If “unity” has been the overarching theme of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Tuesday’s speakers surely showed it — not necessarily unity in terms of reaching across the aisle, with Republican speakers hammering Democrats and President Joe Biden on safety and immigration, but unity in terms of rallying around their nominee, Donald Trump.
In some of the most anticipated speeches of the convention so far, former rivals for the Republican presidential nomination lined up behind Trump in his effort to win back the White House in November.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Trump’s last challenger standing in the 2024 Republican primary, initially did not endorse the former president when she ended her campaign in March.
On Tuesday, she began her remarks by saying that Trump — who traded numerous barbs with his former U.N. ambassador on the campaign trail — invited her to speak at the campaign in the name of “unity,” and she accepted his “gracious invitation.”
“I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period,” she continued.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, once seen as competitive with Trump in the primary before his campaign failed to garner much traction, offered the former president raves and painted his rival, President Joe Biden, as a failure.
“America cannot afford four more years of a 'Weekend at Bernie's' presidency,” the Florida governor said, referring to the classic 1989 film.
Tuesday’s remarks also featured a slew of Senate hopefuls introducing themselves to the Republican Party in their hopes of reclaiming the upper chamber of Congress from Democrats, while the leadership of the narrow House Republican majority extolled Trump’s virtues and laid out their hopes for what they can do if they hold — or expand — their control of the chamber.
The theme of Tuesday was "Make America Safe Once Again," with speakrs taking aim at the Biden administration's policies on crime and immigration, with some of them making unfounded claims to hammer home their points.
Here are some takeaways from night two of the RNC:
Donald Trump's former rivals for the Republican presidential nomination took their turns at the lectern on Tuesday in a call for "unity" as Trump looked on.
"I'll start by making one thing perfectly clear: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement period," Haley said, noting that Trump asked her to speak "in the name of unity."
"We should acknowledge that there are some Americans who don't agree with Donald Trump 100% of the time. I happen to know some of them," she said. "My message to them is simple: You don't have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him."
It was Haley's first actual endorsement of Trump since she suspended her campaign in after Super Tuesday in March. Previously on the campaign trail, she called Trump a "disaster" and said his comments mocking her husband's military service showed "a pattern of chaos."
"I'm not afraid to say the hard truth out loud. I feel no need to kiss the ring," she said in February.
On Tuesday, she said that Trump's foreign policy was a source of great strength: that Russia opted against foreign invasions because it knew Trump "was tough," that Iran was "too weak to start any wars," and that immigration was not an issue under Trump.
In a statement after Haley's speech, Biden's campaign -- which has been working to woo Haley voters disenchanted with the former president and the current direction of the Republican Party -- said that "there's a home" in the Democratic president's coalition for her supporters.
"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," said Austin Weatherford, formerly Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger's chief of staff and currently the Biden-Harris campaign's National Republican Engagement Director. "That’s why millions of Republicans cast their votes in protest of Donald Trump and his attacks on our institutions, our nation’s allies, and civility."
"Those millions of voters across the country deserve a president who shares their commitment to bipartisanship, to America’s standing on the global stage, and who respects our nation’s brave men and women in uniform," Weatherford continued. "There’s a home for every single one of these voters in the coalition President Biden is building of patriotic Americans who will always put country over party."
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who also previously mocked Donald Trump for his repeated gaffes on the campaign trail, also returned to the dais to praise Republican ideals, if not the Republican nominee.
Electing Donald Trump, he said, would give the Republican Party a chance to enact its platform across the country — universal school choice, low taxes, reduced debt, voter photo ID at the polls and opposing immigration "that stands apart or in contrast to our American values."
He also took to attacking Biden's mental acuity and age.
"Our enemies do not confine their designs to between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. 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," DeSantis said, repeatedly drumming against Biden's age and fitness for the presidency.
On the campaign trail, DeSantis struck that drum against Trump, repeatedly saying that he's too old for the White House. On CNN's "State of the Union" in Nov. 2023, DeSantis said that Trump is "not the same guy" as he was in 2015 and 2016.
