Hundreds of people who gathered to remember the former fire chief fatally shot at a rally for former President Donald Trump have been urged to find “unity” as the area in rural Pennsylvania seeks to recover.
Wednesday’s public event was the first of two organized to memorialize and celebrate Corey Comperatore’s life, with the second to happen Thursday.
A sign outside Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, where the vigil for Corey Comperatore was held Wednesday, night read: “Rest in Peace Corey, Thank You For Your Service,” with the logo of his fire company. The 50-year-old died Saturday during an attempt to kill Trump at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
At the Republic national convention in Milwaukee, some Trump supporters have a new way of showing their support for their favorite presidential candidate beyond a red Maga cap: wearing bandages on their ears, as Donald Trump did himself when he first appeared at the convention on Monday in his first public appearance since Saturday’s assassination attempt.
Our video editors have put together this report on this new trend:
What we learned on night three of the Republican national convention
JD Vance accepted the GOP’s nomination as vice-president with a speech where he harkened back to his Ohio upbringing to condemn the past US leaders who “have failed and failed again”.
Vance said: “As always, America’s ruling class wrote the checks, communities like mine paid the price. For decades that divide between the few with their power and comfort in Washington and the rest of us only widened. From Iraq to Afghanistan, from the financial crisis to the Great Recession, from open borders to stagnating wages, the people who govern this country have failed and failed again.”
Reports emerged that three of the most powerful Democrats in Washington – the Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, the House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi – have told Joe Biden he cannot win the election.
The White House said Biden told Jeffries and Schumer, in reply, that “he is the nominee of the party” – a sign he won’t drop out, at least not yet.
Donald Trump Jr is known for incendiary commentary. In his speech to the convention, he was somber at first, before reverting to his usual fire breathing self.
Relatives of some of the 13 US soldiers killed in an Islamic State attack during the chaotic pullout from Afghanistan in 2021 staged an emotional denunciation of Biden.
Things we did not hear much, if anything, about at the convention: abortion, democracy and Project 2025.
Republican delegates shrugged off the possibility of Biden stepping aside for a more electable Democratic candidate.
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Peter Navarro got out of prison, and was on the convention stage not long after.
Thanks for reading our live coverage of the third night of the Republican national convention.
Delegates are back in Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum tomorrow at 5.45pm CT for the convention’s last evening, when Donald Trump is scheduled to speak, and accept the party’s presidential nomination.
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The third night of the Republican national convention concludes.
And we’re done.
Chair Michael Whatley has brought the gavel down, and the third night of the Republican national convention is finished.
Only one more to go.
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Pelosi warned Biden he cannot beat Trump – report
But how much longer will it be called the Biden-Harris campaign?
CNN reports that Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former House speaker who is one of the lawmakers closest to Joe Biden, warned him that he could not defeat Donald Trump, and if the president continued his re-election bid, Democrats may fail to retake the House:
Exclusive CNN reporting: Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi privately told President Joe Biden in a recent conversation that polling shows that the president cannot defeat Donald Trump and that the president could destroy Democrats’ chances of winning the House. @mj_lee…
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) July 18, 2024
It had been speculated that if Pelosi tells Biden it’s over, the president will listen. We will find out if that ends up being the case.
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'It’s working families and the middle class who will suffer' from Vance's policies, Biden campaign warns
The Biden campaign quickly issued a statement bashing JD Vance right after he got off stage, linking him to Project 2025, the rightwing blueprint to remake the US government.
Vance did not mention the plan in his speech, which was generally light on policy proposals.
“Tonight, JD Vance, the poster boy for Project 2025, took center stage. But it’s working families and the middle class who will suffer if he’s allowed to stay there,” Michael Tyler, the Biden-Harris communications manager, said.
“Backed by Silicon Valley and the billionaires who bought his vice-presidential selection, Vance is Project 2025 in human form – an agenda that puts extremism and the ultra-wealthy over our democracy. An agenda that cuts healthcare, bans abortion, slashes Social Security and Medicare and is a rubber stamp for Donald Trump to become a dictator on ‘day one’ and ‘terminate’ our constitution as he wishes.”
Tyler concluded: “JD Vance is unprepared, unqualified and willing to do anything Donald Trump demands.”
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After his speech finished, Vance was joined onstage by several relatives, who he shared hugs and handshakes with.
