion in the White House. My opponent asks her supporters to recite a three-word loyalty pledge. It reads: “I’m With Her”. 282 I choose to recite a different pledge. My pledge reads: “I’M WITH YOU – THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.” I am your voice. So to every parent who dreams for their child, and every child who dreams for their future, I say these words to you tonight: I’m with you, I will fight for you, and I will win for you.
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Trump speaks on personal terms about his family, notably his father, which we haven’t heard him do much of. Ad-libs CAPS:
In this journey, I’m so lucky to have at my side my wife Melania and my wonderful children, Don, Ivanka, Eric, Tiffany, and Barron: you will always be my greatest source of pride and joy. AND BY THE WAY, MELANIA, AND IVANKA, DID THEY DO A JOB.
My Dad, Fred Trump, was the smartest and hardest working man I ever knew. I wonder sometimes what he’d say if he were here to see this tonight.
Somebody yells, ‘YOU ROCK!’ Would Fred Trump really say that?
It’s because of him that I learned, from my youngest age, to respect the dignity of work and the dignity of working people. He was a guy most comfortable in the company of bricklayers, carpenters, and electricians and I have a lot of that in me also. I LOVE THOSE PEOPLE.
Then there’s my mother, Mary. She was strong, but also warm and fair-minded. She was a truly great mother. She was also one of the most honest and charitable people I have ever known, and a great judge of character. SHE COULD PICK ‘EM OUT FROM ANYWHERE.
To my sisters Mary Anne and Elizabeth, my brother Robert and my late brother Fred, I will always give you my love you are most special to me. I have loved my life in business.
Trump, ad-libs CAPS:
An amendment, pushed by Lyndon Johnson, many years ago, threatens religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocate their political views.
I am going to work very hard to repeal that language and protect free speech for all Americans.
We can accomplish these great things, and so much else – all we need to do is start believing in ourselves and in our country again. It is time to show the whole world that America Is Back – bigger, and better and stronger than ever before.
What a big applause line that was.
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Trump now thanks evangelical Christians for supporting him but admits, in an improvised aside, that he may not deserve it:
At this moment, I would like to thank the evangelical community BECAUSE I WILL TELL YOU WHAT, THE SUPPORT THAT THEY’VE GIVEN ME, AND I’M NOT SURE I DESERVE IT, HAS BEEN SO AMAZING, AND IS SUCH A BIG REASON FOR ME BEING HERE TONIGHT. You have so much to contribute to our politics, yet our laws prevent you from speaking your minds from your own pulpits.
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More Trump, ad-libs CAPS:
The replacement for Justice Scalia will be a person of similar views and principles. VERY IMPORTANT. This will be one of the most important issues decided by this election. My opponent wants to essentially abolish the 2nd amendment. [LOUD BOOS] I, on the other hand, received the early and strong endorsement of the National Rifle Association and will protect the right of all Americans to keep their families safe.
One of the biggest applause lines of the night:
We are also going to appoint justices to the United States Supreme Court who will uphold our laws and our Constitution.
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This new wealth will improve the quality of life for all Americans – We will build the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, and the railways of tomorrow. This, in turn, will create millions more jobs. We will rescue kids from failing schools by helping their parents send them to a safe school of their choice.
My opponent would rather protect education bureaucrats than serve American children. AND THAT’S WHAT SHE’S DOING. AND THAT’S WHAT SHE’S DONE. We will repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare. [CHEERS.] You will be able to choose your own doctor again. [CHEERS] And we will fix TSA at the airports WHICH IS A TOTAL DISASTER!
We’re going to work with all of our students who are drowning in debt to take the pressure off these young people just starting out their adult lives.
We will completely rebuild our depleted military [BIG CHEERS], and the countries that we protect, at a massive COST TO US, will be asked to pay their fair share.
We will take care of our great Veterans like they have never been taken care of before. My just-released Ten Point Plan has received tremendous veteran support. We will guarantee those who serve this country will be able to visit the doctor or hospital of their choice WITHOUT WAITING FIVE DAYS ON A LINE AND DYING. My opponent dismissed the VA scandal – one more sign of how out of touch she really is.
We are going to ask every Department Head in government to provide a list of wasteful spending projects that we can eliminate in my first 100 days. The politicians have talked about THIS FOR YEARS, BUT I’m going to do it.
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More Trump, ad-libs CAPS:
America is one of the highest-taxed nations in the world. Reducing taxes will cause new companies and new jobs to come roaring back into our country. BELIEVE ME, IT’LL HAPPEN, AND IT’LL HAPPEN FAST.
Then we are going to deal with the issue of regulation, one of the greatest job-killers of them all. Excessive regulation is costing our country as much as $2 trillion a year, and we will end it VERY VERY QUICKLY. We are going to lift the restrictions on the production of American energy. This will produce more than $20 trillion in job creating economic activity over the next four decades.
My opponent, on the other hand, wants to put the great miners and steel workers of our country out of work – that will never happen WITH DONALD J TRUMP AS President. OUR STEELWORKERS AND OUR MINERS ARE GOING BACK TO WORK AGAIN. With these new economic policies, trillions of dollars will start flowing into our country.
Trump keeps going on the topic of trade. Ad-libs caps:
My opponent, on the other hand, has supported virtually every trade agreement that has been destroying our middle class. She supported NAFTA, and she supported China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization – another one of her husband’s colossal mistakes.
She supported the job killing trade deal with South Korea. She has supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership WHICH will not only destroy our manufacturing, but it will make America subject to the rulings of foreign governments AND IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. I pledge to never sign any trade agreement that hurts our workers, or that diminishes our freedom and independence. WE WILL NEVER SIGN BAD TRADE DEALS AGAIN. AMERICA FIRST AGAIN. AMERICA FIRST.
Instead, I will make individual deals with individual countries.
No longer will we enter into these massive deals, with many countries, that are thousands of pages long – and which no one from our country even reads or understands. We are going to enforce all trade violations, including through the use of taxes and tariffs, against any country that cheats.
This includes stopping China’s outrageous theft of intellectual property, along with their illegal product dumping, and their devastating currency manipulation. THEY ARE THE GREATEST CURRENCY MANIPULATORS EVER. Our horrible trade agreements with China and many others, will be totally renegotiated. That includes renegotiating NAFTA to get a much better deal for America – and we’ll walk away if we don’t get THAT KIND OF A DEAL Our country is going to start building and making things again.
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Is the crowd growing fatigued? Few delegates left standing, most comfortably seated, many filming on their phones. The waves of applause are a bit less powerful. He just trashed NAFTA and the applause was nearly perfunctory.
Trump swears to enforce immigration law
Trump, ad-libs CAPS:
I have been honored to receive the endorsement of America’s Border Patrol Agents, and will work directly with them to protect the integrity of our lawful LAWFUL LAWFUL immigration system. LAWFUL.
By ending catch-and-release on the border, we will stop the cycle of human smuggling and violence. Illegal border crossings will go down. Peace will be restored. By enforcing the rules for the millions who overstay their visas, our laws will finally receive the respect they deserve.
Tonight, I want every American whose demands for immigration security have been denied – and every politician who has denied them – to listen very closely to the words I am about to say.
On January 20th of 2017, the day after I take the oath of office, Americans will finally wake up in a country where the laws of the United States are enforced. We are going to be considerate and compassionate to everyone.
But my greatest compassion will be for our own struggling citizens.
Cheers and applause. And, thanks to the California delegation, a USA! USA! chant.
My plan is the exact opposite of the radical and dangerous immigration policy of Hillary Clinton. Americans want relief from uncontrolled immigration WHICH IS WHAT WE HAVE NOW. Communities want relief.
Yet Hillary Clinton is proposing mass amnesty, mass immigration, and mass lawlessness. [BOOS.] Her plan will overwhelm your schools and hospitals, further reduce your jobs and wages, and make it harder for recent immigrants to escape THE TREMENDOUS CYCLE OF poverty that they’re going through right now and make it almost impossible for them to join the middle class.
I have a different vision for our workers. It begins with a new, fair trade policy that protects our jobs and stands up to countries that cheat OF WHICH THERE ARE MANY. It’s been a signature message of my campaign from day one, and it will be a signature feature of my presidency from the moment I take the oath of office.
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Here it is, the wall:
We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities.
The crowd chants: Build the wall! Build the wall!
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Trump shifts seamlessly from the threat supposedly posed by Syrian refugees to the threat supposedly posed by immigrants from the south. Ad-libs CAPS:
Anyone who endorses violence, hatred or oppression is not welcome in our country and never will be.
Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African-American and Latino workers. We are going to have an immigration system that works, but one that works for the American people.
On Monday, we heard from three parents whose children were killed by illegal immigrants Mary Ann Mendoza, Sabine Durden, and MY FRIEND, Jamiel Shaw. They are just three brave representatives of many thousands. Of all my travels in this country, nothing has affected me more, NOTHING EVEN CLOSE I HAVE TO TELL YOU, than the time I have spent with the mothers and fathers who have lost their children to violence spilling across our borderS WHICH WE CAN SOLVE. WE HAVE TO SOLVE IT.
These families have no special interests to represent them. There are no demonstrators to protest on their behalf. My opponent will never meet with them, or share in their pain. Instead, my opponent wants Sanctuary Cities. But where was sanctuary for Kate Steinle? Where was Sanctuary for the children of Mary Ann, Sabine and Jamiel? Where was sanctuary for all the – OH, IT’S SO SAD TO EVEN BE TALKING ABOUT IT, BECAUSE WE CAN FIX IT — other Americans who have been so brutally murdered, and who have suffered so horribly?
