Donald Trump’s secure hold on the Republican Party was on full display on the second night of the Republican National Convention, as the former president’s one-time rivals offered their full-throated endorsements, citing the threat of Joe Biden and the radical elements of his coalition to unite the crowd.
Both Florida governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley offered strong support for the former president while painting a stark contrast between the presidential terms of Trump and President Biden. While both Haley and DeSantis had previously offered endorsements of Trump after ending their own presidential bids earlier this year, their impassioned show of support on Tuesday comes as the party has quickly come together behind Trump in the wake of a failed assassination attempt against the former president over the weekend.
Still, despite repeated calls to tone down the rhetoric after the shooting at Trump’s Butler, Pa., rally, Tuesday night’s speakers did not mince words in attacking Biden, the “fake news” media, and their nominee’s assorted enemies.
Concerns about the country’s safety amid a historic crisis at the U.S. southern border were a major focus of the night, with several members of Congress, including Senators Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) urging voters to support Trump in November to secure the country’s borders and to usher in a return to safety not seen under Biden.
Speakers also offered a strong rebuke of extremism on the Left, including the anti-Israel protests who wreaked havoc on college campuses across the country in the spring.
Below are some key moments from the night:
DeSantis Mocks Biden’s ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ Presidency
Florida governor Ron DeSantis launched into an impassioned defense of his one-time political rival at the start of his Republican National Convention speech: “Let’s send Joe Biden back to his basement, and Donald Trump back to the White House.”
The Florida governor mocked President Joe Biden’s “Weekend at Bernie’s presidency,” in an apparent reference to the 1989 comedy in which the lead character who’s dead is being propped up.
“I am alarmed that the current president of the United States lacks the capability to discharge the duties of his office. Our enemies do not confine their designs to between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.,” the Republican governor said. “We need a commander-in-chief who can lead 24 hours a day and seven days a week. America cannot afford four more years of a Weekend at Bernie’s presidency.”
Following his disastrous debate performance late last month, even some of the president’s allies have begun to question whether he has the vigor to serve a second term.
The president’s old age and mental decline have since come to the forefront of the Democratic Party’s concerns for his reelection bid, causing numerous Democrats to urge him to step down in favor of a younger replacement. DeSantis then shifted his attention to Democrats more broadly, accusing progressive prosecutors of caring more about “coddling criminals than about protecting their own communities” and calling DEI “division, exclusion, and indoctrination” instead of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
By the end of his speech, he called on the convention audience to vote for Trump in November and make him “the 47th President of the United States.”
“Let’s elect Republicans up and down the ballot, and let’s heed the call of our party’s nominee to fight, fight, fight for these United States,” DeSantis concluded, referring to Trump’s defiant words after he was shot on Saturday.
Haley Pitches Skeptical Americans on MAGA Reboot: ‘You Don’t Have to Agree with Trump 100 Percent’
Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley appeared on stage at the Republican National Convention Tuesday to offer her “strong endorsement” of her former political rival, former president Donald Trump.
Haley, who after serving as Trump’s U.S. ambassador to the United Nations became a controversial figure in Trump world for her criticism of the former president during her own unsuccessful presidential bid, received a warm reception from the crowd at the RNC on Tuesday night as she called for party unity and urged her supporters to get behind Trump.
She called on Americans who may not always agree with the former president to vote for him anyway.
“My message to them is simple: You don’t have to agree with Trump 100 percent of the time to vote for him. Take it from me, I haven’t always agreed with President Trump, but we agree more often than we disagree,” Haley said.
“We agree on keeping America strong,” she continued. “We agree on keeping America safe and we agree that Democrats have moved so far to the left that they’re putting our freedoms in danger. I’m here tonight because we have a country to save and a unified Republican Party is essential for saving her.”
Ted Cruz Accuses Democrats of Opening Border to Benefit from Illegal-Immigrant Votes
In a fiery speech at the Republican National Convention, Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) accused President Biden of making the country less safe by failing to control the crisis at the U.S. southern border.
The Texas senator, whose state has been hard hit by an influx of illegal immigration, noted 11.5 million people have crossed the border illegally under President Biden. He offered attendees a startling statistic: “This arena holds about 18,000 souls. Now imagine 639 arenas just like this filled to the brim. That is 11.5 million people. Larger than all but eight states in the nation.”
