Coming soon. In the meantime, check out our coverage of night 1 and night 2.
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Who is that band? The group playing at the GOP convention is called Sixwire. Learn more about them here.
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Are we watching a political convention or a religious rally? Both. I spoke to USA Today about this today. Here is a taste:
Fea said Trump has fulfilled decades-long goals of the Religious Right that even Ronald Reagan and other GOP presidents didn’t fully realize, particularly on social issues such as abortion.
“Donald Trump is advancing the idea that America is a Christian nation they have been praying for since the 1970s. They see Donald Trump as the result of decades of praying and lobbying and fighting and trying to make America Christian, or reclaim a Christian consensus,” Fea said. “Within the evangelical worldview, God uses flawed people to accomplish God’s ends. I think the assassination attempt only strengthened their idea that clearly the hand of God is on this man.”
And this:
“This is a religious rally, and I’m not even sure I’d call it civil religion. Civil religion has always been there in generic appeals to God,” said John Fea, a religious historian from Messiah University who said the religious rhetoric surrounding Trump seems unique.
“There’s something different here.”
“Now what we’re beginning to see is Christian nationalism, if you want to call it that, a fusion of politics and theological Christianity.”
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About thirty minutes before the start of the evening session. Doobie Brothers blaring. They just played “China Grove” and now “Takin’ It To the Streets.” I don’t think it is the actual Doobies. Could be Sixpence.
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Brian Mast, Florida congressman, is up. He lost both his legs in Afghanistan in 2010. He says Biden and Harris “would rather lose a war than use the wrong programs.” Calls them both “woke weaklings.” Says that Joe Biden “doesn’t even remember” that 13 people died in the Afghanistan withdrawal. Says Biden does not deserve to be “saluted as commander in chief.”
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Nancy Mace, South Carolina congresswoman, is up. I’m not expecting her to talk about her sex life tonight. Mace has huge crucifizes hanging from her ears. Says she is “Nancy ‘Don’t Call Me Pelosi’ Mace.” Talks about her experience as the first woman to graduate from the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina. Says at the Citadel “we don’t burn American flags, we salute them.” She is a “single Mom and a rape survivor.” Reminds the audience that Paris Island
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Ronny Jackson, Texas congressman, is up. He was Trump’s doctor. Says Trump has a “warrior spirit” as evidenced from last Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania. Says that “father time has not been kind to Joe Biden” and China does not respect his 9-4 schedule. (No mention of Trump’s “executive time” when he sat around all morning and watched Fox News). Says that Biden’s staff and family is not helping Biden. They need to tell him to step down. He is “unfit in body and mind.” See what Jackson is doing here. As a doctor, he is saying Biden is too old. “Every second that Joe Biden remains in the White House this country becomes less safe.”
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Ric Grenell, Former Acting Director of National Intelligence, is up. He is usually a bomb-thrower, but he is subdued tonight. He is basically there to defend Trump’s quasi-isolationist “America First” foreign policy. I am getting the sense that Trump’s call for speakers to stress “national unity” basically means that people should relentlessly attack Biden with a softer tone of voice.
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Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz is up. People start chanting “USA, USA” as he comes out. Says “Donald Trump is unstoppable.” Takes a shot at Biden’s debate performance. Takes a shot at New Jersey senator Menendez: “Now you have to bribe Democrats with gold bars.” Says J.D. Vance looks like a “young Abraham Lincoln, but he is from Ohio, like General Grant, and General Grant knew how to fight.”
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Callista Gingrich is up. She is the former ambassador to the Holy See and Newt Gingrich’s wife. She is talking about religious freedom. Says Biden is impeding on religious liberty. Says no president has done more to “defend and advance” religious freedom than President Donald Trump.” Says that Biden has an “anti-faith agenda” that imposes a left-wing agenda on people of faith. Trump will protect our “God-given rights.” This was all pretty vague.