These wounded American families have been alone. But they are alone no longer. Tonight, this candidate and this whole nation stand in their corner to support them, to send them our love, and to pledge in their honor that we will save countless more families from suffering the same awful fate.
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Trump continues. Paragraph in bold was a late-stage add not in the Politico version. In it Trump tries to clean up his recent comments dismissing Nato.
This includes working with our greatest ally in the region, the State of Israel.
Recently I have said that NATO was obsolete, because it did not properly cover terror, and also, that many of the member countries were not paying their fair share. As usual, the United States has been picking up the cost. Shortly thereafter, it was announced that NATO will be setting up a new program in order to combat terrorism -- a true step in the right direction.
Lastly, AND VERY IMPORTANTLY, we must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time as proven vetting mechanisms have been put in place. WE DON’T WANT THEM IN OUR COUNTRY.
Once again, it’s the improvised line that gets the cheer. He continues:
My opponent has called for a radical 550% increase in Syrian – THINK OF THIS. THINK OF THIS. THIS IS NOT BELIEVABLE BUT THIS IS WHAT’S HAPPENING- refugees on top of existing massive refugee flows coming into our country under President Obama. She proposes this despite the fact that there’s no way to screen these refugees in order to find out who they are or where they come from. I only want to admit individuals into our country who will support our values and love our people.
So much cheering for that line. Americans want to be loved.
Updated
Trump continues, ad-libs CAPS:
Once again, France is the victim of brutal Islamic terrorism.
Men, women and children viciously mowed down. Lives ruined. Families ripped apart. A nation in mourning.
The damage and devastation that can be inflicted by Islamic radicals has been over and over – at the World Trade Center, at an office party in San Bernardino, at the Boston Marathon, and a military recruiting center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Only weeks ago, in Orlando, Florida, 49 wonderful Americans were savagely murdered by an Islamic terrorist. This time, the terrorist targeted... LGBTQ community. NO GOOD. WE’RE GONNA STOP IT.
He has a funny kind of clumsiness getting through the five letters LGBTQ. They don’t roll off his tongue.
As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.
The crowd cheers, and then Trump thanks them for cheering:
AND I HAVE TO SAY, AS A REPUBLICAN, IT IS SO NICE TO HEAR YOU CHEERING FOR WHAT I JUST SAID.
They cheer some more.
To protect us from terrorism, we need to focus on three things.
We must have the best intelligence gathering operation in the world. We must abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria. Instead, we must work with all of our allies who share our goal of destroying ISIS and stamping out Islamic terrorISM AND DOING IT NOW, DOING IT QUICKLY, WE’RE GOING TO WIN, WE’RE GOING TO WIN FAST.
USA! USA! USA!
Trump: 'I am the law and order candidate'
Trump continues, ad-libs CAPS:
I will work with, and appoint, the best prosecutors and law enforcement officials in the country to get the job done. In this race for the White House, I am the Law And Order candidate. The irresponsible rhetoric of our President, who has used the pulpit of the presidency to divide us by race and color, has made America a more dangerous environment THAN FRANLY I HAVE EVER SEEN OR ANYBODY IN THIS ROOM HAS EVER WATCHED OR SEEN.
This Administration has failed America’s inner cities. REMEMBER, FAILED ITS INNER CITIES. It’s failed them on education. It’s failed them on jobs. It’s failed them on crime. It’s failed them IN EVERY WAY AND at every level.
When I am President, I will work to ensure that all of our kids are treated equally, and protected equally.
Every action I take, I will ask myself: does this make life better for young Americans in Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Ferguson who have as much of a right to live out their dreams as any other child America?
To make life safe FOR ALL OF OUR CITIZENS, we must also address the growing threats we face from outside America: we are going to defeat the barbarians of ISIS AND WE’RE GOING TO DEFEAT THEM FAST.
That’s quite an applause line.
Updated
Trump: 'I will restore law and order'
More Trump, ad-libs in CAPS:
We will bring the same economic success to America that Mike brought to Indiana. He is a man of character and accomplishment. He is the right man for the job. The first task for our new Administration will be to liberate our citizens from the crime and terrorism and lawlessness that threatens their communities.
America was shocked to its core when our police officers in Dallas were brutally executed. IMMEDIATELY after Dallas, we have seen continued threats and violence against our law enforcement officials. Law officers have been shot or killed in recent days in Georgia, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas, Michigan and Tennessee.
On Sunday, more police were gunned down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Three were killed, and four were badly injured. An attack on law enforcement is an attack on all Americans. I have a message to every last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our police: when I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order our country. BELIEVE ME. BELIEVE ME.
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Trump: 'millions of Democrats will join our movement'
Trump says he’ll get Bernie Sanders voters numbering millions of Democrats:
Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. I have seen firsthand how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged against Bernie Sanders – he never had a chance.
But his supporters will join our movement, because we will fix his biggest issue: trade. Millions of Democrats will join our movement because we are going to fix the system so it works for all Americans. In this cause, I am proud to have at my side the next Vice President of the United States: Governor Mike Pence of Indiana.
Trump saying Pence’s name gets way more applause than Pence actually appearing.
And a great guy.
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Trump presents self as defender of powerless
And the consummation of Trump as populist is complete:
I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves.
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Trump says Clinton committed 'terrible, terrible crimes'
More Trump, ad-libs in CAPS:
I have embraced crying mothers who have lost their children because our politicians put their personal agendas before the national good. I have no patience for injustice, no tolerance for government incompetence, no sympathy for leaders who fail their citizens.
When innocent people suffer, because our political system lacks the will, or the courage, or the basic decency to enforce our laws – or worse still, has sold out to some corporate lobbyist for cash – I am not able to look the other way.
Here chants of Lock her up! Lock her up!
And when a Secretary of State illegally stores her emails on a private server, deletes 33,000 of them so the authorities can’t see her crime, puts our country at risk, lies about it in every different form and faces no consequence – I know that corruption has reached a level like never before.
When the FBI Director says that the Secretary of State was “extremely careless” and “negligent,” in handling our classified secrets, I also know that these terms are minor compared to what she actually did. They were just used to save her from facing justice for her terrible TERRIBLE crimes.
In fact, her single greatest accomplishment may be committing such an egregious crime and getting away with it – especially when others have paid so dearly. When that same Secretary of State rakes in millions of dollars trading access and favors to special interests and foreign powers I know the time for action has come.
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Trump addresses the #RNCinCLE pic.twitter.com/hkDkbJ9LdO
— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) July 22, 2016
Protester interrupts Trump
More Trump, ad-libs CAPS:
Every day I wake up determined to deliver for the people I have met all across this nation that have been neglected, ignored, and abandoned.
I have visited the laid-off factory workers, and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten men and women of our country. AND THEY ARE FORGOTTEN. BUT THEY”RE NOT GONNA BE FORGOTTEN LONG. THESE ARE People who work hard but no longer have a voice.
I am your voice.
Cheers cheers cheers but the crowd can’t decide whether to chant USA USA or TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP.
But now, there seems to be a protester, over by Texas.
Trump stands and nods solemnly. He does not comment on the situation. He puckers his mouth. Presidentially, I guess is the idea.
Then he knocks it out of the park with a line that delivers this crowd to ecstasy.
How great are our police and how great is Cleveland?!?
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Trump, with ad-libs CAPS:
A number of these reforms that I will outline tonight will be opposed by some of our nation’s most powerful special interests. That is because these interests have rigged our political and economic system for their exclusive benefit, BELIEVE ME, IT”S FOR THEIR BENEFIT.
Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because they know she will keep our rigged system in place. They are throwing money at her because they have total control over every SINGLE THING she does. She is their puppet, and they pull the strings.
That is why Hillary Clinton’s message is that things will never change. NEVER EVER. [LAUGHS]
My message is that things have to change – and they have to change right now!
Big cheers.
More Trump, ad-libs in CAPS:
But Hillary Clinton’s legacy does not have to be America’s legacy. The problems we face now – poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad – will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them. A change in leadership is required to change these outcomes. Tonight, I will share with you my plan of action for America.
The most important difference between our plan and that of our OPPONENT, is that our plan will put America First.
Big cheer, crowd comes to its feet and chants USA! USA!
Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo. As long as we are led by politicians who will not put America First, then we can be assured that other nations will not treat America with respect THE RESPECT THAT WE DESERVE.
The American People will come first once again. My plan will begin with safety at home – which means safe neighborhoods, secure borders, and protection from terrorism. There can be no prosperity without law and order.
He says “law and order” with a forceful nasty catch in his voice, launching a Trump! Trump! Trump! cheer.
On the economy, I will outline reforms to add millions of new jobs and trillions in new wealth that can be used to rebuild America.
Trump: 'legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction and weakness.'
Trump continues, with his ad-libs in CAPS:
I am certain it is a decision THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA truly regrets. Her bad instincts and her bad judgment – something pointed out by Bernie Sanders – are what caused the disasters unfolding today. Let’s review the record. In 2009, pre-Hillary, ISIS was not even on the map.
Libya was cooperating. Egypt was peaceful. Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence. Iran was being choked by sanctions. Syria was under control. After four years of Hillary Clinton, what do we have? ISIS has spread across the region, and the world. Libya is in ruins, and our Ambassador and his staff were left helpless to die at the hands of savage killers. Egypt was turned over to the radical Muslim brotherhood, forcing the military to retake control. Iraq is in chaos.
Iran is on the path to nuclear weapons. Syria is engulfed in a civil war and a refugee crisis that now threatens the West. After fifteen years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before.
