On Wednesday night, Trump’s last major rival during the bitterly fought Republican primary battle, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, was booed off the stage for refusing to endorse Trump and urging Republicans instead to “vote your conscience”.
Advertisement
Throughout this week’s convention, pro-gay Republicans hailing Trump as the most supportive nominee in the party’s history have had their elation tempered by the stark realization that their party is still pushing a very different message. “These are the forgotten men and women of our country”.
The trouble: Trump hasn’t really even begun that task yet.
“You can not make comments about Muslims and about the handicapped and about women and not expect that at some point that pledge gets thinner and thinner until it breaks”, said former Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery. “We stood for principles”, Wright said, adding that he “disagrees with anybody who says we’ve been an embarrassment or that somehow we’ve said or done something to makes Utah look bad”.
His team hopes to close the convention on a more traditional note, with the businessman delivering a scripted speech to the convention crowd and millions of Americans watching on television.
Trump paused, then went off-script: “And I have to say, as a Republican, it is so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said”. “He has to build and broaden his base”.
Trump and his vice-presidential pick, IN governor Mike Pence, are now squarely focused on their general election campaign against Clinton.
Trump is to be introduced by his eldest daughter, Ivanka, one of his most polished and effective advocates.
Trump has not addressed childcare costs or the gender pay gap so far in his 2016 presidential bid. Two nights later, Trump delegates booed and cat-called Cruz when the Texas senator pointedly refused to endorse the party nominee during a prime-time speech. “Last night’s speech took it to a whole new level”.
“This has been such an incredible movement”, Trump told backers at a hotel in downtown Cleveland the morning after his acceptance speech closed the Republican National Convention.
The no-longer-presumptive presidential nominee also thanked running mate Mike Pence, saying the IN governor has helped him strengthen ties to the Republican Party.
But the Trump campaign believes that female voters are more closely aligned with Trump on national security issues and his approach to the economy than they are with Clinton – and they see an opportunity to win them over with his speech and in the campaign this fall.
“At the very moment when America is crying out for something new and different, the other party has answered with a stale agenda and the most predictable of names”, he said.
Trump, in a speech at the Republican National Convention scheduled for 10:15 p.m. EDT (0215 GMT on Friday), will tell Americans that he will speedily address the violence that has dominated headlines, such as the shooting deaths of five Dallas police officers earlier this month.
Between defining chants of “U.S.A” and “Trump, Trump, Trump” the mogul-turned-TV-star-turned-politico cast himself as the “law and order candidate” and vowed to champion “people who work hard but no longer have a voice”.
“When I was a kid, the great debate was about how to defeat the Soviet Union”, said Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and a Trump delegate.
Advertisement
Mr Trump, who will get the opportunity to rally the party when he formally accepts its nomination today, has meanwhile said that if he is elected president he may abandon a guarantee of protection to fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries.