And it time for Newt himself. Looks like he is having a hard time walking. Gingrich is now 81 years-old. Gingrich says Biden is “working toward appeasement” of tyrannical nations. (I just looked at CNN and they are not showing Gingrich’s speech). “Under Trump we achieved peace through strength” while under Biden we are heading to “World War III.” Compares Trump’s foreign policy to Abraham Lincoln. (Not sure what he has in mind here.) Again, Gingrich sounded very weak, a shadow of his old self.
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Fresh out of prison, Peter Navarro is here. He just spent four months in a Miami federal jail on a contempt-of-Congress rap. Crowd goes wild. Navarro points to the crowd and pats his chest. He seems glad to be out of prison. Let’s get this straight: The patriot, God and country, GOP crowd is cheering a criminal. Says Joe Biden’s “department of injustice” put him in prison.” Says, “if they can come for me, and they can come for Donald Trump, they will come for you.” Says Nancy Pelosi “came for me first.” She created a “sham January 6 committee.” The J6 committee called him to testify and he refused. He would not be disloyal to Donald Trump. Says Merrick Garland went after him, but would not go after Obama AG Eric Holder or Alejandro Mayorkas. Blames federal courts on putting him in jail. He says they “jailed me” but “did not break me.” Who does this guy think he is, Nelson Mandela?
Last night Speaker Mike Johnson talked about respecting human dignity. Navarro says that immigrants or “murderers and rapists.”
Navarro says that “they” are coming after Catholics, and children, and your lives.
“I went to prison so you don’t have to. I am your wake-up call.”
His fiancĂ© comes out with a red MAGA hat and a tight red USA shirt. Looks like she came straight from a Trump rally. Navarro kisses her and yells, “they do this to our families.”
Please…
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Texas congresswoman Monica De La Cruz takes the stage. She is fired up. Tells the story of how her family pursued the America Dream. “There is nothing compassionate about open borders.” Says Biden and Harris just “use immigrants for political gain.” She does not elaborate how they do that. Nor does she mention the bi-partisan immigration deal that Trump rejected because he wanted to use immigrants for political gain.
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Thomas Homan, the former Acting Director of Immigration and Custom Enforcement, is up. This guy was pretty intense on Monday at The Heritage Foundation Policy Fest. Let’s see how he behaves tonight.
Says Biden was the first president to “unsecure a border,” adding “who the hell does this.” Said Biden is leading us to “national suicide.” He is not doing it out of incompetence, he is doing it “on purpose.” Tells all undocumented immigrants to “start packing now” because you “are going home” when Trump gets back in office. He is just as intense as he was on Monday.
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David Lara, a community activist, school board member, and business owner from Arizona, takes the stage. He is in Milwaukee to talk about the border. Says that strangers are “terrorizing” family homes in his town of San Luis. Blames it all on Biden and Harris.
Moreover, with the exception of one reference to a legal immigrant named Manuel who was mentioned by Tom Cotton last night, I have not heard a single positive thing about an immigrant, an asylum seeker, or a refugee. They are all threats. They are all murders. They are all rapists. They are all destroying communities. They all have no place in America. They all need to be rounded up.
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Rancher Jim Chilton is up. I don’t know what this guy is going to say, but I need to take a break.
OK, I am back. Chilton and his wife are calling for Trump to finish the wall.
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Texas governor Gregg Abbott is on stage. Reminds the audience that he is governor of the largest border state. Said that Joe Biden “deserted his duty.” Once again, Abbott blaming rapes and murders on Joe Biden. Abbott is talking about the razor-wire fence battle with Biden. Now he gets cheers for his decision to bus migrants to sanctuary cities, adding “and those busses will continue to roll until we secure our border.” Chants of “send them back, send them back, send them back” echo through the arena. The camera shows signs that say “Mass Importation Now.”
I am notices that the solid, silk ties is popular with MAGA men.
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Here is another angle on this whole immigration issue:
And here comes the YMCA video again. I still wonder if the GOP knows what this Village People song is about.
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Sarah Phillips is a petroleum engineer. She was the first speaker at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally. Says Trump is “high energy and is for energy” while Biden is “low energy and against energy.” What?