This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction and weakness.
Trump camp issues footnoted transcript
They did their homework and have showed their work. If you doubt the factual fidelity of any line of this speech, check out the annotated transcript here.
Check it out, a 360-degree view:
You can watch 360 video live from the podium! https://t.co/yqcIsBUdAi #RNCinCLE #TrumpIsWithYou #MakeAmericaGreatAgain
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2016
Trump describes 'humiliation after humiliation'
Trump proceeds. His ad-libs in CAPS:
Not only have our citizens endured domestic disaster, but they have lived through one international humiliation after another. ONE AFTER ANOTHER. We all remember the images of our sailors being forced to their knees by their Iranian captors at gunpoint.
This was just prior to the signing of the Iran deal, which gave back to Iran $150 billion and gave us ABSOLUTELY nothing – it will go down in history as one of the worst deals ever NEGOTIATED. Another humiliation came when president Obama drew a red line in Syria – and the whole world knew it meant ABSOLUTELY nothing.
In Libya, our consulate – the symbol of American prestige around the globe – was brought down in flames. America is far less safe – and the world is far less stable – than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy.
The crowd chants: LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP!
Trump replies: “Let’s defeat her in November.” Huge cheers.
Trump tells the story of a young woman killed by a drunken driver, an undocumented immigrant. His ad-libs in caps:
One such border-crosser was released and made his way to Nebraska. There, he ended the life of an innocent young girl named Sarah Root. She was 21 years-old, and was killed the day after graduating from college with a 4.0 Grade Point Average. FIRST IN HER CLASS Her killer was then released a second time, and he is now a fugitive from the law.
I’ve met Sarah’s beautiful family. But to this Administration, their amazing daughter was just one more American life that wasn’t worth protecting. One more child to sacrifice on the ORDER AND ON THE altar of open borders. What about our economy?
Again, I will tell you the plain facts that have been edited out of your nightly news and your morning newspaper: Nearly Four in 10 African-American children are living in poverty, while 58% of African American youth are not employed. 2 million more Latinos are in poverty today than when the President took his oath of office less than eight years ago. Another 14 million people have left the workforce entirely.
Household incomes are down more than $4,000 since the year 2000. Our manufacturing trade deficit has reached an all-time high –THINK OF THIS. THINK OF THIS. IS $800 billion LAST YEAR ALONE. WE’RE GONNA FIX THAT. The budget is no better.
President Obama has doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion, and growing. Yet, what do we have to show for it? Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in Third World condition, and forty-three million Americans are on food stamps.
Now let us consider the state of affairs abroad.
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Trump continues through a section that culminates with a chant: Build the wall! Build the wall!:
Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this Administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement.
Homicides last year increased by 17% in America’s fifty largest cities. That’s the largest increase in 25 years. In our nation’s capital, killings have risen by 50 percent. They are up nearly 60% in nearby Baltimore.
In the President’s hometown of Chicago, more than 2,000 have been the victims of shootings this year alone. And almost 4,000 have been killed in the Chicago area since he took office.
The number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by almost 50% compared to this point last year. Nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records, ordered deported from our country, are tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens.
The number of new illegal immigrant families who have crossed the border so far this year already exceeds the entire total from 2015. They are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities with no regard for the impact on public safety or resources.
The chant: Build the wall!
Trump: 'safety will be restored'
OK he’s back on script. His ad-libs in caps but he’s following it quite closely.
Our Convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country.
Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims.
I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon AND I MEAN VERY SOON come to an end. Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored.
That last line gets less applause than one might have expected. He continues:
The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead.It is finally time for a straightforward assessment of the state of our nation.
I will present the facts plainly and honestly. We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore. [HUGE CHEERING]
So if you want to hear the corporate spin, the carefully-crafted lies, and the media myths the Democrats are holding their convention next week.
But here, at our convention, there will be no lies. We will honor the American people with the truth, and nothing else. [Chant: USA USA USA]
Updated
Trump: 'we will be a country of law and order'
Trump. Here he goes. Let’s see how close that Politico transcript is:
SO far verbatim:
Friends, delegates and fellow Americans: I humbly and gratefully accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.
They are cheering. Lots of flashbulbs. Now a USA USA USA chant. A completely packed house. Trump starts chanting with them.
Uh, oh, he’s working with a slightly different script now:
“Who would have believed that when we started this journey, we – and I say we, because we are a team” – would be here.
“The Democrats, on the other hand, got 20% fewer votes than they got four years ago. Not so good. Not so good.”
He says “we will lead our country back to prosperity and peace.”
But we will also be a country of law and order.
Updated
Ivanka Trump is winding up to the end. This is going well.
I have loved and respected him my entire life, and I could not be more proud tonight to present to you and to all of America my father and our next president, Donald J Trump.
There are horns. Lots of horns.
Donald Trump comes out and kisses Ivanka Trump. This time the kisses land. The crowd is on its feet, cheering, applauding.
There are also strings, lots of strings. IT sounds like he just won the crap out of a Grammy.
Ivanka Trump:
“He’s the single most qualified person to serve as chief executive of an $18tn economy,” she says. He’ll recruit “the best and brightest,” she says. “Come January 17, all things will become possible again. We can hope, dream and think big again... he will be your greatest, your truest and your most loyal champion.”
Ivanka Trump: 'my father will fight for you'
Ivanka Trump promises that “when my father says that he will MAGA, he will deliver.” She does not use the acronym but it’s faster to type.
She gets a genuine laugh:
“When I was a child, my father told me, Ivanka, you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big...
“To people all over America, I say, when you have my father in your corner, you will no longer have to worry about being let down. He will fight for you all the way, all the time, every time.”
Other politicians, she says, say “I’ll feel for you.” But “Only my father will say, ‘I’ll fight for you.’”
Ivanka Trump has positioned herself as a millennial with a focus on issues that consistently register as top concerns for women voters.
Ivanka Trump promises to fight for equal pay and family leave
Ivanka Trump says that Trump micro-manages his job sites, talking to everyone from the painter to the super.
“When Donald Trump is in charge, all that counts is ability, effort and excellence,” she says. Kind of generic-y.
Then she gets the biggest applause of the night, with lines about... equal pay. And family leave:
“At my father’s company there are more female than male executives. Women are paid equally for the work that they do, and when a woman becomes a mother she is supported, not shut out...
“As president, my father will change the labor laws.. .and he will focus on making quality child care affordable and accessible for all.”
Ivanka Trump says father 'color-blind and gender neutral'
“My father not only has the strengh and ability to be the next president, but also the kindness and compassion that will enable him to be the leader that this country needs,” she asserts.
“I’ve learned a lot about the world from walking construction sites by his side... competence in the building trade is easy to spot, and incompetence is impossible to hide.. there have always been men of all backgrounds and ethnicities on my father’s job sites, and women long before it was common.
“He is color-blind and gender neutral. He hires the best person for the job, period.”
Trump says that the goal that unites us all is “when this party and better still this country knows what winning feels like again.”
“If it’s possible to be famous and yet not really well known, that describes the father who raised me,” she says. Interesting. She reminisces about playing on the floor of his office, making buildings with legos, and Erector sets.
“He taught us that there’s nothing that we cannot accomplish if we marry vision and passion with an enduring work ethic,” she says.
Ivanka Trump tells RNC she's not always a Republican
Ivanka Trump says that her father prevailed against 16 competitors. “For more than a year Donald Trump has been the people’s champion, and tonight he is the people’s nominee,” she says.
“Like many of my fellow millennials I do not consider myself categorically Republican or Democrat,” she says. That factchecks true.
“This is the moment, and Donald Trump is the person to MAGA,” she says. She doesn’t really use the acronym but it’s faster to type.
“Real change is only going to come from outside the system,” she says.
Updated
Ivanka Trump addresses convention
Well that’s a loud cheer now. The band plays Here Comes the Sun as she comes out. Somebody yells: “We love you Ivanka!!!!”
Updated
Look who’s watching at home:
Trump's most challenging construction project is that hair.
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) July 22, 2016
The prompter reads: “Ladies and gentlemen, please give a very warm welcome to Ivanka Trump.”
As soon as the video’s done playing. “Donald Trump has set his sights on a new rebuilding project” the video says.
Now a video testimony to Trump from actor Jon Voight that begins, “as you know he is running for president.”
And it’s another biography of Trump and story of his career. “He became captain of the baseball team... after college, Donald faced a decision... Donald’s first project was less about building a project than reclaiming its soul.”
It looks like they brought out a special black-and-gold lectern for the Trumps to speak at. We can’t quite see the front of it. Tell us there’s a gold T on there.
Updated
This song has the refrain Make America Great Again, and there’s a screaming sax solo in it.
Barrack tells the crowd to make “once upon a time” “once upon this time.”
The band’s back.
Ivanka Trump is next.
Updated
While Barrack speaks – he’s telling very nice personal stories about Trump – here’s the latest report from the city of Cleveland about the security situation:
Two officers, one a Georgia State Trooper and one with the Cleveland Division of Police, were treated for minor skin irritation. They are doing well. The incident is still being investigated, but it is confirmed that no needles or syringes were used. It is possible that it was coming from irritant on a sticker.
As a precaution, police are advising that if you received a sticker from a person that you don’t know, wash the area with soap and water. Do not take any items from anyone you don’t know.
Syringes have been banned as a precaution, illustrating that the City is monitoring and reacting to incidents.
Barriers will be removed when deemed possible by the United States Secret Service.
