Ivanka also addressed the gender wage gap, a topic that Hillary Clinton has been championing in her campaign. But on that very day Trump gave an interview to the New York Times in which he questioned whether he would come to the defense of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies if they were attacked by Russian Federation, violating the fundamental tenet of NATO’s charter, which holds that an attack on one is an attack on all. The remarks, in an interview published Thursday with The New York Times, deviated from decades of US foreign policy doctrine and seemed to suggest he would put new conditions on the 67-year-old alliance’s bedrock principle of collective defense. Top Trump aide Paul Manafort said the senator would at least “suggest” he is backing the nominee.
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“Who would have believed”, a year ago, Trump asked, “we would have gotten more votes than any Republican nominee in history?” Another, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, has been a fierce Trump critic. Former GOP presidential contender Scott Walker executed the maneuver gracefully Wednesday night; Ted Cruz not so much.
It was supposed to be Indiana Gov. Mike Pence’s political coming-out party, but drama with Ted Cruz largely overshadowed his moment at the Republican National Convention.
“I hear it and I see it in the man I think will be the next president of the United States”, he said of Trump.
While Pence is expected to make the case that Clinton is unfit for the White House, officials said his speech will not be a full-throated takedown in the style of earlier speakers. He said Cruz did not honor the pledge that Republican primary candidates had made to support the eventual nominee.
When some delegates began to chant “Trump”, Cruz replied, “I appreciate the enthusiasm of the NY delegation”. I was very pleased to the extent that he came and congratulated Donald Trump before the American people on securing the Republican nominating.
“Cruz talked abut how Trump insulted his wife and his father”, delegate Crystal Berg of Washington County said. Not Marco Rubio, not Chris Christie, not Newt Gingrich.
“He was not respectful to the invitation by the convention to come and speak”, Manafort said Thursday on NBC’s “Today”.
We’re halfway through the Republican National Convention, and with any semblance of doubt about who will be the standard-bearer for the GOP put to rest Tuesday night (Trump officially claimed the nomination in the roll call vote), the party turns its eyes to November. Another conservative media icon, Ann Coulter, has unloaded on the Trumps for picking Pence as a running mate, calling him a “loser” and a “combo-platter of disaster”. “Until now, he’s had to do it all by himself against all odds, but this week, with this united party, he’s got backup”.
Trump joined Pence on stage, applauding his new partner and leaning in almost to give him a kiss on the cheek. Conservatives, Pence argued, had no business expanding the footprint of the federal government.
The world is in a sorry state, Trump said. The Liberty University president reminds the crowd that his father, a well-known evangelist, delivered an address at the GOP convention before the nomination of Ronald Reagan. “Harry Truman would be ashamed”, Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. “That leader is Donald Trump”.
State House Speaker Kevin Cotter, R-Mt. “In this election there is only one candidate who will uphold the Constitution”.
Ted Cruz doesn’t. And, really, why should he?
Steve Lonegan, who ran Cruz’s New Jersey presidential campaign, defended the Texan’s refusal to back the nominee.
Maybe Trump already is rehearsing the answers he plans to give after he makes his first mistakes as president, should we, the voters, be foolish enough to elect him. That decision was sure to spark a new round of second guessing about the campaign’s management of the convention and preparedness for the bruising campaign against Clinton. In his speech, Pence declared that “Donald Trump will rebuild our military and stand with our allies”.
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Through it all Republicans savaged Clinton, painting an apocalyptic vision of America if she should win and aggressively challenging her character.
