When former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, formerly Donald Trump’s most formidable presidential primary opponent, ascended the Republican National Convention stage Tuesday night, she sounded a conciliatory note with her onetime rival.
“There are some Americans who don’t agree with Donald Trump 100% of the time,” she said. “I want to speak to them tonight. My message to them is simple: You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% 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.”
But Haley’s genteel remarks were the exception, rather than the rule, on the second night of the RNC in Milwaukee.
In a number of other speeches, GOP officials, figureheads, and handpicked “everyday Americans,” the themes went darker. Many speakers gave ominous, over-the-top descriptions of urban crime, border chaos and election shenanigans now occurring in the U.S. — second only to predictions of the Mad Max-type lawlessness that would ensue in the event that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris secure a second term.
It was a pivot from Trump’s declared intention to soften his message and promote a theme of unity after surviving an assassination attempt just a few days before. But that promised shift in rhetoric didn’t last .
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, now the GOP Senate nominee for his state, summed up the theme in a speech alongside his bulldog , Babydog.
“The bottom line for why we’re here, the bottom line to every single thing going on in this great country today, is one thing: We become totally unhinged if Donald Trump is not elected in November,” he declared.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is up for reelection this November, set out to detail the kind of supposed dystopia that Biden has enabled.
“Never before has an election mattered so much,” he warned. “We are facing an invasion on our southern border — not figuratively. A literal invasion.”
Channeling Trump, Cruz said the numbers of unauthorized border crossings “do not show us the true price our country is paying.”
Keep your eyes open, because these people want to cheat, and they do cheat, and frankly, it's the only thing they do. Former President Donald Trump
Cruz chose to highlight a number of tragic cases in his remarks, including the Aug. 2023 rape and murder of Rachel Morin , a suburban Maryland mother of five.
Morin’s brother, Michael Morin, spoke later on in the evening — one in a series of five speakers who recounted about their experiences with crime, drugs and unauthorized immigration.
Speaking about his sister’s alleged murderer, who is undocumented, Morin said the Biden White House ”opened our borders to him and others like him, empowering them to victimize the innocent. Yet, to this day, we have not heard from Joe Biden or Kamala Harris.”
Madeline Brame, a Black New York City resident, shared how she believes she was wronged by a progressive prosecutor. Brame’s son, Afghanistan War veteran Hason Correa, was beaten and stabbed to death during a scuffle in Harlem in 2018.
“He received enemy fire from the Taliban only to be murdered with a knife on the streets of New York City,” she said.
Her son’s assailants were convicted and some were given long prison sentences, but Brame faulted the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for downgrading some of the charges against the defendants.
While Bragg is generally seen as more progressive than Biden, she suggested the two men are birds of a feather. Bragg, who also spearheaded Trump’s successful Manhattan prosecution for falsifying business records, is a particular bugaboo for Trump supporters, and the crowd booed heartily at the mention of his name.
“The Democratic Party that poor minorities have been loyal to for decades, including myself … they betrayed us. They stabbed us in the back,” Brame said to cheers from the crowd. “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who claim to represent us, have abandoned us. They neglected the poor minority communities across America.”
Finally, though Trump is not set to speak from the podium until Thursday evening, he delivered pre-taped remarks encouraging viewers to make a plan to vote. Even in such a brief, mundane address (and one in which Trump pretended he had never opposed mail-in voting ), the former president managed to fan baseless fears of Democratic election fraud.
“Whether you vote early, absentee, by mail or in person, we are going to protect the vote,” Trump said. “That’s the most important thing we have to do, is protect the vote. Keep your eyes open, because these people want to cheat, and they do cheat, and frankly, it’s the only thing they do.”
Turning out in sufficient numbers to win by a large margin is another way to prevent Democratic cheating, Trump said.
“Many Republicans like to vote on Election Day, and we must swamp the radical Democrats with massive turnout on Tuesday, Nov. 5. The way you win is to swamp them,” he said.
“If we swamp them, they can’t cheat. It just doesn’t work out. But if you can’t make it, you need to make a plan, register and vote any way possible.”
Arthur Delaney and Lilli Petersen contributed reporting.
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