Talk about a campaign about the future. The Trump camp has just sent, prematurely, an email in which Trump tells people that he just spoke at the RNC conventions.
We are here, and if we missed that speech, it was really nice working here.
But we’re pretty certain that Trump has not yet spoken, despite what this fundraising email says:
Tonight was amazing.
I just delivered my speech at the Republican National Convention, where I officially accepted our Party’s nomination for President of the United States.
David, I am so honored and humbled.
I can’t thank my wonderful supporters enough.
And I have such an incredible running mate in accomplished conservative warrior Mike Pence, Governor of the great state of Indiana.
This is our time to Make America Great Again!
Barrack says nice words about Melania Trump:
Melania I want to tell you, on behalf of 10,000 people in this arena and 50 million people watching, you are a timeless tribute to beauty, grace and elegance under pressure, you’re amazing. You’re awesome.”
That’s applauded heartily.
Updated
Here’s Tom Barrack, CEO of Colony Capital, real estate investor and former deputy undersecretary of the Department of the Interior in the Reagan administration.
“Wow this is a wow,” he says. “I have to tell you I feel like the anchovy on Ivanka’s Caesar Salad. I know you’re salivating for that and you’re going to get it.”
“Donald Trump is one of my closest friends for 40 years,” he continues. He says he’s the son of a humble Lebanese grocer. And he’s speaking without notes or the Teleprompter. This is a seriously practiced public speaker.
“You’re going to hate me for it, because you’re not going to hear one negative thing out of my mouth. I have nothing negative to say about Hillary, I have only good things to say about Donald,” he says.
Updated
More useful information about Donald Trump’s career, narrated by Donald Jr.
It would be awesome to enjoy another tribute to Donald Trump's real estate career, narrated perhaps by one of his childr-- oh good.
— Tom McCarthy (@TeeMcSee) July 22, 2016
RNC applauds Thiel for 'proud to be gay' line
When Thiel says “who cares?” about bathrooms, there is clapping and cheers.
Then he gets something of a standing ovation, from maybe a third of the crowd, when he says, “I am proud to be gay. But most of all I am proud to be an American.”
The crowd cheers him at the end, and he gives a toothy, kind of dopey grin, and stands there for a second before waving and wandering off, as if thinking, “well, that went well.”
It did.
Updated
Thiel to tell RNC: 'I am proud to be gay'
Next up is Peter Thiel, the PayPal founder and Facebook investor, the billionaire who financed multiple lawsuits against Gawker including one attached to Hulk Hogan’s sex tape, reportedly because he was mad at Gawker because a sister site published that he was gay.
Thiel plans to tell the crowd “I am proud to be gay,” according to his prepared remarks. How will the crowd respond?
Here’s an excerpt that Thiel has yet to get to:
When I was a kid, the great debate was about how to defeat the Soviet Union. And we won. Now we are told that the great debate is about who gets to use which bathroom.
This is a distraction from our real problems. Who cares?
Of course, every American has a unique identity.
I am proud to be gay.
I am proud to be a Republican.
But most of all I am proud to be an American.
Trump to speak in an hour
Donald Trump is scheduled to make a speech accepting the Republican nomination for president in about one hour, around 10.15 pm. No going back now.
Priebus is done. The band is covering Can’t Get Enough (of your love). We made up those parentheses. While we wait for the next speaker, here’s some more three-dimensional chess from Ben Carson, who has said that the Trump children grew up at a disadvantage because they had money, which turns most kids into spoiled failures but look how good the Trumps turned out:
The band is now doing REO Speedwagon again. Roll With the Changes. It’s a really great cover band.
Priebus says that Trump is the man the country needs:
This election is our chance to stop it and Donald Trump is the right man to lead that charge. He’s brought millions of new voters into our party because he’s listening to Americans who are anxious about a country which has lost its way.
Priebus switches to criticizing Clinton.
“You can kiss your gun rights goodbye if she ever finds her way into the White House. ...
It was on her watch ISIS began to spread its wings of evil over the Middle East. And she has spent the last 16 months looking into the eyes of the American people and lying about how she recklessly jeopardized national security with her secret email server.
She lied. And she lied over and over and over. She lied. She lied.
Here he’s interrupted by chants of Lock her up. Then Priebus continues:
Perhaps worst of all, Hillary Clinton has perfected the art of politics for personal gain. She reads ethics rules as carefully as Americans read their junk mail. Just look at her track record.
She used her post as Secretary of State to grease the wheels for Democrat lobbyists, special interests, and political insiders connected to the corrupt Clinton Machine.
Her family foundation took millions of dollars in donations from countries notorious for human rights abuses and funneling money to radical Islamic terrorists.
For Hillary Clinton, the Oval Office is just another cash cow. Well, I have one word for all this hypocrisy and corruption.
Well, I have only one word for all this hypocrisy and corruption: Enough.
Updated
Priebus is drawing distinctions between Democrats and Republicans. Here are some good things he says about the Republican party:
We are the party of new ideas in a world changing faster than ever.
We are the party of the grassroots. We honor what the voters say.
We know every child matters and the classroom is not an assembly
We want healthcare choices in the hands of patients.
We say an independent people deserves individual solutions.
Back onstage, chairman Priebus. He begins:
To the people of Cleveland, we say thank you for your hospitality. I stand before this convention tonight as the Chairman of a party that is carrying the torch of liberty.
We are the party of the open door.
The official Republican platform this year calls for a “physical barrier” running the length of the Mexican border.
Updated
Here’s another video. They’re trying to get to 9pm it feels like. The video is about the Republican wave of 2014. Senators are talking to the camera about the glory days of two years ago.
Pursuant to Paul Manafort’s comments earlier that women will support Trump because their husbands aren’t making enough money to support family needs. It looks like a powerful argument – maybe 40 years ago:
Re: Manafort/"husbands" comment (Data from Pew) pic.twitter.com/mXvXUau5b2
— Carrie Dann (@CarrieNBCNews) July 22, 2016
Here’s another video. What’s it about? 9/11? Criminal justice? Education? Autism? Immigration? All those things so far.
It turns out the video follows story lines of five or six members of the Republican Leadership Initiative. It’s party propaganda as opposed to Trump propaganda. Now it’s doe and it sounds like time for more band.
Here now is Dr Lisa Shin head of Koreans for Trump (the announcer said; not Korean-Americans, which is how Shin then describes herself).
She’s from New Mexico. Forty-some years ago her parents left South Korea to become Americans, she says. “They knew that America was the land of opportunity and freedom, whre immigrants could succeed and prosper...my parents never imagined that one day their daughter would be speaking to you today. This is the beauty of the American dream. To do the unimaginable.”
“Hillary Clinton is a direct threat to the American dream,” Shin says.
“She represents everything that is wrong with the system!” Applause for that line.
Shin critiques Clinton at length. “She is not qualified to be our next president. She is unfit to be commander and chief.. There is only president that can preserve the American dream... who will ensure a more prosperous, safe and secure future... only one candidate who will protect, stand with and fight for we the American people.”
She’s not going to say Clinton, is she.
“There is only one clear choice for America, and that choice is Donald Trump!” she finishes. Big applause.
“Safety will be restored,” Donald Trump will promise Americans on Thursday in an acceptance speech as a Republican presidential nominee that strikes a sharp new authoritarian tone, write Dan Roberts and Ben Jacobs:
Amid a backdrop of terrorist attacks and police shootings, Trump will seize on law and order as a potential rallying cry for a party bruised by internal feuds and an unruly convention.
“I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored,” Trump will say, according to extracts of the speech circulated by the campaign after an unconfirmed full draft was leaked online.
The chaotic release of the speech – three hours before Trump was due to take to the stage in Cleveland – caps a week in which his wife’s opening address plagiarised Michelle Obama and a call for party unity was torpedoed by Ted Cruz’s refusal to endorsee the nominee.
Read the full coverage here:
Updated
Next up: Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin, the state’s first woman governor, once mentioned as a potential running mate for Trump. She is describing growing up in Tecumseh, Oklahoma. She has yet to mention the American dream.
She says, kind of out of nowhere, that Oklahoma had no shortage of “African American heroes”, continuing:
When I look back on my childhood, my America, I don’t see a perfect place. But we were united by a simple belief: that no matter who you were or where you came from, better days were just ahead for America.
She goes on to say that “it’s no secret that Donald Trump is bold, tenacious, courageous, and he has outspoken ideas.”
Here are further Fallin excerpts as released by the Trump campaign:
“We are one in our belief that America must address the national debt – not by increasing taxes – but by increasing opportunity.
We are one in our belief that we must protect our borders, and promote fair trade that puts American workers first.
We are one in our belief that we must stand with allies like Israel, a beacon of freedom and democracy in the Middle East.
We are one in our belief that we must respect and honor our military, veterans, and law enforcement, whose sacrifice keeps us safe and free.
And we are one in our belief in that every life is precious, regardless of race or class, including the lives of unborn children.”
Updated
Blackburn quotes Larry the Cable Guy. “Let’s Get ‘er Done.” That part didn’t make the excerpts.
She says Trump has lived the American dream. We’ll forgo a wisecrack about Trump’s inheritance to earnestly posit that we thought the American dream had to do with scoring success from humble beginnings because equality. Not making money into more money.
Updated
The band played. Now here’s Representative Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee. She gives a special shout out to people watching the convention on Twitter.