As they walked off stage, Vance appeared to pause and point to Donald Trump, who is seated across the arena.
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Vance tells US: 'I will give you everything I have to serve you'
After a recitation of why he believes America is special, JD Vance then told the audience that re-electing Donald Trump was essential to preserving that greatness.
“The only thing that we need to do right now, the most important thing that we can do for those people, for that American nation that we all love, is to re-elect Donald J Trump president of the United States,” Vance said.
“Mr President, I will never take for granted the trust you have put in me and what an honor it is to help achieve the extraordinary vision that you have for this country. Now, I pledge to every American, no matter your party, I will give you everything I have to serve you and to make this country a place where every dream you have for yourself, your family and your country will be possible once again.”
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When Donald Trump selected JD Vance, word spread that the choice was made in part because his campaign believed the Ohio senator could sway voters in the rust belt swing states, like Michigan and Pennsylvania.
And in his speech tonight, Vance has mentioned those states repeatedly.
“We’re done buying energy from countries that hate us. We’re going to get it right here, from American workers in Pennsylvania and Ohio and across the country,” he said.
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JD Vance told the crowd how, after his grandmother, who he called Mamaw, died in 2005, they found “19 loaded handguns”.
“The thing is that they were stashed all over her house, under her bed, in her closet, in the silverware drawer and we wondered what was going on,” Vance said. “And it occurred to us that towards the end of her life, Mamaw couldn’t get around so well, and so this frail old woman made sure that no matter where she was, she was within arm’s length of whatever she needed to protect her family. That’s who we fight for. That’s the American spirit.”
The praise of gun ownership pleased the crowd, which broke into the familiar chant: “USA! USA! USA!”
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This is an audience that clearly enjoys compliments.
After a line about how “Joe Biden is willing to buy energy from tin-pot dictators across the world when he could buy it from his own citizens, right here in our own country” drew applause, JD Vance remarked, “You guys are a great crowd.”
Then the crowd started chanting, “Yes we are! Yes we are! Yes we are!”
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'The people who govern this country have failed and failed again', Vance tells Republicans
Turning again to the trials of his Ohio hometown, JD Vance argued that repeated administrations had failed it – until Donald Trump came along.
“My friends, things did not work out well for a lot of kids I grew up with. Every now and then, I will get a call from a relative back home, who asks, did you know so and so? And I’ll remember a face from years ago, and then I’ll hear they died of an overdose,” Vance said.
“As always, America’s ruling class wrote the checks, communities like mine paid the price. For decades that divide between the few with their power and comfort in Washington and the rest of us only widened. From Iraq to Afghanistan, from the financial crisis to the Great Recession, from open borders to stagnating wages, the people who govern this country have failed and failed again.”
And then: “That is, of course, until a guy named Donald J Trump came along. President Trump represents America’s last best hope to restore what, if lost, may never be found again.”
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JD Vance then turned to his tough childhood in Ohio and found a way to blame both Joe Biden and, obliquely, two Republican former presidents.
“Now, never in my wildest imagination, could I have believed that I’d be standing here tonight,” the senator said.
“I grew up in Middletown, Ohio, a small town where people spoke their minds, built with their hands and loved their God, their family, their community and their country with their whole hearts. But it was also a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class in Washington. When I was in the fourth grade, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden supported Nafta, a bad trade deal that sent countless good jobs to Mexico,” Vance said, neglecting Republican president George HW Bush’s role in getting the trade deal passed.
Then, he turned his attack on the Iraq war, which was a project of Republican president George W Bush.
“When I was a senior in high school, that same Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq, and at each step of the way in small towns like mine, in Ohio or next door in Pennsylvania or Michigan, in states all across our country, jobs were sent overseas and our children were sent to war,” Vance said.
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Vance accepts Trump's nomination as running mate
JD Vance made official his acceptance of Donald Trump’s offer to be his vice-president, if he returns to the White House.
“Shouldn’t we be governed by a party that is unafraid to debate ideas and come to the best solution? That’s the Republican party of the next four years, united in our love for this country and committed to free speech and the open exchange of ideas. And so, tonight, Mr Chairman, I stand here humbled, and I’m overwhelmed with gratitude to say I officially accept your nomination to be vice-president of the United States of America,” Vance said.
Applause followed, as did chants of: “JD! JD! JD!”