Williams takes a shot of something she calls the “green new scam.” Says American society cannot exist without fossil fuels. She now starts a chant of “Drill Baby Drill.”
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Mayor Trent Conway takes the state. Huge man with an unruly beard. He is the mayor of East Palestine, Ohio. Says Biden did not help East Palestine after the Norfolk- Southern train disaster. Says that Biden and Harris did not help them right away because the people of East Palestine weren’t “Hollywood elites.” Says Biden and Harris are a “train wreck.”
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North Dakota governor Doug Burgum and Trump running mate finalist is now speaking. Says Trump will make America “energy dominant.” Asks the audience to say “Trump” loud enough to “wake-up” Biden in Washington D.C. Says serving as a governor under Joe Biden has “been like a gale-force wind in our face.” He says Biden’s energy plan looks it was written in China. Burgum suggests that under Biden people can expect to have no air conditioning. Quotes Teddy Roosevelt: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” He says that American energy will be Trump’s “big stick,” but says nothing about how Trump will execute the “speaking softly” part of the Roosevelt quote. With no evidence, Burgum says that Trump is the hardest working president in American history. I think Burgum needs to read a few historical biographies. I don’t think FDR or Abraham Lincoln took “executive time.”
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It’s time for Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway. Praises Trump for hiring women with young children. She is pushing the “Trump did not have to do this (run for POTUS)” narrative. She defends Trump’s rough edges: You don’t get “Trump’s policies” without Trump’s “personality.” Tells MAGA supporters to put the Trump hat on their heads and stop being closet Trump supporters: “This is your movement and this is your moment.”
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Now we have a video of members of the Armed Forces saying that Biden is a bad commander in chief and Trump is a great commander in chief. One guy says, “Joe Biden puts veterans last.” This is the “Make America Strong Once Again” segment of the night.
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Florida congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna is up. She is an Air Force veteran. Says that the military is much weaker under Biden. The exaggerations are really flowing tonight.
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Medal of Honor recipient Staff Sergeant David Bellavia (Ret). is speaking. Trump awarded him with the medal. Says that people don’t want to join the military any more because of Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal. Military enlistment is low, but enlistments have been pretty stable since mid-1990s.
Says that our enemies are better off than they were four years ago. Says that “if you provoke the United States of America we will hurt you…for generations to come so help me God.”
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And here comes Trump. He appears to James Brown’s “This is man’s world.” He sits between Marco Rubio and Glenn Youngkin. Glenn Abbott is in the Trump box as well.
Don Jr.’s girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle is up. Remember this speech from 2020:
Four years later, Kimberly says she has been praying and she knows that God has put an “armor of protection around Donald Trump.” Repeats the tired mantra: “This is the most important election in our lifetime.
Guilfoyle says that Trump left Biden a “booming economy and a strong nation.” This is a lie. Trump handed Biden a horrible COVID-19 economy. She says that all Joe had to do when he got into office was “take a nap” and do nothing, but he had to go ahead and mess things up.
The rest of the speech is just boilerplate MAGA stuff screamed into the microphone with a really strange cadence. This speech is right “up there” with the 2020 speech above.
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Florida congressman Michael Waltz takes the stage. First Green Beret elected to Congress. Says that Trump told Putin that “if he tried anything” he “would take the top off the Kremlin.” Waltz says that Biden is more concerned about pronouns and renaming military bases than our troops. Criticizes Biden for not meeting with families of troops killed in Afghanistan withdrawal.
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Alicia Lopez and Herman Lopez // Cheryl Jules and Christy Shamblin. Gold Star Families. The stories of these Gold Star families should not be politicized. It is sad to see them used in this way. I am sure the Democrats will try this next month as well. It will be wrong then too. Matthew 6:1-4 comes to mind: “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
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Frat boys from the University of North Carolina parade out. Here is the story with a Fox News twist.
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A video of Trump is running. Trump is telling his followers to stay vigilant and make sure the followers of “crooked Joe Biden” don’t try to steal it again.
Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Jewish graduate Harvard, is speaking. He is a Fox News talking head and Harvard Divinity School graduate. Learn more about his story here. This kid’s a real character. He’s suing Harvard. “My problem with Harvard is not it’s liberalism, but it’s illiberalism.” Says Harvard’s culture is anti-Western and anti-Semitic. Says he is being harassed because he is a Jew. This may be true. But I also imagine some people are harassing him because he is pretty obnoxious.
Now the parents of a Hamas hostage are speaking. Chant of “bring them home” fills the arena. It is hard not to feel these people’s pain. These are real life stories caught-up in the complexities of US-Middle East foreign policy. It is tragic. I pray Biden can bring them home soon .Having said that, I just hate to see these stories politicized in this way.
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Lee Zeldin is up. He is running for governor of New York. Says “even in his prime” Biden had “bad judgment.” “We can’t rely on him to make” important 3am decision” and can’t even “rely on him a 3:00 in the afternoon!”
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A 98-year-old D-Day veteran is speaking. He told his story and then went after Biden. Why do we need to politicize these members of the Greatest Generation? Why not just celebrate their service to this country and honor them in apolitical spaces.
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Donald Trump Jr. is up. He is going to “give up the microphone” to Kai Trump, his daughter. Kai says Trump is just “an ordinary grandpa.” She is doing a really good job. I have no doubt that what Kai is saying about her grandfather is true. She is, after all, part of the tribe.
Trump Jr. starts with the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Acknowledges Cory Comperatore, the man killed at the rally. Crowd chants “Cory, Cory, Cory.”
Another reference to Trump as a lion. Says his father had a the “heart of lion” after getting shot. Says his father did not only show “his character” but “America’s character” on that day. He showed a “spirit that could never be broken.”
Says that before his father was shot, Americans were concerned about safety, illegal immigration, indoctrination in schools, and attacks on free speech. The rights of Americans were eroding. Left wing politicians and the media told lies about inflation, Biden’s mental health, the border, and Trump. In the process, they divided the nation. “All hell has broken in lose in America,” Trump Jr. says. Instead of “build back better” we got “broke, bumbling Biden.” This is blatantly false. The Biden “build back better” plan is at work in America right now strengthening our infrastructure.
Trump Jr. asks “who is running the country anyway, it’s obviously not Joe Biden.” Trump Jr. suggests that maybe Obama is running the country. Crowd cheers. Says that whoever is running the country has one goal–to attack his father. At this point, the so-called “national unity” thrust in the wake of the assassination attempt is over. It lasted about 100 hours.
The “America is Trump tough” narrative will not bring this country together and is unlikely to appeal to any non-MAGA voters. Whatever opportunity the GOP had to expand its base is now over. Whatever kind of political bump they may have gotten from the assassination attempt was lost tonight.
“I don’t believe in coincidences, but I do believe in God’s plan.”
Now Trump Jr. is trying to say that his father is a working-guy who gets his “hands dirty” and loves the common laborer.
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Video touching on J.D. Vance’s background. I have always likes his story and enjoyed Hillbilly Elegy. It’s a shame he took this MAGA turn. I might consider voting for the pre-MAGA J.D. Vance.
Usha Chilukuri Vance, Wife of Senator J.D. Vance, introduces her husband. She asks: What can I say about a guy who is the subject of a Ron Howard film. Nice line.
And here comes J.D. Vance. He comes out to Merle Haggard’s song “America First.” This is a protest song against the Iraq War. It’s an anti-George W. Bush song.
“My name is J.D. Vance from the great state of Ohio.” He is wearing a blue suit and blue tie. Crowd chants “OHIO, OHIO, OHIO.” Says “we gotta chill” with the Ohio chant, “we’ve got to win Michigan too.”
And here comes the victimization. Trump endured “persecution, abuse, and slander.” Trump is in the box smiling. Usha is sitting next to him.
Vance praises Trump as a unifier. Someone tried to assassinate him and then “President Trump flew to Milwaukee and got back to work.” Calls Trump a “once-in-a-generation business leader.” Calls Trump our “once and future president of the United States of America.”