Here’s an excerpt of Blackburn’s speech released by the Trump campaign:
We are in desperate need of true leadership and unity. The last eight years have been a challenge, to our national and household budgets, our Constitution, to the men and women who give their lives and sacred honor to protect both. Donald Trump is a leader who has seen challenges, learned lessons, solved problems, delivered results. Some of our greatest leaders have been people who worked in the real world, know firsthand how cumbersome rules and unnecessary regulations get in the way of greatness. I want a president who knows leadership is not as it appears, but as it performs.
Here now is a video presentation by Bobby Knight, the former Indiana basketball coach.
“As a coach my primary objective is to win and I know Donald Trump will always have winning on his mind,” Knight says. It’s a really short video and a pretty... lame? endorsement, for one of Trump’s favorite surrogates.
Next up is Brock Mealer, a motivational speaker who suffered a spinal injury in a car wreck in 2007 and was told he could not walk again.
Mealer walks to the lectern, using two canes. He says doctors gave him less than a 1% chance of ever walking again. “Truthfully, god made that 1% a reality – his will, not mine,” he says. The crowd applauds warmly.
“And guess who else was told he only had a 1% chance?” is Mealer’s transition. “Mr Trump, welcome to the club. I defied the odds but I couldn’t do it on my own. Donald Trump can’t do it alone either. He needs our help and support.”
Updated
“A leader gets stuff done,” Tarkenton says. I’ve known Donald Trump for 48 years, and like those other leaders, I know for sure he gets stuff done... Donald Trump is a proven leader, a teambuilder... I’ve watched him.. succeed wildly. I’ve watched him fail because all of us fail. I’ve watched him get back up because he never quits.”
This is a positive talk from Tarkenton. He asks the crowd to “go and win this game together.” Nary a discouraging word.
Here’s a Fran Tarkenton highlight reel:
Next up is Fran Tarkenton, the former Minnesota Vikings quarterback. “Right now I look at America, and I need to ask, what the hell’s goin on here?”
He says Washington is “broken for everybody who doesn’t make their living inside the Beltway.”
“Here in America the only colors that matter are red white and blue,” Burns says. Related:
Here’s a charge of energy, suddenly: Pastor Mark Burns, the adamantly outspoken Trump-supporting South Carolinian. At the bottom of this post you can read the controversial invocation Burns delivered on Monday night.
Burns practically screams that under a Donald Trump administration, All! Lives! Matter! – a popular viewpoint in this arena.
He gets the crowd to chant All Lives Matter.
They take up the chant: All Lives Matter! All Lives Matter!
Burns realizes, or maybe seems to realize, that this is a potentially bad look for this room, in terms of projecting welcome to voters who may not be white. He ditches the teleprompter and says he disagrees with the tactics of Black Lives Matter, but “I understand that hopelessness and lack of opportunity breeds this type of desperation. This is true in many of our nation’s ghettoes.”
Then he gets them to shout Together! Together!
Then he promises that under a Trump administration, “all Americans will have jobs.”
1/ I've heard a lot of prayers by religious leaders of different faiths at RNCs & DNCs. But nothing like this. pic.twitter.com/RYfpn58TNi
— Amy Sullivan (@sullivanamy) July 18, 2016
Updated
Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County in Arizona is at the lectern. Arpaio was subject for a time to an independent monitor after a judge found that his department engaged in racial profiling.
“My most important mission has just begun,” he says. “To help elect Donald Trump president of the United States.”
“As someone who for 35 years has been a top law enforcement official.. I can tell you firsthand about the dangers of illegal immigration and drugs.”
He says “we have terrorists coming over our borders” and committing “massive destruction and mayhem.”
He closes with calls to support law enforcement and the military. “Let’s elect Donald Trump,” he says.
He seemed a bit subdued, actually, as did Falwell.
Falwell:
“If you are a conservative, a decision not to vote, or to vote for a third-party candidate, is a de facto vote for Hillary Clinton...
“On the other end, a vote for Donald Trump is a vote to uphold the second-amendment right to bear arms.” Also to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and appoint anti-abortion justices to the supreme court.
Falwell quotes his late father telling Chelsea Clinton that the three greatest threats facing the nation were “Osama, Obama and Yo Mama.” Charming.
Falwell: Trump is 'America's blue-collar billionaire'
Jerry Falwell Jr, the Liberty University president, is speaking now. “Most of our nation’s leaders have a strong faith as I do in our lord and savior, Jesus Christ,” Falwell says.
Speaking to his students last year about the San Bernardino, California, terror attack, Falwell called for more guns: “I’ve always thought if more good people had concealed carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in,” Falwell said.
“We have never met such a tender and loving family. I truly believe Mr Trump is America’s blue collar billionaire,” Falwell says.
In most polls Trump trails Clinton among women voters by 20-30 points. Campaign chairman Paul Manafort has just laid out how that could all change:
On MSNBC Manafort says Trump can appeal to women bc: "They can't afford their lives. Their husbands can't afford paying the family bills."
— James Poniewozik (@poniewozik) July 21, 2016
That'll get 'em! https://t.co/Xj7da0f4Ij
— Elise Jordan (@Elise_Jordan) July 21, 2016
Turned on MSNBC right as Manafort said women will vote Trump bc they're worried about their husbands/"can't afford their lives anymore" 🙃🙃🙃🙃
— jessica testa (@jtes) July 21, 2016
There’s the band. First AC/DC cover of the convention. You Shook Me. The Florida delegation is up to its usual (drunken?) hijinks. Nebraska looks bored in their matching red shirts, with one delegate definitely sleeping (and it’s loud). Who else do we see. Texas is doing the swaying cowboy hats thing. GE Smith also looks bored playing the repetitive, simple yet impossibly catchy You Shook Me riff. Here’s the solo though. Take that thing for a walk GE.
Dancing and singing at a convention does not guarantee victory in November.
— Stuart Rothenberg (@StuPolitics) July 21, 2016
Updated
Perkins is done. Now there’s a video of Trump employees talking about how great he is to work for. The video features women executives. They say that the Trump organization is a great place for “women and minorities.”
Last night we watched one video of a Trump organization executive paying tribute to the Trump family and one video of the Trump children paying tribute to their father. Tonight’s video is another edition in the series.
“He’s tough, he’s someone who gets thing done and attacks a challenge,” says one executive.
“The man is a machine... he works harder than anyone I know,” says another.
Tony Perkins, the family research council president, returns to the stage to speak. He’s not on the scheduled speakers list.
He says he’ll be voting for Donald Trump and wants to explain why. Great for Trump’s campaign for evangelical voters to have him here.
We’ve heard the national anthem and a prayer delivered in front of a projected purple sunset. (Just the prayer had the sunset.)
Updated
Family Research Council president and evangelical Christian leader Tony Perkins leads the pledge of allegiance.
Here’s what Perkins thought of Trump in March, according to a Washington Examiner report:
“I am very concerned about what may happen in a general election, especially once a lot of focus is placed on Donald Trump, his past positions, his personal affairs, conduct, various things — I think that’s going to have an impact on the way evangelicals respond in the general election,” Mr. Perkins said on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers,” which aired Sunday.
Updated
Heavenly Joy, her name is. Five years old, Priebus returns to the lectern to announce.
Priebus gavels final night to order
RNC chairman has gaveled the final night to a start. A super cute little girl with two gigantic white bows in her hair is singing Let There Be Peace on Earth.
Strike up the band. Night four is on. They’ve done Rock the Casbah and now it’s Sweet Caroline again. Boy Sweet Caroline goes over with this crowd. Is Neil Diamond even a Republican?
Whoops:
Working the phones for Obama... If I call you, don't hang up. It's really me and I need you. #OFACulver pic.twitter.com/e7oquoid
— Neil Diamond (@NeilDiamond) November 5, 2012
Updated
A bit of Nixon voiceover to whet your palate for tonight’s big speech:
The first civil right of every American to be free from domestic violence. So I pledge to you, we shall have order in the United States.
Opening of Trump's speech tonight is very reminiscent of Nixon's rhetoric in 1968 https://t.co/VyETymcxjZ
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) July 21, 2016
N.B.: while the rhetorical echo is unmistakable, the most dire comparisons between the most volatile American political year of the modern era and the current election cycle have proven to be overblown. For example, the city of Cleveland just reported that no RNC-related arrests have been made today, and protest activity this week has produced minimal violence.
Trump draft omits ban on Muslim immigrants
Missing from the Trump speech excerpts, and from the entire speech draft as published by various outlets, is any reference to a marquee policy proposal that defined Trump’s run in the Republican primaries: a ban on Muslim immigrants.
In the draft version of his speech, Trump planned to say, “we must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism.” It’s unclear what he means by “compromised by terrorism.”
Additionally in the draft speech, Trump refers repeatedly to the need for a secure border. In one section he tells the story of a young woman from Nebraska killed by a drunken driver who was an undocumented migrant.
Trump, in the draft, places blame for the death at the administration’s door, and logically implies that drunken driving is an immigration issue (although Trump does not, in the draft, delineate the cause of death): “But to this Administration, their amazing daughter was just one more American life that wasn’t worth protecting. One more child to sacrifice on the altar of open borders.”
In a draft version of the speech published by Politico, Trump also refers to a border wall: We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities.”
Updated
Trump speech excerpts released: 'safety will be restored'
The Trump campaign has now released official excerpt of the big speech. Here are the excerpts in full as released:
Friends, delegates and fellow Americans: I humbly and gratefully accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States. …
Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities.
Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims.
I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored. …
America is far less safe – and the world is far less stable – than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy.
