At times, the speech was drowned out by the cheering crowds in the arena of the Republican National Convention. “If he gives it, I will not accept it, just so you understand”.
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Bill Schneider, a political analyst who reviewed an advance text of Trump’s speech, said it was “probably the most breathtakingly angry speech” he had heard from a major party presidential candidate. “I am your voice”.
In his speech, televised to tens of millions of Americans watching the party’s quadrennial pageant at home, Mr Trump said that the country was facing “a moment of crisis”, with attacks on police and “terrorism in our cities” threatening “our very way of life”. Trump emphasized his status as a political outsider – a familiar theme of his campaign – and promised that he would not repeat the mistakes made by the incumbent political establishment.
But after a week of hearing speeches from top GOP brass and hobnobbing with fellow party members from across the country, he has come up with a justification for how he’ll vote in November.
Ivanka Trump told the audience of the RNC last night that her father was champion of women’s rights, saying, “As President, my father will change the labor laws that were put into place at a time when women were not a significant portion of the workforce”.
“We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities”, he said, renewing one of his controversial pledges to some of the loudest rounds of applause of the night. “We will build the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports and railways of tomorrow”, Trump said.
The speech was especially jarring coming after remarks by Ivanka Trump, who presented an upbeat spin on her father’s agenda that bore little resemblance to his own speeches and rallies.
In the arena, there was some fidgeting in the gallery – the Trump supporters behind me chatted among themselves for much of it – but the delegates didn’t lose their sense of enthusiasm.
“When you have my father in your corner, you will never again have to worry about being let down”, Ivanka Trump told the American people in her speech. “Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead”.
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 he also strode in the path of other Republicans, chiefly Richard Nixon, in casting himself as a president who would clamp down on an out-of-control society and blaming “elites” for spurning common Americans.
In an age of disbelief, many of you might wonder why this is worth mentioning.
“An attack on law enforcement is an attack on all Americans”, Trump said.
Another panelist who came in supporting Bernie Sanders is now going Trump. “My message is that things have to change – and they have to change right now”.
If the situation at home was bad, Trump insisted, then the global situation was cataclysmic, with the blame resting largely on his opponent’s four-year tenure at the State Department.
Clinton senior adviser John Podesta dismissed the speech as painting “a dark picture of an America in decline” and called it a reminder that Trump “is temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified to be president of the United States”.
The New York businessman, who has never held elected office, filled his speech with some of the bravado he used to win the Republican nomination over 16 rivals.
Others thought differently. Congressman Trent Franks from Arizona, on the convention floor, standing near his delegation, described the speech as “the best he has ever done”. “I think she’s done very, very well”.
The spectre of Hillary Clinton hung over the entire convention – she was a kind of bogeyman, and every speaker seemed to think it their duty to call her out.
“Policies that allow women with children to thrive should not be novelties, they should be the norm”, Ivanka Trump said last night.
Kaine, 58, appeared to be the favorite for her choice, according to two Democrats, who both cautioned that Clinton has not made a decision and could change direction. Dole’s presence reinforced Mr. Trump’s contention that he represents a fresh and bold start.
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Green said there was a focus on so-called “valence issues” that most people support – such as crime, employment, respect for America and trade deficits – “as opposed to ideological issues like regulation and spending”.