"Now he's wedded to the teleprompter. He's not willing to debate and he's running on many of the same things he promised to do in 2016 and didn't deliver," DeSantis said. Trump, indeed, was not willing to debate his GOP opponents, and his debate against Biden was a victory by virtue of Biden's awful showing.
"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 said.
DeSantis and Haley weren't the only former 2024 rivals to speak on Tuesday.
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who rose to prominence for his energetic, combative debate style during the 2024 Republican presidential primaries, got a warm welcome from the crowd in Milwaukee as he engaged them in a call and response.
"If you want to seal the border, vote Trump," he said. "If you want to restore law and order in this country, vote Trump," this time with members of the crowd joining him on those last two words.
"If you want to reignite the economy in this country, vote Trump," Ramaswamy continued, with the "vote Trump" getting louder and louder each time he said it. "If you want to revive national pride in this country, vote Trump. If you want to make America great again, vote Trump."
"There is one more reason I'm going to ask you to 'vote Trump,' and it's the most important one," he added. "It's the one the media won't talk about, but it's the truth: Donald Trump is the president who will actually unite this country, not through empty words, but through action."
Ramaswamy, 38, also sought to make the case that Gen-Z "is gonna be the generation that actually saves this country," leaning into culture war topics on college campuses.
"You want to be a rebel? You want to be a hippie? You want to stick it to the man? Show up on your college campus and try calling yourself a conservative," he said, to cheers. "Say you want to get married, have kids -- teach them to believe in God and pledge allegiance to their country."
Also on the docket Tuesday was businessman Perry Johnson, who mounted a longshot bid for the nomination.
Johnson asked attendees if they are "better off today than they were four years ago?" to which the crowd shouted back "No!" (Four years ago was July 2020, while the country was in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic.)
The early portion of the second night of the Republican National Convention was devoted to a slew of downballot Republicans hoping to flip the United States Senate back to GOP control.
From familiar figures like Arizona's Kari Lake and former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers to relative political newcomers like Wisconsin's Eric Hovde and Ohio's Bernie Moreno, each introduced themselves and their backgrounds to the Milwaukee audience and made the case for why they'll be the best person to carry out Donald Trump's agenda in their states.
Lake, no stranger to the RNC crowd, needed no introduction, hailing the "MAGA energy" in the building, which she called "electric."
The Arizona Republican, who lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs two years ago in the race for governor of the Grand Canyon State, used her remarks to attack members of the news media gathered to cover the convention.
As she welcomed attendees to the gathering in Milwaukee, she paused, before adding: "Wait a minute, I don’t welcome everyone," pointing out members of the "fake news" with an outstretched finger around the arena, to boos from the crowd.
"You guys up there in the fake news have worn out your welcome,” Lake, a former television news anchor herself, warned the gathered journalists and members of the media.
“You have spent the last 8 years lying about Donald Trump and his supporters ... they lie about everything," she said, accusing news outlets of falsehoods about President Joe Biden's health, the economy, Hunter Biden's laptop, and the state of the U.S.-Mexico border. "I could go on and on and on."
"The really good news is that every day, more and more people are turning off the fake news," she said, before turning her attacks on Biden and her opponent, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, saying they're both "full of bad ideas" and blamed them for the opioid crisis.
Businessman Eric Hovde, running to represent Wisconsin in the U.S. Senate against Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, made sure to emphasize in his speech to the RNC his deep family ties to the Badger State.
Those comments come, of course, as Democrats seek to paint him as a carpetbagger from California, particularly noting his $7 million estate in Laguna Beach.
"I'm proud to be running for the United States Senate from the great state of Wisconsin, where my family has lived for more than 100 years," he told the crowd in Milwaukee.
Another businessman, Bernie Moreno, running against Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio, came to the stage to chants of “Bernie! Bernie!”
He talked about his family’s background, from his birth in Bogota, Colombia, to their move to the United States when he was young.
And, he emphasized, they did so “legally.”
“The American dream that I lived is under attack from Joe Biden and his enablers in the Senate, like Sherrod Brown,” he said, adding that Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic-led Senate “put the welfare of illegals ahead of our own citizens.”