I am certain it is a decision he truly regrets. Her bad instincts and her bad judgment – something pointed out by Bernie Sanders – are what caused many of the disasters unfolding today. …
But Hillary Clinton’s legacy does not have to be America’s legacy. The problems we face now – poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad – will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them. …
As long as we are led by politicians who will not put America First, then we can be assured that other nations will not treat America with respect. This will all change when I take office. …
My message is that things have to change – and they have to change right now.
Every day I wake up determined to deliver a better life for the people all across this nation that have been neglected, ignored, and abandoned. …
Middle-income Americans and businesses will experience profound relief, and taxes will be greatly simplified for everyone. America is one of the highest-taxed nations in the world.
Reducing taxes will cause new companies and new jobs to come roaring back into our country.
Then we are going to deal with the issue of regulation, one of the greatest job-killers of them all.
Excessive regulation is costing our country as much as 2 trillion dollars a year, and we will end it. …
With these new economic policies, trillions of dollars will start flowing into our country.
This new wealth will improve the quality of life for all Americans. We will build the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, and the railways of tomorrow.
This, in turn, will create millions more jobs.
We will rescue kids from failing schools by helping their parents send them to a safe school of their choice. …
So to every parent who dreams for their child, and every child who dreams for their future, I say these words to you tonight:I’m with you, I will fight for you, and I will win for you.
Updated
Trump to call for 'a change in leadership' – reports
Multiple media outlets – including Politico and the New York Times – and the Hillary Clinton rapid response outfit Correct the Record - have obtained a draft version of Donald Trump’s nomination acceptance speech.
The Trump camp confirmed to the Times that the speech was a draft version of what Trump plans to say - but the Trump campaign would not comment on how close the draft might be to a final version.
“This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction and weakness,” the draft reads. “But Hillary Clinton’s legacy does not have to be America’s legacy. The problems we face now – poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad – will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them.
A change in leadership is required to change these outcomes.”
Developing...
Updated
Trump Speech Leaked (<--joke):
Whoa! Autocue inadvertently reveals 1st lines of Trump's big speech - and it's a whole new Trump! #RNCinCLE #RNC2016 pic.twitter.com/yvrYdn8nCf
— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) July 21, 2016
Yeehaw.
Cowboys for Trump pic.twitter.com/SdnWrl35LV
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) July 21, 2016
During his mic check today, Trump admitted that he loves the media, in the latest flip-flop for the presidential nominee, who has also changed his positions on abortion, Hillary Clinton, trade, immigration, taxation, health care, the Iraq war, a Muslim ban, a border wall, Ted Cruz, Roger Ailes, Mitt Romney, super Pacs, charitable donations, accounts payable and the Republican party.
Updated
No telling whether Trump can really make America great again, but 50,000 balloons raining on 2,472 delegates seems as good an opening move as any:
Updated
Ha.
Driving down Historic Route 66 - an iconic symbol of the American West! #Arizona https://t.co/JWe7n4N7xh pic.twitter.com/NxISYawbza
— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) July 21, 2016
It's also really far from Cleveland https://t.co/MvMM6mnqDr
— Nick Riccardi (@NickRiccardi) July 21, 2016
Giffords calls on Trump to disavow aide who called for Clinton's shooting
Former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords called on Donald Trump to disavow aide Al Baldasaro, who said on Tuesday that Hillary Clinton should be “put in the firing line and shot for treason.”
Giffords, a Democrat, released a joint statement with her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly.
“Take it from us: This kind of rhetoric fuels hatred, violence, and puts lives at risk. There is simply no place in our politics and our country for this kind of shameful threat,” the statement said.
“We are disappointed and saddened that Donald Trump continues to welcome the support of his advisor Al Baldasaro after he said a candidate for office should be executed. We hope Mr. Trump does the responsible thing and disavows Al Baldasaro for his dangerous rhetoric.”
Pokémon Go transforms convention into gym full of rare catches
Texas senator Ted Cruz’s incendiary rebuke of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on the stage in Quicken Loans Arena on Wednesday evening seemingly transformed the home of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team into a gladiatorial colosseum, complete with screaming fans and enraged detractors, writes Scott Bixby:
But the greatest battle on the stage at Quicken Loans Arena during the week of the Republican national convention may be for control of a different kind of stadium entirely – its Pokémon Go gym.
The mobile phone game, which integrates the hunt for fictional cartoon monsters with real-world locations in which users can battle one another’s teams, has become hugely popular at the RNC, where mobile phones are ubiquitous and the downtime can be lengthy and tedious.
(For the uninitiated, Pokémon – or “pocket monsters” – are a hugely resilient late-1990s cultural import from Japan that typically resemble real-world animals imbued with elemental powers. Originally, there were a mere 150 Pokémon, but the numbers have since swelled to 722. Put another way, there are more Pokémon than there are Democratic super delegates – and they’re much more powerful.)
At the time of this writing, the grand stage on the convention floor is held by BuffaloStar, a level-17 Pokémon trainer, and his Hypno, a Pokémon that looks like a psychokinetic Carl Paladino. Like many of the non-Pokémon visitors to Quicken Loans Arena, the turnover of gym masters is brutally high. (Despite numerous attempts to take the stage, my comparatively puny Pidgeot was forced from the convention floor with the speed and humiliation of a Rick Perry presidential campaign.)
Read the full piece here:
Updated
Pavarotti family asks Trump to stop using aria
What do Queen, Adele, the Rolling Stones, R.E.M., Neil Young, Steven Tyler and Twisted Sister have in common?
The artists have all asked Donald Trump to stop using their music at rallies, according to a list compiled by Alternet.
Add one more international star to the list: the late Italian opera singer Luciano Pavarotti.
Pavarotti’s family called Thursday for Trump to stop using his recording of Giacomo Puccini’s aria “Nessun Dorma” in his election campaign.
“We would like to recall that the values of brotherhood and solidarity which Luciano Pavarotti expressed throughout the course of his artistic career are entirely incompatible with the world view expressed by the candidate Donald Trump,” the family said in a statement.
“Nessun Dorma”, which became Pavarotti’s signature aria and climaxes with the words “Vincero” (“I will win”), has been played often at Trump rallies.
Pavarotti, the son of a baker and cigar factory worker who became one of the most commercially successful tenors of all time, died in 2007 of pancreatic cancer. He was 71.
(h/t @martinxhodgson)
Ailes out at Fox
How does this news compare, on the scale of significant developments in Republican political life, with the nomination of Donald Trump as president? It’s been quite a week for the Republicans, and the country:
Roger Ailes, the longtime Fox News chairman who helped found the network and build it into a cable ratings behemoth, has been forced out of the company following allegations that he sexually harassed numerous subordinates, including former host Gretchen Carlson and star anchor Megyn Kelly, writes the Guardian’s Molly Redden:
Rupert Murdoch, chairman of Fox’s parent company 21st Century Fox, cut short a vacation on the French Riviera with his wife Jerry Hall to return to New York and finalise the departure of his long-term ally. He will assume the role of chairman and acting CEO of Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network.
Murdoch said said Ailes had made “a remarkable contribution to our company and our country.” He will remain a consultant to the network until 2018 and is expected to leave with a severance package of more than $40m.
The news followed several days of public turbulence at Fox, including reports that members of the Murdoch family, which owns Fox parent company 21st Century Fox, had given Ailes a deadline of 1 August to resign or be fired. Ailes is poised to receive as much as $40m in severance pay, according to a leaked copy of a “separation agreement” published on Tuesday by the Drudge Report.
Read the full report here:
Updated
Roger Stone, Alex Jones and a Clinton 'rape' shirt
Roger Stone, the former Nixon operative and Trump adviser, and Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist and Infowars operator, launched the latest in their line controversial T-shirts this afternoon.
The design features a photograph of Bill Clinton above the word “rape”. The image mimics the colour wash of Shepherd Fairey’s famous 2008 Obama campaign “Hope” image.
A crowd of little over a dozen people greeted Jones and Stone with chants of “lock her up” - a much recited phrase at the convention demanding the imprisonment of Hillary Clinton.
LIVE on #Periscope: Roger stone and Alex Joned launch Bill Clinton "rape" t-shirt https://t.co/H9mEUkzANn
— Oliver Laughland (@oliverlaughland) July 21, 2016
The shirt, which around half a dozen attendees went on to purchase, is the latest in a line of offensive memorabilia on sale at the RNC and Trump rallies around the country.
T-shirts and badges showing Trump punching Clinton in the face, Clinton locked behind bars, and calling Clinton a “bitch”, have been sold at dozens of street vendors in Cleveland over the convention, and have been seen on the lapels of delegates inside the convention centre.
Some of the nastiest, and let's be honest, sexist, Hillary badges on sale today. #RNCinCLE pic.twitter.com/xta6BelZiV
— Oliver Laughland (@oliverlaughland) July 19, 2016
Though Donald Trump will be giving a far lengthier speech on the final night of the convention, he had a few words to say on the podium while doing a sound check this afternoon.
Jeff Roe, former campaign manager for Ted Cruz, has said there was never a chance that the Texas senator would endorse Donald Trump in his convention speech on Wednesday night.
“I think it was a great speech,” he during a panel debate organised by Politico. “He’d worked on it for maybe the last four or five days. He had played counsel on the endorse or not endorse question for a lot of folks within the team, outside the team, donors and activists and friends and conservative movement types and he’s a very patient listener and he receives good feedback but it was never part of the consideration to endorse. If it had been tied to the speaking engagement then he wouldn’t have spoken.”