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Donald Trump did indeed call for unity after the attempted assassination – and for that, he deserves credit, JD Vance is arguing.
“Now, consider what they said. They said he was a tyrant. They said he must be stopped at all costs. But how did he respond? He called for national unity, for national calm, literally right after an assassin nearly took his life,” Vance said.
Vance has made the attempted assassination the backbone of his speech thus far.
Speaking of Trump, the Ohio senator said: “Prior to running for president, he was one of the most successful businessmen in the world. He had everything anyone could ever want in a life. And yet, instead of choosing the easy path, he chose to endure abuse, slander and persecution, and he did it because he loves this country.”
“I want all Americans to go and watch the video of a would-be assassin coming a quarter of an inch from taking his life,” Vance said. “Consider the lies they told you about Donald Trump, and then look at that photo of him defiant, fist in the air. When Donald Trump rose to his feet in that Pennsylvania field, all of America stood with him.”
As the crowd clapped, Trump smiled from his seat in the VIP section. Usha Vance was seated to his right.
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JD Vance began his remarks by looking back on the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on Saturday.
“As we meet tonight, we cannot forget that this evening could have been so much different. Instead of a day of celebration, this could have been a day of heartache and mourning,” Vance said.
JD Vance was introduced by his wife, Usha Vance, who said of her husband: “It’s hard to imagine a more powerful example of the American dream.”
“Raised by his grandmother through tough times, chosen to help lead our country through some of its greatest challenges. I am grateful to all of you for the trust you’ve placed in him and in our family,” she said.
And with that, her husband arrived on stage.
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JD Vance takes stage at Republican convention
Ohio senator JD Vance is about to make his first speech since Donald Trump picked him as his running mate on Monday.
He has previously spoken in favor of a national abortion ban, and criticized military aid to Ukraine. We’ll see if he hits on those themes in his speech.
We are now seeing on the arena Jumbotron a video recalling JD Vance’s background.
“It’s nothing short of a miracle that JD Vance is a household name,” the narrator said, recalling how Vance was “born into poverty”.
“JD Vance’s story is one of perseverance, of duty, of commitment to what’s right. It’s an American story, and it’s just getting started,” the video concluded.
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Up next on the schedule is Usha Vance, wife of Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance.
Usha Vance was, at one point, a registered Democrat, yet here she is, set to address the Republican national convention. Here’s more about her, from the Guardian’s David Smith:
As he wrapped up his speech, Donald Trump Jr hit on the theme, adopted by others at this convention including House speaker Mike Johnson, that this election was a choice between two visions of the country.
“This November, we have a choice. It’s a choice between one team that wants to build this country up, and another that wants to tear this country down. It’s a choice between people who are proud of America and people who are ashamed of America. And ultimately, it’s a choice between America last and America first,” Trump Jr said.
“So, if you love this country from the bottom of your heart, if you want to bring back common sense, if you want to save the American dream, if you want to stand up and fight for the future of our nation, you must re-elect my father, Donald J Trump.”
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Senators confront Secret Service director at Republican convention
Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn has posted a video that appears to show her and Wyoming senator John Barrasso confronting Kimberly Cheatle, the Secret Service director, in the halls of the Fiserv Forum, where the Republican national convention is taking place.
“This is exactly what you were doing today on the call, stonewalling,” Barrasso yells at Cheatle in the video:
The American people deserve answers from the Secret Service. pic.twitter.com/PNFF11v00Q
— Marsha Blackburn (@VoteMarsha) July 18, 2024
It’s a sign of how the GOP is training its ire on Cheatle, amid questions over whether the Secret Service properly arranged security for Trump during his ill-fated rally in Pennsylvania.
We did not personally witness the confrontation, but are sure to hear plenty more about it in the days to come.
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Donald Trump Jr leaned further into inflammatory rhetoric, casting the Democratic party and the media as collaborators who have teamed up to dupe the American people on issues like crime, immigration and democracy.
“The lies, oh yeah the lies,” Trump Jr said, denouncing the press for lying “nonstop about my father”.
It’s a stark escalation and departure from the message of unity that the Trump campaign briefly signaled it would adopt in the wake of the assassination attempt on the former president on Saturday.
“They could only run away from reality for so long,” said Trump Jr. “All hell has broken loose in America.”
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And with that out of the way, Donald Trump Jr is back to spitting the venom for which he has become so well known.
