Ivanka Trump will speak before her father and is considered to have wide appeal among Republican women.
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“Let’s defeat her in November”, Trump thundered, as his supporters repeatedly shouted back, “Lock her up!”
But inside the halls, the convention itself has been anything but uneventful, with public spasms of disunity – and the embarrassing revelation that a prime-time speech by Trump’s wife Melania had plagiarized remarks made by First Lady Michelle Obama.
The event was boycotted by many big-name establishment Republicans, including 2012 nominee Mitt Romney and members of the Bush family that gave the party its last two presidents. “Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo”. He will also criticise her willingness to bring in thousands of refugees from the Syrian civil war.
In a speech in the USA city of Cleveland on Thursday, Trump promised to “put America first”, while tearing into his presumptive Democratic party rival Hillary Clinton, for what he called a legacy of “death, destruction, terrorism and weakness”.
But Bennett also said the speech “didn’t grip”, saying that former House speaker Newt Gingrich, former NY mayor Rudolph Giuliani and radio talk show host Laura Ingraham delivered better convention speeches.
Trump will tell Americans he will speedily address the violence that has dominated headlines, such as the shooting deaths of five Dallas police officers earlier this month.
“Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation”, Trump said.
“My father not only has the strength and ability to be the next president, but also the kindness and compassion that will enable him to be the leader that this country needs”, she claimed.
“All right, that was pretty well-orchestrated”, he said.
“So to every parent who dreams for their child, and every child who dreams for their future, I say these words to you tonight: I’m with you, I will fight for you, and I will win for you”, Trump plans to proclaim Thursday night in his acceptance speech at the GOP convention, according to excerpts released by the campaign. Rep. Paul Ryan accused the Democrats of stoking racial resentment – sounding blissfully unaware of what his own party’s nominee has been saying – and Giuliani said, “There is no next election”.
As an outsider, Trump lacks the kind of donor network that is typical of major party candidates and only recently has begun to ramp up his fundraising.
Cruz clarified on Thursday that he would not be voting for Clinton.
He said he was not in the habit of supporting people who attacked his wife and his father, and only said he would not be voting for Mrs Clinton. “I wrote them down and later included some of the phrasing in the draft that ultimately became the final speech”, she said.
As president, Trump said he would defend allies against Russian aggression only after first ensuring they had met their financial commitments. Trump’s advisers say they saw Cruz’s remarks in advance and had not expected an endorsement.
Trump, a NY businessman who has never held elective office, needs a strong performance to improve his chances of getting a boost in opinion polls as Democrats prepare for their own, more scripted convention next week in Philadelphia. “And now I am seeing him fight for his country”, Trump, 34, said.
One founder told a panel discussion at the convention that the bitter, backward-looking message was turning off a younger, more ethnically-diverse generation that should be voting Republican because it shares some of its entrepreneurial and free-market values. “Instead, we must choose to Believe In America.” he said. “Who would’ve believed that when we started this journey on June 16th last year, we, and I say we, because we are a team, would have received nearly 14 million votes, the most in the history of the republican party and that the republican party would get 60% more votes than it received 8 years ago, who would’ve believed this, who would’ve believed this”, Trump said. “But Hillary Clinton’s legacy does not have to be America’s legacy”, he said. She is set to be formally nominated at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia next week.
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Ivanka tried to play up the latter message, telling a story about the decision-making process behind her father’s run for the White House that would make Horatio Alger – or James Michener, as the previous speaker suggested – proud. He also identified Trump’s shortcoming even among white voters: “He’s got to fix his college-educated women problem”. “Look, we just went through a bad deal with Iran, a bad deal with Cuba”.