Roe, who had offered to negotiate with the Trump camp, confirmed the accuracy of Trump’s tweet that that he had seen Cruz’s speech two hours in advance but let it go ahead. He said “clearly” the nominee was hoping for a last minute change of mind. If Cruz had been vetoed and barred from speaking, Roe added, “he’d be more of a martyr than he is today”.
But he also said of Trump’s team: “They were professionals all the way through... They played straight up. Donald came out at the end to kind of wrap it up. It’s all good theatre. Ted’s very clear and very consistent and very precise in his belief that our party is based on something beyond personalities and so that’s why he’s not there yet. That’s not to say that he won’t be there.”
Despite the fall-out on Thursday, Cruz has no regrets, Roe insisted. “He’s at peace in a remarkable way, not a consultant’s reaction way, because he knows he did the right thing. He called his daughters. His daughters were, ‘Why are they booing?’ ‘Sometimes it’s hard to do the right thing. I did the right thing.’ So that’s what it’s about for him.”
Roe denied that there was a political upside for Cruz. “Someone would have to show it to me. It’s just too easy. How many outs did he have? The outs that he had is not go, is to say I support the nominee, say I support some man for president who’s 6ft 2 and from New York, just dance and say his or name or not. That’s all political bullshit... I can’t see the political expediency here.”
He described it as a “raw political moment for the party” but promised Cruz will not say negative things about the nominee. Roe also told the audience about some text messages he received on his BlackBerry during the speech:
He’s killing it
This is awesome
Did Ted Cruz really just say atheist?
Did he really just say Muslim?
Did he really just say gay or straight?
Did he really just talk about freedom and state rights?
Did he really just say Colorado? (Roe: which denotes pot smoking, by the way).
(Roe: And New York versus Iowa, that whole playbook.)
Did he really say all those things?
Like where was this guy?
“And then it was, ‘Oh, that kind of sucks’. And then the next one was, ‘I can’t believe he did it!’ That was the night of text messages.”
Aware that it was a “Trump room”, Cruz tried to avoid teasers about an endorsement, Roe said. In one version of the speech Cruz’s congratulations to Trump for winning the nomination came towards the end, but they opted for version in which it appeared at the start. “I think we felt we’d maybe get a little bigger bang for the congratulations right out of the gate... That was intended to take the oxygen out of the room.”
They had also considered a joke in which Cruz said, “I always intended to be here, I just had a different speaking order in mind,” but it didn’t make the final cut.
In an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Eric Trump Jr. said the campaign does not need Ted Cruz’s endorsement to make its case to the American people, and accused the Texas senator of being so “anti-establishment” that he has “literally no fans, no friends.”
“He is a true politician,” Trump said of Cruz. “He tries to play the anti-establishment guy. Guess what: during his initial stage, he wanted to work for the Bush campaign. The problem is, he’s so unlikable. Literally, no fans, no friends. And he only became anti-establishment when he couldn’t be a part of the establishment because no one wanted to be with him.”
When asked whether the Trump campaign still needs his endorsement to unify the Republican party, Trump was dismissive.
“I don’t care,” Trump responded. “We got it de facto from the people with that matter: the people my father’s been speaking to directly. The hard-working people in this country would have been left in the dust.”
Following Donald Trump’s statements on Nato, the White House made an emphatic statement this afternoon reiterating the United States’ commitment to the alliance.
In an interview with the New York Times, Trump suggested that under his leadership America would not necessarily come to the aid of a Nato ally under attack, saying he would first consider how much they have contributed to the alliance.
Updated
Law enforcement in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention has resembled a mini-convention of its own:
Political convention or police convention? What a ten minute stroll through a park in Cleveland looks like right now pic.twitter.com/inEg6ogibD
— Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) July 21, 2016
Illinois delegate stripped of credentials for 'whitepride' media handle
An elected delegate from Illinois was stripped of her Republican National Convention delegate credentials yesterday for using the handle “whitepride” on social media and posting racial slurs online.
Lori Gayne, of Chicago, was stripped of her RNC credentials once posts about “white pride” being comparable to black pride became known, state GOP Chairman Tim Schneider told the Chicago Tribune.
“The Illinois Republican Party has zero tolerance for racism of any kind and threats of violence against anyone,” Schneider said in a statement.
“Let me be unequivocally clear, racism and threats of violence have absolutely no place in the Illinois Republican Party or in a civil and inclusive society,” he said.
Seen on the floor of the convention:
Not entirely sure what this sign in the front row of the New York delegation means pic.twitter.com/ic4naa7SRj
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) July 21, 2016
Donald Trump threatens The Art of the Deal ghostwriter
By some counts, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been involved in roughly 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades. As of this morning, however, that number may need to be updated.
After Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of Trump’s defining memoir-slash-business book The Art of the Deal, gave an in-depth interview to the New Yorker in which he said that he felt “a deep sense of remorse” for contributing to Trump’s rise and declared that “if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes, there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization,” he received a cease-and-desist letter threatening “liability for damages and other tortious harm” as a result of his “defamatory statements.”
The letter, penned by Trump Organization general counsel Jason D Greenblatt, demanded that Schwartz mail “a certified check made payable to Mr Trump” for the seven-figure fortune he has earned from the book’s royalties, as well as his share of the book’s half-million dollar advance.
Greenblatt, citing “the totally baseless and shocking nature” of Schwart’z statements, also ordered the ghostwriter to issue a written retraction of his comments, which Greenblatt posited were fabricated out of professional resentment.
“Your defamatory statements are the sour grapes of a man who always wanted to do more with Mr Trump but was replaced with other writers,” Greenblatt wrote. “Your disloyalty to Mr Trump ... is disappointing and unacceptable.”
Schwartz told the New Yorker that, given Trump’s predilection for courtroom showdowns, he had anticipated legal threats from the Trump Organization, but said he planned to continue speaking out against the presidential candidate.
“I fully expected him to attack me, because that is what he does, so I can’t say I am surprised,” Schwartz said. “But I’m much more worried about his becoming president than I am about anything he might try to do to me.”
Updated
DC Republicans complain after delegates allocated to Donald Trump
Delegates from the oft-neglected District of Columbia have filed an official objection with the decision by the secretary of the Republican National Convention to register all 19 of its delegates in support of Donald Trump, despite Trump not earning any delegates during the district’s March 12 primary.
“We strongly object to the Convention Secretary’s decision Tuesday evening to transfer all 19 of DC’s delegate votes to Presidential nominee Donald Trump,” the statement, signed by 11 of those delegates, declared.
The letter complained that after 3,000 Washington, DC Republicans voted in the party’s primary election, 10 delegates were bound to Florida senator Marco Rubio and 9 delegates were bound to Ohio governor John Kasich. Despite assurances that those delegate allocations would be respected at the RNC, the letter protested that “the Republican National Committee Convention Secretary decided to take advantage of conflicting language in the DC Republican Presidential Convention and Delegate Selection Plan to ... unfairly determine that all 19 of DC’s votes would be registered in support of Donald Trump.”
Less than 24 hours before the Republican national convention comes to a close on Thursday evening, all seems quiet before Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump takes the stage - but there’s still time to take a look at where the magic happens: the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. The Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui gives a tour.
Updated
How will Trump enter the convention tonight?
Tom Cotton, senator for Arkansas, was FaceTiming his wife during Ted Cruz’s convention speech. “We both had it on the background but I didn’t appreciate how exciting it was at the time,” he said at an event organised by the Politico website in Cleveland.
Asked if Cruz was right to take the podium at Trump’s convention, Cotton replied: “That was a decision that Donald and Ted made. Ted has said that Donald is ‘terrific’ and he speaks the truth so hopefully they can get over their differences soon.”
Cotton admitted that he does not know Cruz well but described him as “a smart guy” who “adds a lot to the caucus in various ways”.
Earlier in the discussion, Cotton appealed for party unity after a rocky week. “My fellow Republicans should spend more time talking about the failures of the Obama administration,” he said.
The scene on the floor...
Donald Trump is perusing the stage at the #RNCinCLE, nine hours before his acceptance speech. pic.twitter.com/DPDnmHQ7KT
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix) July 21, 2016
On Monday, The Atlantic’s David Graham ran into North Carolina delegate Robert Orr on the floor of Quicken Loans Arena, and was told by the former state supreme court justice that he planned to break his family’s century-long tradition of voting for a Republican presidential candidate.
“I think Trump is dangerous for the country. He’s singularly unqualified to be commander-in-chief,” Orr said. “I don’t think Donald Trump cares about the Republican Party.”
Within a day, Orr’s credentials were suspended by the RNC.
“They didn’t say, ‘We’re not going to give them to you,’ but it was one of those situations where I said, ‘Look, just keep the credentials. I’m going to head back,’” Orr said.
Party unity in action.
Republican National Committee chief strategist Sean Spicer implied that he thinks Ted Cruz is an “asshole,” echoing statements made by Representative Peter King:
.@RepPeteKing called Ted Cruz an "a--hole" -- "I'd probably use the same verbiage" says RNC's @seanspicer https://t.co/X6YfIktVyN
— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) July 21, 2016
Updated
At a breakfast for the Texas delegation, tempers flared hot between supporters of Texas senator Ted Cruz’s refusal to endorse Donald Trump and those who think the senator took his pride too far:
The first part of that argument between Texas delegates pic.twitter.com/Wgbf4zUEKV
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) July 21, 2016
Texas delegates argue pic.twitter.com/DqbTZeWy1h
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) July 21, 2016
Hillary Clinton’s digital team has come up with a new tool to use during the campaign: #TrumpYourself.
By logging in through your Facebook account, the tool superimposes images and text of offensive statements Donald Trump has said in the past about certain groups, ranging from women and Muslims to “people who drink Diet Coke.”