“Remember Build Back Better?” Trump Jr asked, referring to Joe Biden’s proposed overhaul of US social services. “Instead, we got broke, bumbling Biden. Nothing is built, nothing is back and nothing is better.”
What followed was six sentences that were as good a distillation of modern American conservatism as any:
Bridges are collapsing, our credibility is crumbling, and our money is worth less and less every single day. It was just one giant bait and switch, and normal Americans are the ones left holding the bag. Housing costs, gasoline prices, grocery bills just keep going up, wave after wave of illegal aliens, deadly drugs keep pouring across our border.
Meanwhile, pro-crime district attorneys have turned our cities into giant crime zones. They’ve turned criminals into victims, prosecutors into criminal defense attorneys and police into public enemies. Leftwing activists are pretending to be educators, teaching our kids that there are 57 genders, but they can’t even define what a woman is.
Donald Trump Jr says 'we came millimeters away from one of the darkest moments in our nation's history'
Continuing the somewhat sober tone, Donald Trump Jr remarked on how close his father came to assassination at his rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
“My father came under literal fire as an incredible, patriotic rally turned into a tragedy on a field in Butler, Pennsylvania,” Trump Jr said.
“A brave firefighter died, others were injured, and as those bullets rained down, we came millimeters away from one of the darkest moments in our nation’s history. But we did lose an American hero that day. We wish that he were with us tonight, but his memory will live on forever in the hearts of his family, his community and the nation that he loved.”
As soon as he came onstage, Donald Trump Jr declared: “Before I begin my remarks, I’m going to do something a little uncharacteristic: a Trump is going to give up the microphone.”
Out came his daughter, Kai Madison Trump, who described how the former president is “to me … just a normal, grandpa”.
“He gets us candy and soda when our parents aren’t looking. He always wants to know how we’re doing in school. When I made the high honor roll, he printed it out to show his friends how proud he was of me,” Madison Trump said.
“The media makes my grandpa seem like a different person, but I know him for who he is. He’s very caring and loving. He truly wants the best for this country, and he will fight every single day to make America great again.”
It’s a lot like the speech Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump gave last night, in which she described him as a caring father-in-law – perhaps a strategy by the campaign to better relate the former president to voters wary of his well-publicized antics.
Trump Jr is now back at the podium.
Donald Trump Jr to address Republican convention
Donald Trump Jr, the president’s son who is a bit of a bomb thrower, is up next at the Republican national convention.
We’ll let you know what he says.
Chants of “Bring them home!” broke out in the arena when Orna and Ronen Neutra, whose son, Omer Neutra, was kidnapped during the 7 October attack in Israel, addressed the convention.
“Omer is one of eight American hostages and one of 120 hostages. Still left in Gaza, citizens of 24 countries and five different religions, still held by Hamas, denied basic human needs, their lives threatened every day,” Ronen Neutra said.
“President Trump called us personally right after the attack, when Omer was taken captive. We know he stands with the American hostages. We need our beautiful son back and we need your support. We need your support to end this crisis and bring all the hostages back home.”
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Words that you are unlikely to hear often at this year’s Republican national convention: abortion, democracy and Project 2025.
Speakers have generally avoided touching on what are seen as Donald Trump’s biggest vulnerabilities after the 6 January 2021 insurrection and the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade.
Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic party of Wisconsin, said: “It’s most striking what the Republicans are not talking about, that Donald Trump just blew his platform to smithereens by choosing a vice-president [JD Vance] who wants a national abortion ban. And yet I haven’t heard a single mention of abortion from the stage.
“Last time Trump was in Wisconsin, he kept repeating that he had won here and the election was stolen from him and there was widespread fraud and he needed to crack down on all these different forms of voting. It’s pretty clear that a Republican party that is still totally committed to suppressing votes and overturning elections is not making a show of that from the national stage.”
Republicans addressing the convention have repeatedly accused Joe Biden of throwing open the southern border and welcoming killers, rapists and other criminals. But studies show that immigrants commit fewer crimes than people born in the US.
Wikler, who is inside the convention hall, added: “They can tell that the biggest issues in this election are actually toxic for them and so they’re resorting to fear of immigrants and fear of crime and grisly stories to try to push the country into the arms of a strongman instead of addressing the elephant in the room.