But the numbers “don’t show us the true price that our country had paid,” Cruz said, pointing to murders, rapes, and assaults committed by illegal immigrants against U.S. citizens.
The senator cited the murder of 32-year-old Kate Steinle, who was shot by an illegal immigrant from Mexico in 2015 while walking on a San Francisco pier. He urged attendees to think also of 22-year-old Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, who was allegedly murdered by an illegal immigrant while out for a run earlier this year, and Rachel Morin, a mother of five who was raped and murdered in Maryland last August by an illegal immigrant. Or Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old girl who was brutally raped and murdered in Houston last month by two men who were also in the country illegally.
“These aren’t just stories or statistics,” Cruz said. “They’re our daughters, our sisters, our friends. The families don’t care about the empty numbers they care about the empty chairs at the dinner tables. About the voices they’ll never hear again. About the laughter lost and about the dreams that will never be fulfilled.”
“How did we get here? It happened because Democrats cynically decided they wanted votes from illegals more than they wanted to protect our children,” Cruz said, before going on to vow that former president Donald Trump would tackle the issue if he were elected in November. “Tonight I speak for Kate and Laken and Rachel tonight I speak for Jocelyn and let us go forward together and keep our sacred oath to defend the constitution and to protect the American people,” he said. “Let us secure our borders, enforce our laws, protect our children and restore the future.”
Speaker Johnson Accuses ‘Radical’ Left of Trying to ‘Tear Down the Foundations’ of America in Heated Convention Speech
House speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) blasted the “radical” Left for trying to “tear down the foundations” of America in his primetime Tuesday night speech at the Republican National Convention.
Johnson said those who belong to the Left hold “disdain” in their hearts for the principles of American conservatism and “have a very different vision of what America should become.”
“They want to tear down those values and remold us into some sort of borderless, lawless, Marxist, socialist utopia,” he continued. “We’re here to say, not on our watch. We will not allow that now.”
The pointed rhetoric marked a sharp departure from Johnson’s Sunday interview in which he issued an urgent plea to fellow political leaders to bring down the national temperature after the failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
“We’ve got to turn the rhetoric down, we’ve got to turn the temperature down on this country. We need leaders of all parties, on both sides, to call that out and make sure that happens so we can go forward and maintain our free society,” Johnson said during an appearance on NBC’s TODAY.
After eight Republicans banded with a united Democratic caucus in ousting then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy back in October, the House Republican conference cycled through a number of speaker candidates before eventually uniting behind Johnson. He’s a man with “few enemies” and a “kid next door” attitude, said Thomas Angers of Lafayette, La., in a brief interview on the convention floor.
Since becoming the House speaker in October, Johnson has faced numerous threats from Republican hardliners, namely Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.), who tried ousting him this spring. The effort ultimately failed.
“I think the toughest part for folks who know him best is hearing all the lies and the conspiracy theories and how he’s ‘compromised.’ We know this man,” Louisiana delegate Louis Avallone said in an interview with National Review in the convention hall. “So to hear the lies being spread about him — that somehow he’s not as conservative as folks believed him to be or that he’s somehow beholden to the the deep state — these are things that we know to be untrue. And that’s probably the toughest part is trying to explain to folks who aren’t from his district, that that’s not who he is.”
Steve Scalise Recounts Hospital Visit from Trump as He Recovered from Shooting
House majority leader Steve Scalise (R., La.) told attendees of the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night that former president Donald Trump was one of the first people to visit him at the hospital when he narrowly survived a shooting at a practice for the Congressional Baseball Game in 2017.
Scalise’s comments come just days after Trump survived an attempted assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pa.
“I was the survivor of a politically motivated shooting in 2017,” Scalise said Tuesday. “Not many know that while I was fighting for my life Donald Trump was one of the first to come console my family at the hospital.”
“That’s the kind of leader he is,” the Louisiana Republican said. “Courageous under fire. Compassionate towards others. Let’s put Donald Trump back in the White House this November so we can Make America Great Again.”
A gunman who had a clear hatred for Republicans opened fire as the members of Congress practiced at Eugene Simpson Park in Alexandria, Va., in June 2017. Scalise and four others were wounded in the attack.
Scalise was shot in the hip, with the bullet fracturing bones and injuring his internal organs, placing him in critical condition in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
Elise Stefanik Slams Biden for Indulging Anti-Israel Extremists
Representative Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) took to the Republican National Convention stage in Milwaukee, Wis., Tuesday night to call out President Joe Biden for indulging the left-wing anti-Israel protesters who roiled college campuses this year as his administration gradually distanced itself from the Jewish state.
