BALTIMORE — The penultimate night of the Republican National Convention, themed “America, Land of Heroes,” featured quite the location for Vice President Mike Pence’s keynote address — Fort McHenry, where Francis Scott Key wrote the poem “Defence of Fort M’Henry.” It would become one of the most famous songs on the planet, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The Republicans who spoke Wednesday used the night’s theme to defend law enforcement and decry calls to “defund the police” from the so-called “radical left,” describing “Democrat-run cities” as “overrun by violent mobs.”
Here are four takeaways from Night 3 of the RNC:
LAW AND ORDER
President Trump’s message of “law and order” was on full display on the third night of the RNC, set against the backdrop of the shooting of Jacob Blake and subsequent protests and demonstrations. Even so, no one addressed the incident until the night’s final speaker, Vice President Mike Pence.
“Let me be clear: the violence must stop – whether in Minneapolis, Portland, or Kenosha,” Pence said. “Too many heroes have died defending our freedoms to see Americans strike each other down. We will have law and order on the streets of America.”
Citing “violence and chaos in the streets of our major cities,” Pence said that while he and President Trump support Americans’ right to peacefully protest, “rioting and looting is not peaceful protest, tearing down statues is not free speech. Those who do so will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Lara Trump, who is married to the president’s son, Eric, called her father-in-law the “Law and Order President.”
“President Trump will keep America safe. President Trump will keep America prosperous. President Trump will keep America America,” she said.
Other speakers echoed the grim picture painted by speakers in the first two nights of the RNC when talking about the state of cities around the country.
“From Seattle and Portland to Washington and New York — Democrat-run cities across this country are being overrun by violent mobs,” South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said. “The violence is rampant. There’s looting, chaos, destruction, and murder.”
While praising what she called “the heroes of law enforcement and armed services,” Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn accused Democrats of trying to “cancel” them.
“As hard as Democrats try, they can’t cancel our heroes,” Blackburn said. “They can’t contest their bravery, and they can’t dismiss the powerful sense of service that lives deep in their souls. So they try to defund them — our military, our police, even ICE — to take away their tools to keep us safe.”
(It’s worth noting that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has said he does not support defunding the police.)
Former NFL player Burgess Owens, who is running for Congress in Utah, claimed that “mobs torch our cities while popular members of Congress promote the same socialism my father fought against in World War II.”
Michael “Mick” McHale, national president of the National Association of Police Organizations, put the electoral choice in stark terms.
“Your choices are the most pro-law enforcement president we’ve ever had or the most radical anti-police ticket in history,” he said.
WOMEN RUN THE SHOW
Karen Pence. Kristi Noem. Marsha Blackburn. Tera Myers. Kayleigh McEnany. Kellyanne Conway. Sister Dr. Deirdre Byrne. Elise Stefanik. Lara Trump. Joni Ernst.
Nearly half of the speakers on Wednesday night were women, with many of them extolling the president as a champion of women.
Kellyanne Conway said that “a woman in a leadership role can still seem novel — not so for President Trump.”
She went on to say that “President Trump helped me shatter a barrier in the world of politics by empowering me to manage his campaign to its successful conclusion.”
New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the youngest Republican woman ever elected to Congress, claimed that “more Republican women than ever are running for office this year” to support President Trump.
Though second lady Karen Pence did not make many references to the president, she celebrated the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
“Because of heroes like Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone, women today, like our daughters, Audrey and Charlotte, and future generations, will have their voices heard and their votes count,” she said, urging women to vote for “four more years” of Trump and Pence.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who spoke about her preventative mastectomy after testing positive for the BRCA2 genetic mutation, put it simply: “I want my daughter to grow up in Donald J. Trump’s America.”
KELLYANNE CONWAY’S FAREWELL ADDRESS
One of the longest-serving advisers to President Trump, Kellyanne Conway, bid a fond farewell to the American people Wednesday night before stepping away from her role to spend more time with her family.
She focused her speech on the work that she’s done with Trump, including becoming the first woman to run a successful presidential campaign.
“President Trump helped me shatter a barrier in the world of politics by empowering me to manage his campaign to its successful conclusion,” she said. “With the help of millions of Americans, our team defied the critics, questionable polls, and conventional wisdom — and we won.”
“There always will be people who have far more than us. Our responsibility is to focus on those who have far less than us,” Conway said, as she recalled how the president asked her to help coordinate the White House’s efforts to fight the drug crisis.
“He said, ‘This is personal, Kellyanne. So many lives have been ruined by addiction, and we’ll never even know it because people are ashamed to reach out for help, or they’re not sure who to turn to in their toughest hour.’”
“This is the man I know and the President we need,” Conway said as she ended her remarks. “He picks the toughest fights and tackles the most complex problems. He has stood by me, and he will stand up for you.”
MIKE PENCE ENDS THE NIGHT
While the U.S. vice president was the only person to mention the incident in Kenosha, Wisconsin, by name, he did so without mentioning the name Jacob Blake, and he used it as an opportunity to decry violence in cities across the country.
“Last week, Joe Biden didn’t say one word about the violence and chaos engulfing cities across this country,” Pence suggested.
“Let me be clear: the violence must stop – whether in Minneapolis, Portland, or Kenosha. Too many heroes have died defending our freedoms to see Americans strike each other down. We will have law and order on the streets of America.”
The VP’s fiery rhetoric in attacking Biden continued. “The hard truth is, you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America.”
He also alleged that Biden has been “a cheerleader for communist China,” supporting open borders, cutting funding to law enforcement, ending school choice, and endorsing “taxpayer funding of abortion right up to the moment of birth.”
A New York Times fact check found many of Pence’s claims about Biden to be misleading or false.
On the economy, Pence said that four years ago, he and President Trump inherited an “economy struggling to break out of the slowest recovery since the great depression” (an AP fact check called this a “highly misleading portrait”). He also said that “we built the greatest economy in the world” before “the coronavirus struck from China.”
Pence has been at the center of the U.S. government’s coronavirus response.
“Before the first case of the coronavirus spread within the United States, the president took unprecedented action and suspended all travel from China, the second-largest economy in the world. That action saved untold number of American lives.”
(Worth noting: President Trump did not ban all travel from China. A New York Times fact check marked this statement as false.)
Countering Biden’s statement at last week’s Democratic National Convention that “no miracle is coming” regarding the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pence, calling America a “nation of miracles,” said the U.S. is on track to have “the world’s first safe, effective coronavirus vaccine by the end of this year.”
Pence ended his speech by channeling the spirit of Fort McHenry, the site where Francis Scott Key wrote the poem that would become the country’s national anthem during the War of 1812: “My fellow Americans, we are going through a time of testing. But if you look through the fog of these challenging times, you will see — our flag is still there.”
He wrapped his remarks with a promise to re-elect the president, “and with President Donald Trump in the White House for four more years, and God’s help, we will make America great again, again.”