MILWAUKEE – Former GOP presidential contenders Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis put their bitter feuds with Donald Trump behind them Tuesday night, taking the stage at the Republican National Convention to argue he is the only competent choice to lead the country for the next four years.
It was a moment of triumph for Trump, who has expressed a new desire to unite the fractured country after the attempt on his life, coming on the heels of a long campaign in which he has done little to broaden his appeal beyond his loyal MAGA base. The former president lost his 2020 reelection effort in part because his slashing rhetoric and punishing asides alienated broad swaths of suburban Republican women and independents. Some of those voters backed Haley, Trump’s former United Nations ambassador as she tried to wrest the nomination from her former boss. And they continued to cast protest votes against Trump by voting for her in primaries even after she dropped out.
Tuesday night also offered a chance for the GOP candidates in the most closely fought Senate races to speak to Americans who have heard little about them. They included Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania, Eric Hovde of Wisconsin, Bernie Moreno of Ohio, Kari Lake of Arizona and Sam Brown of Nevada, who addressed delegates on behalf of Trump and to boost their own candidacies.
On a night where the theme was making America “safe again,” some of them echoed Trump’s misleading refrain that violent crime has soared on Biden’s watch – it has dropped – and that undocumented immigrants have made America less safe, even though there is little evidence to support that claim. Just three days after the lone 20-year-old gunman opened fire on Trump, several of them also touched in their speeches on what they described on Trump’s strength and resilience.
In her warmly received remarks on Tuesday night, Haley spoke directly to the Republican voters who wanted to move on from Trump. She said Trump had “graciously” asked her to speak to the convention “in the name of unity” and that she wanted to make it clear, for the first time, that he had her full endorsement. During her campaign, Haley argued Trump was too focused on his own grievances and vendettas to lead the country. She was followed by DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), whom Trump considered as a vice presidential candidate, and then Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump.
“We should acknowledge that there are some Americans who don’t agree with Donald Trump one hundred percent of the time, I happen to know some of them and I want to speak to them tonight,” Haley said. “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.”
Haley noted that she and Trump agree on keeping America safe and “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,” Haley said. “For the sake of our nation, we have to go with Donald Trump,” she said, drawing a smile from the former president who was looking on from his VIP box in the audience.
President Biden’s reelection campaign immediately tried to undercut Haley’s speech by noting her harsh past criticism of Trump. “Ambassador Haley said it best herself: someone who doesn’t respect our military, doesn’t know right from wrong, and ‘surrounds himself in chaos’ can’t be president,” Austin Weatherford, Biden’s national Republican engagement director, said in a statement.
DeSantis focused far less than Haley on making an explicit case for Trump, turning back instead to many familiar lines from his former Trump speech. He slashed at Biden’s mental acuity and ability to lead the country for four more years, arguing that America “needs a commander in chief who can lead 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
“America cannot afford four more years of a ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ presidency,” he said, suggesting that Biden is not carrying out his duties and is instead being propped up by aides. DeSantis ended his remarks by launching a “Fight!” chant – alluding to the words Trump mouthed with his fist raised during the frenzied moments after the gunman carried out an assassination attempt Saturday at his rally in Butler, Pa.
“We deserve a better class of politician, one who actually tells us the truth, even if it comes with some mean tweets from time to time,” he said, making the case for Trump.
Rubio, who ran against Trump in 2016, said the past few days reminded Americans “that the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind is in the hands of God.”
“We were brought to the precipice of the abyss,” Rubio said. “And by the hand of God, reminded of what truly matters in our lives and in our country. Putting Americans first must be what this election is about.”
McCormick, who was at the rally where Trump was shot, spoke of witnessing those events firsthand, praising Trump’s “remarkable strength and resolve in a terrifying, terrifying and unpredictable moment.”