“What that misses is that, at dinner tables across the country, people are talking about what they will do if the Republican Project 2025 actually becomes a reality and they’re not doing anything to assuage those concerns. They’re just pretending that they don’t exist.”
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'They have pushed us away and tried to silence us' – families of US soldiers killed in Afghanistan condemn Biden
The Republican national convention just devoted a lengthy segment to recounting the messy US military withdrawal from Afghanistan under Joe Biden three years ago, and in particular the 13 soldiers killed in an Islamic State terrorist attack at Kabul airport.
It began with a video in which the families of the soldiers described their lost loved ones, then recounted how, when they met with Biden as their bodies arrived at a military base in Delaware, the president appeared to check his watch during the ceremony. The families then came onstage to encourage viewers to vote Biden out of office.
“Our son, Corporal Hunter Lopez, whose name Joe Biden has refused to say out loud, was killed on August 26, 2021,” said Lopez’s mother, Alicia Lopez. “He died during Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
Referring to the Biden administration, Lopez said:
Despite our pleas for answers and accountability, they have pushed us away and tried to silence us. The Biden administration has not owned up to the bad decisions, they have not been transparent about their failures and their so-called leaders work to protect themselves, rather than our sons and daughters who took the oath to defend our country.
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Biden told Schumer and Jeffries 'he is the nominee of the party' – spokesperson
Responding to the Washington Post’s report that the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries warned Joe Biden that his candidacy will imperil their efforts to control Congress, White House spokesman Andrew Bates indicated Biden had no intention of stepping aside.
“The President told both leaders he is the nominee of the party, he plans to win and looks forward to working with both of them to pass his 100 days agenda to help working families,” Bates said in a statement.
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Top congressional Democrats warn Biden his candidacy jeopardizes their chances of retaking majority - report
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, warned Joe Biden that if he continues his bid for re-election, it will be difficult for his party to retake the majority in Congress’s lower chamber, the Washington Post reports.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, delivered a similarly dire message to Biden about Democrats’ chances of holding on to the majority in that chamber, the Post reported. The top lawmakers’ comments to the president are the latest sign of the pressure Biden is facing to reconsider his bid for another four years following his disastrous performance in his debate against Donald Trump.
Here’s more on the conversations, from the Post:
In a separate one-on-one conversation, a person close to Biden told the president directly that he should end his candidacy, saying that was the only way to preserve his legacy and save the country from another Trump term, the person said. Biden responded that he adamantly disagreed with that opinion and that he is the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.
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A rare creature is roaming Milwaukee. It is the Lesser Spotted Establishment Republican, namely Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas.
At a Republican national convention that has gone full Maga, totally devoted to Donald Trump, the dissenting Hutchinson represents the last of a dying breed.
But even this hardened Trump critic, who ran a quixotic campaign against him in this year’s Republican primary election, praised the way the former US president reacted to an attempt on his life last Saturday.
“I very much admired what he did,” Hutchinson told the Guardian. “It was one of those moments where his reaction was others and what this means to America and our democracy.
“He showed strength and that impressed me, obviously, but also how he handled afterwards and said this is a time we’ve got to tone down the rhetoric some, the harshness. I applaud him for that and it’s to a certain extent demonstrated at the convention. But we’ll see how long that lasts.”
The former governor stopped short of backing Trump, however. “I’ll just keep my options open. I didn’t come here to endorse anyone. I haven’t been asked for it and so I’ll keep my powder dry.”
Hutchinson did have some advice for Democrats dithering over whether to ditch Joe Biden as their nominee, however. “You got to switch. You got to roll the dice. Take a chance on somebody else. It’s strength versus weakness. Strength wins every time.”
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This evening, Republican convention attendees have been given a sign with a message we had not seen in the past two nights: “Mass deportation now!”
It’s an indication that Donald Trump believes campaigning on hardline immigration policies will get him to the White House. He has previously vowed that “on day one, we will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history”. Here’s more about that:
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Trump returns to Republican convention hall for third night
Donald Trump, his right ear still bandaged from the assassination attempt on Saturday, is back in the arena where the Republican national convention is being held.
The former president walked out and pumped his fist to the crowd, to rapturous cheers. It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World by James Brown is playing on the PA.
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Republican delegates shrug off possibility of Biden stepping aside
Donald Trump up, Joe Biden down.
