WASHINGTON _ Vice President Mike Pence will emerge from President Donald Trump's long shadow for a night Wednesday, taking the stage at the Republican National Convention to emphasize support for law enforcement as protests are intensifying following the police shooting in Wisconsin of a Black man in the back.
Pence is expected to lionize Trump and join other RNC speakers who have carefully airbrushed the president's management of a devastating pandemic, double-digit unemployment and growing upheaval over racism and police brutality in numerous communities.
Pence headed the White House coronavirus task force this spring, and is likely to defend its much-criticized work. Although nearly 180,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 so far, and much of the country cannot safely reopen, RNC speakers have mostly ignored or downplayed the contagion, suggesting falsely that the pandemic has ended and that an economic revival was underway.
Already trailing in polls, Trump's political challenges could grow significantly worse in real time. Hurricane Laura, a potentially catastrophic storm gaining strength in the Gulf of Mexico, is poised to slam into the upper Texas coast and western Louisiana late Wednesday or early Thursday.
The Republican Party canceled a night of its 2012 nominating convention when a hurricane hit Florida. But party officials suggested Wednesday that Laura, already a Category 4 storm, will not stop this week's mostly virtual festivities.
But if the predicted ferocious storm surge and high winds devastate a swath of the Gulf Coast, it could potentially create a split-screen that casts the president, who is scheduled to give his acceptance speech Thursday night from the White House, as uncaring during a national emergency.
Trump initially had hoped to run on his economic record. After the pandemic hit, he recast himself as a law and order candidate, one willing to use armed force if necessary to put down urban unrest, or even just peaceful protests.
On Wednesday, he tweeted that he would send National Guard troops to Kenosha, Wisconsin, which has erupted in protests since police shot Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, multiple times in the back on Sunday. Whether the troops would help calm the restive city, or help Trump's campaign, was not clear.
RNC speakers have taken little notice of the Blake shooting, despite national outrage, and instead have followed Trump's lead in portraying the overwhelmingly peaceful crowds who have protested police abuses, especially the shooting of unarmed Black men, as violent mobs terrorizing American cities.
"We will NOT stand for looting, arson, violence, and lawlessness on American streets," Trump tweeted Wednesday.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, addressed the shooting _ and rejected Trump's false claims that he supports violence and wants to defund the police _ in a video released by his campaign Wednesday.
"Protesting brutality is a right and absolutely necessary," Biden said, speaking to the camera. "But burning down communities is not protest, it's needless violence _ violence that endangers lives, violence that guts businesses and shutters businesses that serve the community."
In a sign of the rising tensions, the NBA suspended all playoff games Wednesday afternoon following the Milwaukee Bucks' decision not to take the floor for their playoff game to protest the Blake shooting, which occurred 40 miles from where they play.
Pence is slated to give his speech in Fort McHenry, the site of the War of 1812 battle that inspired Francis Scott Key to write what later became "The Star Spangled Banner."
The coastal fort, which successfully defended Baltimore Harbor from a British naval attack, was chosen to underscore the night's theme "Land of Heroes," which Trump has long defined in militaristic terms.
The president, who avoided military service in Vietnam, will put Reps. Dan Crenshaw of Texas and Lee Zeldin of New York, both military veterans, center stage Wednesday night. Keith Kellogg, a retired Army lieutenant general who serves as Pence's national security adviser, and Lou Holtz, the former Notre Dame football coach, are also scheduled to speak.
Like the convention's first two nights, the lineup also includes a family member and members of the White House staff, who do not traditionally speak at political conventions: Lara Trump, Trump's daughter in-law, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Kellyanne Conway, a top White House adviser who managed his 2016 campaign and who announced her resignation last week.
Trump has faced criticism for allegedly violating the Hatch Act by utilizing government resources and officials for partisan purposes at the convention. On Tuesday, he held a televised naturalization ceremony and pardoned a bank robber at the White House. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo interrupted a visit to the Middle East to address the RNC from Jerusalem, sparking a House ethics probe.
The president's campaign has chosen some speakers, including small business owners from swing states, in hopes they can win over wavering voters. But speakers from Trump's political base have dominated with dire warnings about supposed urban violence, socialist takeovers and a "cancel culture" meant to stifle conservative speech.
Goya Foods CEO Robert Unanue, whose company was targeted by a boycott after he expressed support for Trump, is one of several speakers who plans to highlight the "cancel culture" Wednesday.
Pence is the highest profile speaker of the four-day convention whose last name is not Trump, and the rare member of the president's inner circle from outside Trump's business and family orbits.
A career politician from Indiana, Pence was chosen in 2016 to give socially conservative ballast to Trump, who had changed parties and spouses repeatedly in the past. Pence tends to speak in soaring, but carefully scripted terms that bear little resemblance to Trump's rambling monologues. His appearance at Fort McHenry may compliment his tendency toward grand, patriotic language.
Since taking office, Pence has endured constant speculation that Trump might replace him on the ticket even though he apparently hopes to run for president after a second Trump term. He has stayed in Trump's good graces by largely staying in the background, and offering constant and often obsequious praise for the president.
Pence often highlights Trump's record of appointing conservative judges, cutting regulations and lowering taxes on corporations. He has largely overlooked Trump's insults to women and minorities, and defended his record on foreign affairs and handling the pandemic.