“The president rose brilliantly to the challenge. But what a sad, sad and frightening day for the families of those who were injured or lost and for our great country,” McCormick said. He accused Biden and Democrats of making Americans feel less safe as undocumented immigrants have entered the country and illegal drugs have “poured” across the border, he argued. While border crossings rose at the start of Biden’s presidency, they’ve dropped more recently after changes in policy.
“My friends, the choice this November is clear it’s a choice between strength and weakness,” McCormick said, “a choice between America’s greatness or its sad, disgraceful decline.”
A number of speakers including Lara Trump, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) all sought to show a softer side of Trump. Scalise reflected on how Trump came to his side to support him after he was wounded in a politically motivated shooting in 2017.
“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,” he said. “That’s the kind of leader he is. Courageous under fire. Compassionate toward others.”
Lara Trump spoke of the former president’s devotion to his family outside the public eye – and how he spots talent in the people around him. She said Trump has played a hand in helping her build her confidence throughout her career, including her new role as RNC co-chair.
“I know that I’m lucky enough to get to call him my father in law, and see him a little differently than all of you, but it’s through that lens that I sometimes wish more people could see him,” she said. “This is a man who has sacrificed for his family, and a man who has truly sacrificed for his country.”
Trump’s campaign has a clear opportunity to draw in new voters who were alarmed by Biden’s faltering debate performance last month. The former president leads the president nationally by more than two points, according to a Washington Post average of public polls, up from a less than one point pre-debate lead in the same polls. Trump also leads Biden in many of the closely contested states that are playing host to this year’s key Senate races. But Republican Senate contenders have continued to trail their Democratic opponents in those states, making it difficult to determine how much Trump is lifting their candidacies.
A softer tone from Trump in the wake of the shooting could draw in more of those voters, helping GOP Senate candidates balance their appeals to voters who adore Trump and those who loathe him. The former president’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump – the RNC co-chair who has expressed her desire to bridge the divide with voters who dislike Trump’s tone – headlined Tuesday night’s gathering.
Trump’s advisers have said that they are looking to lower the temperature this week. But in a deeply polarized nation, rhetorical shifts alone may not be enough to change voters’ minds.
RNC Chairman Michael Whatley told reporters during a roundtable hosted by Bloomberg News late Tuesday afternoon in Milwaukee that the Republican Party is “united, frankly, like we’ve not seen in generations” and that having Haley and DeSantis speaking on Trump’s behalf is an important effort to draw in more voters to support the GOP ticket.
Whatley said that recent polls have shown that Republicans are far more enthusiastic about their nominee than Democrats: “We want to talk about unifying the country,” Whatley said. “And I think that that’s really where the president wants to go, particularly coming out of Saturday.”
When pressed on how Trump is heeding Haley’s advice to reach out to the voters who backed the former South Carolina governor, Lara Trump, the RNC co-chair, argued at the Bloomberg event that it would be inauthentic for him to shift his message.
“Donald Trump is never going to change who he is,” she said. “And I think that that’s something that some people love about him and some people don’t love about him and I understand that. … So in terms of him doing something differently, I think it would be very inauthentic of him to do that. But I think it’s up to us as a campaign and as the RNC to reach out to some of those voters and say, ‘Hey, listen, at the end of the day, you don’t have to love the way he says everything. But look at how this affects your life.’”
The former president made an emotional entrance to the convention late Monday night, joining members of his family to watch some of the speeches from the “everyday Americans” who the Republican National Committee invited to address the crowd. Trump’s team is thinking about how to weave the effect of the shooting into the campaign’s message without making it the focus of the contest, Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita told reporters Tuesday morning.
Trump intends to meet the moment in the aftermath of Saturday’s events, but the central premise of the campaign is still to “fire the incumbent,” LaCivita said. He said he was thrilled to read that Biden wants to make the race more about policy, because he views that as Trump’s advantage in the months ahead.
“To the extent we can have a discussion about inflation and crime … that’s what we want,” LaCivita said. “Because we know that’s tactically going to favor us.”
(c) 2024, The Washington Post · Maeve Reston