That, in a nutshell, has been the theme of this Republican national convention, where speakers have spent their time relentlessly attacking the Democratic president, and occasionally vice-president Kamala Harris.
But what if Biden bows to the pressure from his party to end his re-election bid after his uneven performance in the first debate against Trump, and makes way for a younger candidate, perhaps someone who has more luck rallying Democrats? Do the delegates gathered in Milwaukee for the convention fear that could make Trump’s road back to the White House more treacherous?
The Guardian’s US politics live blog took to the floor of the convention hall to hear their answers.
“The real problem Democrats are facing is there really is only one other candidate they can run, and that’s Kamala Harris,” said Blake Marnell, a California delegate. The San Diego resident was wearing an orange suit with a brick pattern, which he said was “a metaphor for strong borders, which he had under president Trump, and which Joe Biden reversed”.
Harris, a former senator from his home state, was “a disaster”, he said.
Clayton Manthorpe, a delegate from the president’s home state of Delaware, said the Democrats “don’t really have a strong candidate besides Joe Biden, and I’m not saying he’s a good candidate”.
“He’s a stubborn old man,” Manthorpe continued. “Nobody wants to be told: ‘You can’t be president of the United States.’”
But Manthorpe, a self-described “conspiracy theorist”, referred to the announcement this evening that the president had Covid-19 as potentially setting up a narrative Biden could use to step aside.
“If Trump’s not going out by the bullet, something has to change on the other side of the equation,” Manthorpe said.
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Donald Trump and his allies have increasingly flung accusations that they engage in authoritarian rhetoric and behavior back at Democrats.
“At home, Biden is acting like a dictator,” Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor, told the Republican convention on Wednesday.
Trump, who has said he would be a “dictator on day one” if re-elected has already tried to overturn a presidential election and has not committed to accepting the results of this year’s vote.
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Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor, compares Trump to 'a beautiful breeze at our back'
Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor who was on the shortlist to be Donald Trump’s running mate, took a metaphorical tone in his remarks to the convention.
“Serving as a governor with president Trump was like having a beautiful breeze at our back. He cut taxes, and cut red tape,” Burgum said. “Serving as a governor under Joe Biden has been like a gale force wind in our face. Biden’s war on energy hurts every American because the cost of energy is in everything we use or touch every day.”
Much like the East Palestine mayor Trent Conaway, who spoke right before him, Burgum argued that Trump was a fighter for the working class.
“President Trump cares deeply about every American, rig workers, truck drivers, roughnecks and yes, America’s great farmers and ranchers, President Trump cares deeply about you. We know that he’ll fight for us. He’ll fight for our families,” said Burgum.
In a reference to the ongoing conservative revolt against electric vehicles, Burgum added, “And we know one more thing: he’ll let all of you keep driving your gas powered cars.”
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The saga of East Palestine, Ohio, where a Norfolk Southern train derailed and spread chemicals far and wide, gripped the country in early 2023.
More than a year later, the town’s mayor, Trent Conaway, strolled onstage at the Republican convention to describe the Biden administration as unconcerned with his town’s plight.
“The Biden administration’s federal response was much different. It consisted almost entirely of meetings and press events. They talked and talked, but they delivered little help,” Conaway told the crowd.
“For the longest time, the White House was silent and we never heard a word from vice-president Harris. I guess we weren’t their type of folks, no Hollywood elites or Wall Street billionaires live in East Palestine, just hard-working Americans.”
Conaway continued:
But Donald Trump cared. First, he called to ask permission to visit, not wanting to intrude and then he asked how he could help. When he arrived with fresh pales of drinking water, he met with everyone from first responders to local officials and residents. He toured the derailment site, he listened to us, and he shared a meal with volunteers at a local McDonald’s.
His presence was genuine. His concern was real. After a year of criticism, President Biden finally did show up. His appearance was brief, forced and scripted. He met with a select few, and then left. We needed so much, and he delivered so little.
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Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, vows to continue bussing migrants 'until we finally secure our border'
In his speech to the Republican convention, Greg Abbott gave a strenuous and well-received defense of his state’s forays into immigration enforcement, and vowed to keep up his controversial practice of bussing migrants from the state to cities nationwide.
“When Biden took 50 acres of Texas border property to illegally process up to 5,000 illegal immigrants a day, I directed the Texas National Guard to take back our land and wire it shut,” Abbott said, in an apparent reference to a legal clash between the state government and the Biden administration earlier this year.