“Around the world, the feckless and failed Joe Biden has caused chaos, weakening our national security,” the House Republican conference chairwoman said. “From the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to Hamas’s terrorist attack against our most precious ally, Israel.”
Though a prominent figure in the GOP for several years and a leader in Congress, Stefanik’s star rose with the House Education and Workforce Committee’s hearings with presidents of elite universities.
It was her questioning of former Harvard University president Claudine Gay, former University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill, and current Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Sally Kornbluth that, among other developments, led to the first two losing their roles at the helm of two of America’s most prestigious educational institutions.
Her question to Gay of whether calling for the genocide of Jews — referencing the eliminationist “from the River to the Sea” slogan — violated Harvard’s code of conduct went viral, and Stefanik reminded the audience of her role on the committee Tuesday night.
“What has been the response from the radical Left on our college campuses?,” she asked. “Vile antisemitism — chanting ‘death to Israel, death to Jews, death to America. This is Joe Biden’s Democrat Party. Who saw that congressional hearing with the college presidents of so-called ‘elite’ universities? President Trump will bring back moral leadership to the White House, condemning antisemitism and standing strong with Israel and the Jewish people.”
Stefanik did not only address Israel and antisemitism. She used her primetime speaking slot to hammer Biden on crime, immigration, and inflation — three of the most important issues to voters this election cycle.
“Under Joe Biden, the American people have suffered crisis after crisis, from the Biden border, the most wide-open border in our nation’s history; to Bidenflation, the highest rate of inflation in my lifetime, devastating hardworking families with skyrocketing prices for groceries, gas, and utilities; to Biden’s violent crime crisis fueled by Democrats’ pro-criminal sanctuary cities and defund-the-police policies like in my home state of New York,” Stefanik said.
Stefanik closed her speech by touting her early support for Trump’s 2024 campaign — the earliest among all her congressional colleagues.
“I have been proud to always stand in the breach during the toughest moments for President Trump,” Stefanik told the convention audience. “From leading the charge against the illegal impeachments to standing for election integrity to unifying House Republicans to being the first member of Congress to endorse him for re-election.”
Kari Lake Kicks Off Night Two of Convention with Blistering Attack on Media
Arizona Senate hopeful Kari Lake kicked off the second night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee by welcoming everyone in attendance except the “fake news” media.
“Frankly, you guys up there in the fake news have worn out your welcome,” she said in a seven-minute speech, adding that they’ve lied about former president Donald Trump and his supporters over the past eight years. Lake went on to criticize mainstream media for lying about “everything,” including President Joe Biden’s health, the economy, Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal, and the border crisis.
“But the really good news is that every day more and more people are turning off the fake news,” Lake said, as the crowd erupted into applause and cheers.
The Republican Senate candidate did not mention her past claims about voter fraud during the 2020 and 2022 elections. She repeatedly fought in court to overturn her loss against Katie Hobbs, claiming Arizona’s 2022 gubernatorial election was stolen. Nonetheless, Arizona delegate Shelby Busch told National Review it wouldn’t have been “harmful at all” for Lake to talk about election fraud at the convention.
“I actually believe we have significant problems in our elections, and I believe most Americans recognize that. And it’s turned out to be a partisan issue when it really wasn’t and never should have been,” said Busch, a delegate from Maricopa County who lives in Democratic representative Ruben Gallego’s district. “I think it shows the people that she’s willing to stand up for what’s right.”
Lake instead focused on blasting Arizona’s fentanyl crisis and criticizing Gallego, who is running against her for a seat in the Senate.
“Gallego and the Democrats have handed over control of my state, Arizona’s border, to the drug cartels,” she said. “Because of them, criminals and deadly drugs are pouring in, and our children are dying. Our children are getting their hands on these drugs and dying.”
Busch said Arizonans are unhappy with Gallego for refusing to crack down on illegal immigrants entering the state. “I hardly think anybody wants him going to the Senate level representing the state of Arizona when he has done a disastrous job,” she said.
Other Arizona delegates were also displeased with Gallego’s stance on illegal immigration; one of them shouted “treason” when Lake mentioned that Gallego had voted for a bill that would let illegal immigrants vote in the November election.
Audrey Fahlberg contributed to this report.