Donald Trump’s wife Melania Trump is expected to speak later in the day, along with senators and representatives.
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Manafort, a longtime Republican operative, has emerged as a controversial and pivotal figure in Trump’s Cleveland operations.
The judge earlier rejected his request for permission to go to Cleveland for the convention, which runs Monday to Thursday. “But campaign officials undermined their own effort Monday by picking a fight with Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is not attending the convention and has yet to endorse Trump”.
The turmoil threatened efforts by the Trump campaign to show the party had united behind him and distracted from the day’s theme of “Make America Safe Again”.
Hundreds of Donald Trump supporters and foes had held dueling rallies a half-mile apart.
In the first lady’s 2008 speech, she said, “Barack and I set out to build lives guided by these values and to pass them onto the next generation, because we want our children – and all children in this nation – to know that the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work hard for them”.
Her roughly 15-minute speech was a bid to soften the image of the NY businessman-turned-politician, who has been accused of bigotry and callousness for his calls to suspend Muslim immigration and deport millions of undocumented immigrants if elected.
“He is tough when he has to be, but he is also kind and fair and caring”, she said. He introduced his wife Melania Trump, who delivered an address to the convention.
Trump “plays coy with white supremacists, Donald Trump insults Mexican immigrants”, she told the NAACP, America’s largest black civil rights organization, at a meeting in Cincinnati.
Trump argues that Clinton should be jailed for using a private email server to handle sensitive government documents while serving as secretary of state, something the Federal Bureau of Investigation said was careless but not criminal.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani drew cheers from the crowd as he bemoaned racial divisions, in an impassioned speech.
That left Trump with an eclectic array of validators, including Scott Baio and Willie Robertson, star of “Duck Dynasty”, who took the stage with an American flag bandanna wrapped around his head.
Republican Party leaders approved rules for the convention and rejected demands from anti-Trump delegates for a state-by-state roll call vote during the afternoon session.
After the roll call, Clinton tweeted a fundraising appeal: “Donald Trump just became the Republican nominee”.
Republican aides said delegates from Maine, Minnesota and the District of Columbia had removed their names from petitions demanding a roll call – a practice that was eased by a rules change when the committee met last week.
Uniting the crowd is scorn for Clinton. Practically drowning them out were chants of “USA, USA” by Trump supporters and party loyalists. Campaign manager Paul Manafort called Kasich “petulant” and said the governor was “embarrassing” his party in his home state. When House Speaker Paul Ryan spoke to Wisconsin delegates Monday morning, he made no mention of Trump in his remarks.
Trump hoped the chaos would be little more than a footnote in the four-day convention. A few Trump backers openly carried guns as allowed under OH law.
He says even protesters complaining about police tactics have been respectful.
The Cleveland police chief says 300 officers from more than a dozen law enforcement agencies are being deployed on bicycles in downtown Cleveland during the Republican National Convention. About 600 Cleveland officers were assigned to convention security duty along with thousands of officers from other agencies.
The party also adopted a platform that Christian conservatives are cheering as the most conservative statement of party policy principles in recent memory.
The party’s platform represents the GOP’s formal policy positions for the next four years. The document serves as guidance for Republican leaders across the nation, but is not binding. Vice presidential pick Mike Pence, the IN governor who left Indianapolis for Cleveland on Monday, is to speak Wednesday.
The focus shifts Tuesday to jobs.
The glitter and glitz of being Donald Trump’s wife is a far cry from the sleepy southeastern industrial town of Sevnica, where she was born in 1970 as Melanija Knavs. Heading into the four-day political jamboree at the tightly secured arena in Cleveland, he had tried to assuage conservative critics and bring the party together by naming Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate.
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