Vance says that GOP is a “big tent” that is united to win. Really? They dragged Nikki Haley up there to endorse Trump last night. Where is former Maryland governor Larry Hogan? Where is Mitt Romney? Where is Chris Christie? Where is Liz Cheney? Where is Adam Kinzinger? Where is Mike Pence? Where is Dan Coats? Where is John Danforth? Where is George W. Bush? Where is Mark Esper? Where is Chuck Hagel? Where is John Kelly? Where is John Bolton? Where is Alyssa Farah Griffin? Where is Stephanie Grisham? Where is Cassie Hutchinson? Where is Dick Cheney? Where is Anthony Scaramucci? Where is Lisa Murkowski? Where is Bob Corker? Where is Jeff Flake? Where is John Sununu? Where is Pat Toomey? Where is Paul Ryan? Where is Wil Hurd? Where is Mia Love? Where is Joe Scarborough? Where is Fred Upton? Where is Jeb Bush? Where is Bill Haslam? Where is Asa Hutchinson? Where is John Kasich? Where is Christie Todd Whitman? Where is Michael Steele? Where is Michael Luttig? Where is Carly Fiorina? Where is Ana Navarro?
Where is the Christian Right? A national ban on abortion was removed from the platform. The platform does not say that marriage is between one man and one woman? The statement on Israel is watered-down.
Is the GOP really unified? No, this is not a big tent. It’s a MAGA tent.
At this point in the speech, Vance is telling the story he told in Hillbilly Elegy.
He is now trying to connect with ordinary workers. Vance says that “you guys are a great crowd.” Audience starts chanting “Yes we are, Yes we are!”
Vance’s Mom is in Trump’s box. Vance says that she is “10 years clean and sober.” If you read Hillbilly Elegy or saw the movie, you know the story. She is sitting next to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. Crowd starts chanting, “J.D.’s Mom, J.D.’s Mom, J.D.’s Mom.” This was a nice moment.
Vance has the crowd eating out of his hand. Said that when his grandmother died, Vance found 19 loaded handguns in the house. “That’s who we fight for, that’s the American spirit.” Is it really? Is 19 loaded guns in a house really the “American spirit?” It is for the crowd. They are chanting “USA, USA, USA.”
Here comes the populism. Vance says, “We are done catering to Wall Street, we are for the working man.” Goes off on an “America First” litany. This is no longer the free-market, business Republican Party of Ronald Reagan. This economic populism sounded like Bernie Sanders. This explains why Sean O’Brien of the Teamsters spoke on Monday night.
Says we will only go to war when necessary, but “when we punch, we are going to punch hard.”
Vance said that when he proposed to his wife he told her that he had thousands of dollars of law school debt and a cemetery plot in Eastern Kentucky. (She married him anyway.) The burial plot is in one of the poorest counties in America. Vance says that the media tells his people that they are “privileged.” I assume he is referring to “white privilege.” This, it seems to me, is a fair critique. How do you tell a poor white farmer that he somehow has “privilege.”
The story of the Vance family’s presence in Eastern Kentucky is a powerful one. “That is a homeland,” Vance says. He is suggesting that America is not just an idea, but a series of places. He is right about that. I heard more localism than nationalism. There is something meaningful about Vance’s connection with a piece of earth where his kin have lived through the generations. Of course this also sounds like something a Confederate might have said in 1861 or 1862. This was especially true when Trump said, ““People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home.” The human experience is a complicated one.
UPDATE (7:46am on July 18): I went back and listened again to Vance’s speech. I missed this line: “One of the things you hear people say is that America is an idea. America is not just an idea, is a group of people with a shared history and common purpose.” While Vance was talking about localism, after hearing this sentence again, it may be localism in service of a kind of blood and soil nationalism.
Now the Vance family comes out to greet him on stage.
Good night. Please forgive the typos. They come with the live blogging.
Typos are ok. I’m just glad you are doing this.