“Now there’s no longer 5,000 people crossing the border like there was under Joe Biden. Now that the National Guard wired that shut, on average, there is one illegal immigrant crossing the border at that location a day.”
Both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have visited the US-Mexico border during their administration. Ignoring that fact, Abbott vowed:
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refused to even come to Texas and to see the border crisis that they created. I took the border to them. I began bussing illegal immigrants to Washington DC, and we have continued bussing migrants to sanctuary cities across the entire country, and those busses will continue to roll until we finally secure our border.
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Eric Trump joins calls for head of Secret Service to resign
Donald Trump’s second eldest son, Eric, has joined other Republicans calling for the director of the Secret Service to step aside following the assassination attempt on his fatheron the weekend.
Eric Trump sat down for an interview with Kristen Welker earlier today, the anchor of the Sunday Meet the Press politics talk show on NBC.
“People are calling for the resignation of the Secret Service director. Are you saying you think the Secret Service director should resign?” Welker asked Trump, referring to the head of the USSS, Kimberly Cheatle, according to a rush transcript issued by the TV network.
Eric Trump didn’t mince his words. “No question about it. There’s no question about it,” he said.
He continued: “How can this possibly happen? How can … think just what that would do, Kristen. On the world stage. If our leader, you guys were covering it, and Fox was covering it, CNN, everybody was covering it, got assassinated, took a rifle round to the head on live TV, while the entire nation … we’d look like a third world country.”
Trump added: “This can’t happen in the United States. And somebody’s got be held accountable. You can’t just sweep that kind of stuff under the rug.”
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In pantomime style, Navarro is delivering lines to the RNC crowd designed to attract lots of boos as well as cheers. No audible hissing yet.
Navarro has railed against his conviction and is spinning the line further that the US justice system is “out to get” any and all rightwingers.
He accused the judge who convicted Donald Trump in New York earlier this year of a hush-money plot to influence the 2016 election of running “a kangaroo court”.
“You may be thinking this could not happen to you, make no mistake they are already coming for you, Joe and Kamala,” he said, without explaining how.
Then Navarro also repeated the Trumpesque far-right line that migrants crossing the US-Mexico border without authorization, as they flee danger, oppression and destitution in countries ranging from Venezuela, Haiti, China, parts of Africa and Central America are nothing but “murderers and rapists”.
He’s left the stage now. Many attendees are enthusiastically holding or waving signs that say, simply: “Mass Deportation Now”.
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Former Trump trade adviser Navarro addresses RNC after release from prison
To massive cheers across the convention floor, Peter Navarro has taken the stage. He just got out of prison.
“Yes, this morning I did walk out of a federal prison in Miami. Joe Biden and his department of INjustice put me there,” he said.
He added: “If they can come for me, if they can come for Donald Trump, believe me they can come for you,” Navarro said, repeating a populist line that Trump and the Maga crowd like to use.
Navarro is a former trade adviser to Trump and in March became the first former White House official ever jailed for contempt of Congress.
He was sentenced to four months in prison for refusing to cooperate with the House January 6 committee investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021 when extremists wanted to overturn Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden in the presidential election.
The the 74-year-old economist appealed all the way to the US supreme court, claiming he could not testify as his work with Trump on attempts to overturn the 2020 election was covered by executive privilege.
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Matt Gaetz, a Florida congressman, took to the stage at the Republican national convention on Wednesday with a brief but charged-up speech that took aim at Democrats, and in particular, at Kamala Harris.
“Appointing Kamala Harris to oversee the border is like appointing Bernie Madoff to oversee your retirement plan,” said Gaetz, to jeers and applause.
With some Democrats urging Joe Biden to step down amid concerns about the president’s health and cognition following a devastating debate in early July, the possibility of Harris at the top of the Democrats’ 2024 presidential ticket seems top-of-mind for Republican speakers at the RNC.
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The third day of speeches got under way in Milwaukee a short while ago.
Nancy Mace, a South Carolina congresswoman, kicked off Wednesday’s evening program, began her speech by introducing herself as “Nancy, ‘Don’t call me Pelosi’, Mace.”
There was muted applause for the joke.