“They’ll destroy America if we don’t stop them,” Moreno said, far from the only speaker to seemingly abandon the stated goal of the convention of unity.
He also mocked Brown for how often he votes for Biden’s policies in the Senate, saying that he does so “virtually 100% of the time … I don’t even agree with my wife 100% of the time.”
Other speakers included West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, hoping to replace the retiring Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who brought up on stage his beloved English bulldog Babydog, who sat next to his podium in a black chair.
Babydog became a senation in West Virginia and across the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic, joining Justice in his coronavirus-era briefings. He even started a "Do it for Babydog" lottery, in which he gave away a variety of prizes, including thousands of dollars in scholarships, lifetime hunting and fishing licenses and even a brand-new truck.
"You didn't really expect that, did you?" he said. "She makes us smile and she loves everybody, and how could a message be any more simpler than just that."
Montana GOP hopeful Tim Sheehy, who is challenging Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, introduced himself, emphasizing the pronunciation of his name, "Shee-hee."
"Those are also my pronouns," he said, to laughter from the crowd, poking fun at those who introduce themselves using preferred pronouns. "I've been a he-she for 38 years, and I can promise you, going to elementary school in the '80s was not fun."
"I fight fires for a living," Sheehy, an ex-Navy SEAL and aerial firefighter, told the crowd. "The world is on fire under Joe Biden."
Hung Cao, a retired U.S. Navy captain born in Vietnam, played to the crowd by saying that he's running against "Hillary’s running mate," Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, who he called "a weak man in a dangerous world."
In addressing immigration, Cao said that he loves the country so much "that I wrote a blank check up to and including my life."
"Let me be very clear to everyone who comes here: Don't ask for the American dream if you're not willing to obey the American laws and embrace the American culture," Cao said, to chants of "U-S-A" from the crowd.
Not to be outdone by the hopefuls looking to reclaim the upper chamber, the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives sought to tout their accomplishments in the nearly two years since they narrowly won back control in the 2022 midterms.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., himself injured in a politically motivated shooting at a Congressional Baseball Game practice in 2017, referenced the assassination attempt on Trump over the weekend.
“Many of you know I was the survivor of a politically motivated shooting in 2017," he said. "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: 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," Scalise added.
Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, the House majority whip, claimed that House Republicans “have held the line” against the Biden administration “in spite having one of the smallest majorities in history.”
Data shows that the current Congress is the least functional in U.S. history; Congress passed just 27 bills that were signed into law last year, and the infighting among House Republicans generated numerous headlines, from mutinies freezing the House floor, failed procedural votes and the historic ouster of Kevin McCarthy as speaker last year, which paralyzed the chamber for weeks as they tried to elect a new leader.
New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, a staunch Trump ally and the House Republican Conference Chair, accused “corrupt Democrat prosecutors and judges” of waging “illegal and unconstitutional lawfare” against Donald Trump, blaming Joe Biden for the criminal prosecutions against the ex-president. (There is no evidence Biden is involved in any of the criminal cases against Trump.)
“Around the world, the feckless and failed Joe Biden has caused chaos,” she continued, accusing him of “weakening our national security.”
Stefanik then went on to talk about the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, condemning the “vile antisemitism” on college campuses that arose in the wake of the fighting. She invoked the December 2023 congressional hearing during which she grilled university professors on their response to antisemitism on their campuses, which led to the ouster of the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania and brought the New York Republican widespread attention.
“Who saw that congressional hearing with the presidents of so-called elite universities,” said Stefanik, herself a Harvard graduate. “No, wait, they are former presidents!”
“President Trump will bring back moral leadership to the White House, condemning antisemitism, and standing strong with Israel and the Jewish people,” she pledged.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Trump devotee who rose to power after McCarthy’s ouster last year, called Republicans “the law and order team,” saying that the principle of the “rule of law” is “in serious jeopardy today.”
“As President Trump raised his fist and gave a rally cry on Saturday, now is our time to fight and we will,” the Louisiana Republican said, invoking the assassination attempt against the ex-president. The crowd responded with chants of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” echoing Trump.