A sample image from my own Facebook page:
Ted Cruz pointedly and repeatedly refused to endorse Donald Trump this morning, saying that he was not “a servile puppy dog”.
Just hours after the Texas senator was loudly booed from the floor of the Republican convention when he did not embrace his party’s nominee, Cruz faced an impassioned audience as he took questions from his state’s delegation during a breakfast.
The runner-up in the Republican presidential primary expressed his wonderment that “rabid” Trump supporters would object to his statement that Americans should “vote their conscience”. The Texas senator insisted “in that speech last night I did not say a single negative word about Donald Trump and I’ll tell you this morning and going forward I don’t intend to say negative things about Donald Trump.”
Some Texas delegates disagreed. While Cruz received repeated standing ovations, he also was subject to constant heckles and one Texas delegate stood through the first few minutes of his speech by holding a hand-drawn sign saying “Clinton Cruz 2020”.
Cruz pushed back against audience members who brought the pledge that he and other Republican candidates had made to support the eventual GOP nominee, saying that that promise “was abrogated” when Trump attacked his family. “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and my father,” he said.
“That pledge is not a blanket commitment [that] if you go slander and attack Heidi I am nonetheless going to come like a servile puppy dog and say ‘thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father.’” The Texas senator added: “This is not politics … Right and wrong matters.”
During the primary, Trump had suggested that Cruz’s father Rafael was involved in the assassination of John F Kennedy and tweeted unflattering pictures of Cruz’s wife Heidi in the course of the campaign while also threatening to “spill the beans” on her.
While many in the room on Thursday supported Cruz’s stand, others were deeply disappointed. Bonnie Lugo of Houston thought that the Texas senator was “speaking in hurt, bitterness and disappointment.” She noted that although “things were said about his father and wife, he was in a campaign and that’s what campaign’s are about”.
Craig Harvey of Houston was even more angry. He felt Cruz gave “a wasted speech” in the convention hall Wednesday night and again Thursday morning. “The same ego trip, no clear answers,” Harvey said.
Cruz noted that he had specifically told Trump over the phone earlier this week that he would not endorse him and had submitted his speech for approval by the nominee’s campaign.
Cruz only criticized Trump directly once in the midst of his ongoing Q&A. “Let me point out by the way: can anyone imagine our nominee standing in front of voters and taking questions like this?”
Afterward, Cruz left quickly and the room erupted into chaos as those who agreed with Cruz’s stance argued fiercely with those who disagreed. Shouts and recriminations went back and forth as Texas Republicans called each other traitors and cowards.
As Cruz left the stage, top Trump adviser Paul Manafort took shots at the Texas senator in a press conference held in a hotel just across the street. “The party is definitely more unified – there are a number of Cruz delegates who were on the floor today … who disagree with what Mr Cruz said,” Manafort said.
“We think it became very clear to everybody that Donald Trump has been very magnanimous in his outreach program – he invited all the presidential candidates who ran” to speak, and “everyone did attend and, in his own way, endorse the ticket.”
“He was the only speech in the convention that was poorly received by the body in the hall,” Manafort said of Cruz. “That was Senator Cruz’s decision. As far as the contract [of party unity] was concerned, he was the one in violation, not anybody else.”
Cruz campaign manager: Chris Christie 'turned over his political testicles'
Ted Cruz’s campaign manager dismissed criticism from New Jersey govenor Chris Christie over Cruz’s repudiation of Donald Trump on the main stage of the Republican National Convention, telling a Philadelphia radio station that the governor had “turned over his political testicles long ago.”
“That guy turned over his political testicles long ago,” Jeff Roe told the Chris Stigall Show. “So I don’t take what he has to say with any meaning. You know, he embarrassed himself pretty quickly in this.”
Christie told CNN in the wake of Cruz’s speech that the senator’s actions were “selfish” and demonstrative of his poor reputation in the US Senate.
In the interview, Roe also said that Cruz’s speech - contrary to many predictions - was not a bid to set the stage for another presidential run four years from now.
“Ted Cruz is running for reelection in 2018,” Roe said. “If this was a 2020 power move by Ted Cruz, this would be the easiest speech to give, is to endorse. So this is, it shouldn’t be lost on any of your listeners that this is not in defiance. We’re not gonna speak ill of the nominee. That’s not what this is about. We’re not gonna rub anybody’s noses in it.”
Donald Trump, for one, is celebrating the party unity fomented at the Republican National Convention this week.
Other than a small group of people who have suffered massive and embarrassing losses, the party is VERY united. Great love in the arena!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 21, 2016
If you missed Laura Ingraham’s speech at the Republican National Convention last night:
#RNCinCLE in one GIF: pic.twitter.com/OlrqbnKUVd
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) July 21, 2016
Trump campaign chair: Ted Cruz's speech 'poorly received'
A doleful Paul Manafort told reporters this morning that last night’s speeches at the Republican National Convention were a success, despite a blistering rebuke from Texas senator Ted Cruz, who refused to endorse Donald Trump as the party’s presidential nominee and instead urged conservatives to “vote your conscience.”
“The party is definitely more unified - there are a number of Cruz delegates who were on the floor today... who disagree with what Mr. Cruz said,” Manafort said. “We think it became very clear to everybody that Donald Trump has been a very magnanimous in his outreach program - he invited all the presidential candidates who ran” to speak, and “everyone did attend and, in his own way, endorse the ticket.”
“He was the only speech in the convention that was poorly received by the body in the hall. That was Senator Cruz’s decision,” Manafort continued. “As far as the contract [of party unity] was concerned, he was the one in violation, not anybody else.”
On the subject of Nato, certain treaties of which Trump suggested in an interview with the New York Times yesterday could be ignored by the US, Manafort declared that while he was not interested in getting into “a foreign policy speech,” he clarified Trump’s remarks to say that the presidential nominee thinks the treaty organization “needs to be modernized.”
When asked about the Melania Trump plagiarism scandal, Manafort defended his campaign’s statements following the Monday night address, insisting that statements that there was no plagiarism were truthful.
“None of us knew that Miss [Meredith McIver] was even involved with the process,” Manafort said of the Trump Organization staff writer who penned an open letter admitting to including sections of Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech in front of the Democratic National Convention in Melania Trump’s speech. “The speechwriters who have been involved with the speech that I was aware of, said that they didn’t do it,” and the campaign “immediately” released McIver’s statement once it became clear that the plagiarism accusations were true.
McIver wrote in her letter than she informed the Trump campaign on Tuesday of the speech’s problems; the campaign did not release her statement until Wednesday afternoon.
More on tonight’s theme...
Tonight’s theme acknowledges America’s serious challenges at home and the threats we face abroad. In order to turn our challenges into opportunities and keep America secure, we need leadership that will focus on what unites us, not what divides us. Donald Trump and Mike Pence will move our country beyond the divisive identity politics that have been holding us back by restoring leadership, building trust, and focusing on our shared love of country and our common goal of making America great again.
Thursday’s program will highlight the Republican Party’s vision for bringing Americans together and creating the conditions that will allow everyone – young people, working families, and entrepreneurs from all walks of life – to pursue their aspirations. Featured speakers include Reince Priebus, Peter Thiel, Tom Barrack, Ivanka Trump, and Donald Trump.
At least one Republican is delighted with Ted Cruz’s remarks at the Republican National Convention last night: Former Cruz campaign operative Chris Wilson.
I have never been more proud to work for Ted Cruz that I was tonight. This speech will survive the test of time-historically courageous.
— Chris Wilson (@WilsonWPA) July 21, 2016
Republican national convention: day four
Good morning, and welcome to the Guardian’s campaign live blog, coming at you live from Cleveland, Ohio, the site of the long-anticipated Republican National Convention, now in its fourth and final day.
The Trump campaign probably thought its biggest speech controversy was behind it after an in-house staff writer for the Trump Organization accepted responsibility for the “plagiarism” controversy over Melania Trump’s speech at the RNC.
Then Texas senator Ted Cruz stepped on to the dais.
In stunning remarks during the primetime TV hour apparently designed to lay the groundwork for a future bid for the presidency, Cruz refused to formally endorse Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee.
“Please, don’t stay home in November,” Cruz said. “Stand, and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the constitution.”
The apparent slap in the face to the Republican presidential nominee, probably the result of a bitter primary fight between the two – which included Trump attacking the physical appearance of Cruz’s wife Heidi, and implicating Cruz’s father in the assassination of John F Kennedy – ignited a cacophony of booing during Cruz’s remarks, echoed by the nominee himself:
Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn't honor the pledge! I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 21, 2016
With the shadow of Cruz’s snub hanging over the final day of the convention, Trump’s primetime remarks tonight gain a new import. Not only will Trump have to unify a clearly fractured Republican party whose wounds from the primary have yet to heal – he will also have to deliver a speech unparalleled by any remarks he has made in his 13 months as a candidate to retake the news cycle. With nearly three days lost to the epic mismanagement of the Melania Trump speech scandal, and another to Cruz’s remarks, Trump has only one chance to wrest the narrative back under his control before the Democratic National Convention next week drowns him in negative coverage.
That fresh start will probably dominate today’s RNC program. Today’s theme: “Make America One Again”, featuring a roster of speakers who will focus on the herculean task of unifying a divided nation. Beginning at 7:30pm EDT, tonight’s primetime roster of speakers includes billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel, real estate investor Tom Barrack, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump himself.
We’ll have more on the full roster of speakers as the day progresses, but first off: a presser from Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
On with the show!
Updated