.@NancyMace: "We can never project strength around the world when WEAKNESS stands in the White House." pic.twitter.com/H7SrxU3DVx
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) July 17, 2024
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Profile: Who is Usha Vance, JD Vance's wife
Many Republicans have welcomed Usha Vance, the Indian American wife of vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, as a symbol of generational change and growing diversity in the party ranks.
Usha, 38, a corporate lawyer who used to be a registered Democrat, is the daughter of Indian immigrants and a practicing Hindu.
Danny Willis, 25, chair of Delaware Young Republicans, said: “With this ticket, with the show of diversity in what would be the second gentleman and second lady of the United States, I’m extremely proud to be a Hispanic male and a Republican.”
Usha has a very different story to tell from the last Republican second lady, Karen Pence, a white grandmother and devout Christian from Indiana who was an elementary school teacher and watercolour artist.
Trump’s choice of JD Vance has sparked concern in Europe, where leaders fear the potential new vice-president would be catastrophic news for Ukraine and its ability to keep fighting Russia.
The Guardian’s Andrew Roth has this:
Donald Trump’s choice of JD Vance as his vice-presidential pick has reignited fears in Europe that he would pursue a transactional “America first” foreign policy that could culminate in the US pushing for Ukraine to acquiesce to Vladimir Putin and sue for peace with Russia.
“It’s bad for us but it’s terrible news for [Ukraine],” said one senior European diplomat in Washington. “[Vance] is not our ally.”
Foreign diplomats and observers have frequently called Trump’s actual policies a “black box”, saying that was impossible to know for certain what the unpredictable leader would do when in power.
Some have soothed themselves by suggesting that names tipped for top positions, such as former national security adviser Robert O’Brien, would maintain a foreign policy status quo while Trump focuses on domestic affairs.
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Trump sees former ‘Never Trumper’ JD Vance as a way to expand his base, insiders say
Donald Trump and his campaign see his running mate, the Ohio senator JD Vance, as a way to expand Trump’s voter base, according to sources familiar with the matter, intending to lean into Vance’s previous criticisms of Trump to convince voters who dislike both 2024 candidates to back the former president.
In the years before Vance ran for the US Senate, he repeatedly criticized Trump and his presidency in interviews where he made clear he never liked the former president and considered him “cultural heroin” and in private conversations, where he suggested Trump was “America’s Hitler”.
But the criticisms, which once angered Trump, are now being seen by the Trump campaign as a unique asset that could resonate with voters who could be in a similar position: people who have previously found Trump unsavory but might prefer him to Biden, the sources said.
The Trump campaign has suggested that they want Vance to lean in to the fact that he was previously a so-called “Never Trumper”, with the hope that it could give independent and uncommitted voters a path towards supporting the former president in November.
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Donald Trump's running mate JD Vance to take center stage on Republican convention's third night
Good evening, US politics blog readers, and thanks for joining us as we cover the third night of the Republican national convention in Milwaukee. Dubbed “Make America Strong Once Again”, tonight’s session will center on foreign policy, and the marquee event comes around 9.30pm CT, when Ohio senator JD Vance will address the convention for the first time since Donald Trump named him his running mate on Monday. We’ll hear from plenty of other prominent Republicans before Vance takes the stage, including Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor, who was on the shortlist to be Trump’s vice-presidential pick, Greg Abbott, the Texas governor the Florida congressman Matt Gaetz and the former House speaker Newt Gingrich.
The convention is scheduled to begin at 5.45pm CT. Here are a few things we’ll be looking out for tonight:
How will JD Vance introduce himself to America? While Ohio voters and people who read his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy know who he is, an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released today found, “Most of the public does not know enough about … Vance to have an opinion”.
What will Republicans say about their policies towards Ukraine and Israel, the two major conflicts the United States is involved in? The GOP has grown increasingly hostile towards military aid to Ukraine, and European diplomats fear Vance’s ascension is a bad sign for future assistance. Meanwhile, the Republicans have been steadfast in their support of Israel’s invasion of Gaza, and attacked Joe Biden for not doing enough to support America’s top ally in the Middle East. We’ll see what Vance and other speakers have to say about these two wars.
Will the convention speakers touch on Trump’s most divisive beliefs, such as that the 2020 election was stolen, or that the former president’s enemies should be prosecuted? Or will they go along with the reported wishes of the Trump campaign and tone down their rhetoric in favor of a message of unity?
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