Minnesota’s 38 delegates to the Republican National Convention are in Cleveland for Monday night’s opening session. Many party leaders and rising stars have steered clear of Cleveland, wary of being linked to the nominee.
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Police broke up scuffles between groups of demonstrators a few blocks from the Republican National Convention as crowds in the hundreds gathered Tuesday afternoon.
A video posted online shows “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert taking over the microphone on stage in Cleveland in a “Hunger Games” themed prank at the site of the Republican National Convention, which begins Monday.
“If you want someone to fight for you and your country, I can assure you, he is the guy”, Mrs. Trump told delegates in her highest profile appearance of the presidential campaign.
The Trump campaign on Tuesday dismissed criticism that Melania Trump directly lifted two passages almost word-for-word from the speech that first lady Michelle Obama delivered in 2008 at the Democratic National Convention, calling the complaints “just absurd”.
Herman Cain said the liberal media is using the narrative that Melania Trump plagiarized her convention speech to distract voters from the real issues at hand. The statement didn’t mention Mrs. Obama.
A rough-and-tumble first day of the Republican National Convention ended on a softer note Monday, as Donald Trump’s wife, Melania, offered a loving defense of her husband. About 600 Cleveland officers were assigned to convention security duty along with thousands of officers from other agencies.
Trump is scheduled to arrive in the city on Monday, but is unlikely to address the convention which would have a theme beginning with “Make America Safe Again”. On Monday, Clinton, 68, used an address to a largely black audience to cast Trump as someone who would divide the country along racial, ethnic and religious lines.
“This is a fixed convention”, shouted Diana Shores, an anti-Trump delegate from Virginia. Her husband made a brief, but showy entrance, into the convention call to introduce her, emerging from shadows and declaring to cheers, “We’re going to win, we’re going to win so big”.
As the convention opened Monday, the Cleveland arena resembled the convention-floor battles of old as aggrieved anti-Trump Republicans protested the adoption by voice vote of rules aimed at quashing an already flailing effort to deny him the prize. Practically drowning them out were chants of “USA, USA” by Trump supporters and party loyalists.
Trump hoped the chaos would be little more than a footnote. Despite persistent party divisions, his campaign is confident Republicans will come together behind their shared disdain for Clinton.
The request came as the deadly truck attack in France and the ambush killings of five police officers earlier this month in Dallas and three more in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, over the weekend heightened fears of bloodshed in Cleveland.
Trump would gain the nomination at a time of crisis and tumult at home and overseas, underscored Sunday by the deadly shooting of three police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
This week will belong to Trump – his chance to stand at the pinnacle of American politics in a triumph that few could have imagined when the NY billionaire entered the race a year ago.
Democrat Hillary Clinton pounced on the tumult, saying the Republican gathering had so far been “surreal”, comparing it to the classic fantasy film “Wizard of Oz”. “Her judgment and character are not suited to be sitting in the most powerful office in the world”, said Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. Ernst is one of the Republican Party’s rising stars, but the speaking schedule had her appearing late in the night before a almost empty hall.
Trump has been vague about how he would put the nation on a different course, offering virtually no details of his policy prescriptions despite repeated vows to be tough.
Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, said disruptions by protesters could work to the candidate’s political advantage.
The line-up of speakers and no-shows for the four-night convention was a visual representation of Trump’s struggles to unify Republicans.
On Sunday, the president of the police union asking Ohio Governor John Kasich to suspend the law allowing gun owners to carry firearms in plain sight. Conventions are often derided as four-day infomercials, but they serve an important goal – getting an entire political party fired up behind the nominee.
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Yet the delegate rebellion is likely to underline how divisive Trump has been.