Johnson said that “the progressive left” has “disdain” for the core principles of conservatism, which he said include “rule of law,” “individual freedom,” “peace through strength” and “fiscal responsibility,” and charged that Democrats “want to tear down those foundations and remold us into a borderless, lawless, marxist, socialist utopia.”
“We’re here to say, not on our watch,” later adding: “The American people will reject the party of self-destruction.
As night two of the RNC was kicking off in Milwaukee on Tuesday, President Joe Biden was delivering a fiery speech in front of the NAACP National Convention in the battleground state of Nevada. He sought to make a forceful pitch to Black voters while sharply criticizing his Republican rival’s record on supporting such communities.
The president specifically honed into former President Donald Trump’s use of the term “Black jobs” when talking about immigration during last month’s debate and his rally the next day, telling the crowd it says “a lot about the man and about his character.”
“Folks, I know what a ‘Black job’ is, it's the vice president of the United States,” Biden said at the convention in in Las Vegas, referring to his vice president, Kamala Harris, the first Black person to hold the role, as the audience roared.
He also touted his service as vice president to Barack Obama, America’s first Black president.
Biden also railed against Trump for attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, spearheading a tax cut that he said “overwhelmingly” benefited the super wealthy and “lying like hell” about the unemployment rate among Black Americans under his administration.
“Black unemployment hit a record low under Biden-Harris administration,” he said. The unemployment rate among such communities reached a record low of 4.8% last year, during Biden’s time in office, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
The president used Tuesday’s speech to tout his own record, pointing to his investments in HBCUs and student loan forgiveness, while laying out his goals to support Black communities during his first 11 days of a second term: passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the Freedom to Vote Act, restore Roe v. Wade, raising the federal minimum wage, expand social security and Medicare by raising taxes on the wealthy and more.
The stop in Las Vegas also served as a chance for Biden to lay out a new proposal to require major landlords to cap annual rent increases at 5% – something that would require approval from Congress.
Biden’s trip to battleground Nevada is a part of his team’s effort to counter the RNC in Milwaukee. In a memo, the Biden campaign’s Nevada Communications Director referred to the state as a “critical piece” for the president's team in November.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., widely viewed as a running mate finalist for Donald Trump before Ohio Sen. JD Vance was picked, said the former president "has not just transformed" the Republican Party, "he has inspired a movement" for everyday Americans.
"These are the Americans who wear the red hats and wait for hours under a blazing sun, to hear Trump speak. What they want, what they asked for, is not hateful or extreme," Rubio said.
Rubio, long-believed to have been a finalist in the running for the Republican vice presidential nomination, has cultivated a relationship with Trump in the years since the two sparred on GOP debate stages in 2016. He's frequently stood as a surrogate for the former president, deflecting comments like Trump's assertion that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country."
Rubio spoke of Americans as "descendants of ordinary people who achieved extraordinary things," including immigrants, who "left behind all they had and knew, because they could not be or achieve God's purpose for their life in the nation of their birth. That is an American."
That, Rubio said, what it means for the Republican Party to put "America First."
The U.S., he charged, has been injured "by the bad decisions of weak leaders."
"But now, though bloodied by our wounds, we must stand up and we must fight," Rubio said. "Fight not with violence or destruction, but with our voices and our votes."
Arkansas Governor and former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered her memories of working with former President Donald Trump on Tuesday as a credit to his humanity — before insisting that Democrats are only interested in gaining power for themselves.
She then insisted that Republican governors — like herself — have been wielding their executive power to handle matters she feels the federal government is ignoring.
"For the last four years, Republican governors have been leading that fight and doing what Joe Biden refuses to do," Sanders said. "We've deployed the National Guard to the border, we've cracked down on crime and drugs, we cut taxes to give hardworking Americans a break from Biden inflation, and we empower parents with universal school choice across the country."
Further, she said, Trump was the first president in her lifetime to take a "hard line against China ... and I'm proud to be the first and only governor in the country to kick communist China off our farmland and out of my state," she added.
Donald Trump, she said, was spared from an assassin's bullet by divine intervention, because "God is not finished with him yet. And he most certainly is not finished with America yet either."
