GOP convention: Trump speech is grand finale of wacky, wild week
The newly minted Republican nominee for president delivered his prime-time acceptance speech and closed out a crazy convention on Thursday. Here are all the highlights:
Trump: I will fix everything
It was the longest acceptance speech in recent history (more on that below). And in true Trump-style, his address included more than a few lofty, surely hyperbolic, promises.
“Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims,” he said. “I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon, and i mean very soon, come to an end. Beginning on January 20th, 2017, safety will be restored.”
That would be inauguration day for the next president of the United States. Um, OK.
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Trump also said he is “certain” what President Obama thinks now about his appointment of now-presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton as secretary of State.
“I am certain that it was a decision that president Obama truly regrets,” he said. “Her bad instincts and her bad judgment — something pointed out by Bernie Sanders — are what caused so many of the disasters unfolding today.”
He went on to tick off problems at home and abroad, from poverty to “war and destruction,” and said they will continue as long as the country relies on the same politicians “who created them.”
“This will all change when I take office,” Trump will say. “My message is that things have to change — and they have to change right now.”
Ivanka: My father is 'color blind and gender neutral'
Trump's oldest daughter sought to paint her father as a compassionate, competent executive in her introduction to his big address.
"He is color blind and gender neutral," she said. "He hires the best person for the job, period."
She stuck to his business and did not talk about his controversial proposals on the campaign trail, including deporting immigrants in the country illegally (some of whom he has called rapists and drug dealers).
"All that counts is ability, effort and excellence," she said. "This has long been the philosophy of the Trump Organization."
Master trolling by 90-year-old former congressman John Dingell
The Michigan Democrat tweeted during Ivanka's speech.
And Trump's.
He wasn't the only impatient one
And as it turns out, it was quite the long-winded oration, ranking as the longest acceptance speech in recent memory, via C-SPAN:
Reince steady
The man who has presided over the divided Republican Party through the tumultuous primaries and is now firmly atop the roller-coaster of the Trump Train delivered a smooth speech both attacking Clinton and championing Trump.
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said, “This is our moment to set a new course for an America as strong and confident as we've ever been.
“Let's stand united as Republicans! Let's stop Hillary Clinton,” he said to an audience who repeatedly chanted “lock her up!” “Let's get to work, expand our Republican majorities, and elect Donald Trump president!”
Gay venture capitalist: Bathroom controversy ‘fake culture war’
Silicon Valley venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel delivered a historic speech for a national Republican convention, undercutting a law signed by Republican North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory mandating that people use bathrooms corresponding with their birth gender.
“When I was a kid, the great debate was about how to defeat the Soviet Union. And we won,” he said. “Now we are told that the great debate is about who gets to use which bathroom. This is a distraction from our real problems. Who cares?”
He went on to declare that he is proud to be gay (to loud cheers), Republican and American.
“I don't pretend to agree with every plank in our party's platform. But fake culture wars only distract us from our economic decline,” he said. “And nobody in this race is being honest about it except Donald Trump.”
The president of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group, was moved by the stance:
Oops! Unforced error
The campaign released excerpt of Trump's speech after a draft leaked out hours before before delivery. A copy was obtained by Democratic group Correct the Record, and media outlets quickly followed publishing the full text, as did USA TODAY here.
Trump campaign manager: Women worried about their breadwinners
Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort says many women are concerned about the economy because their husbands can’t afford to support their families anymore.
He made the claims when MSNBC’s Chris Matthews asked how the campaign plans to deal with the impression that a man, Trump, is attacking a woman, Clinton.
“It depends on which women you’re talking about,” Manafort said. “There are many women in this country (who) feel they can't afford their lives. Their husbands can't afford paying the family bills.
“Hillary Clinton is guilty of being part of the establishment that created that problem. They’re going to hear the message and as they hear the message that’s how we’re going to appeal to them.”
Matthews noted that such a view may not be of this century. “You know what you just said?” he asked.
Manafort didn’t backtrack, but reiterated his point, dropping the reference to "husbands" and said the campaign’s message will resonate with women because “they can’t afford their lives anymore. Some people, it’s matter of jobs, other people, it’s about affordability.”
Let’s see how that message resonates …
Speaking of herky-jerky
Fallout from the Ted Cruz non-endorsement of Trump continued to ripple. Indiana Sen. Dan Coats called Cruz a “self-centered, narcissistic, pathological liar.” Former House speaker John Boehner, who has called Cruz “a miserable son of a bitch” and “Lucifer in the flesh” had only three words, according to longtime aide David Schnittger: “Lucifer is back” And many many others chimed in on Cruz’s decision not to endorse the nominee but instead to tell people to “vote their conscience.”
A defiant Cruz, meanwhile, said he refused to be a “servile puppy dog” to Trump, who has attacked his wife and father. Cruz reportedly left town before the evening's festivities.
Trump, who initially said it was “no big deal,” posted more of his thoughts Thursday.
The Trump camp began trying to recapture some of the spotlight for vice presidential nominee and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, whose speech Wednesday was overshadowed by the Cruz commotion.
The campaign sent out an ICYMI (In Case You Missed It) missive noting “Mike Pence Strikes Unity Notes in Acceptance Speech.” Another dispatch, titled “What They Are Saying About Mike Pence's Speech,” had a smattering of positive coverage of the remarks.
But it’s unclear whether the Cruz-Trump hullaballoo will dissipate any time soon …
Cruz conspicuously absent from RNC Instagram
The party posted (kind of cheesy) backstage portraits on its account of the speakers each day, but conspicuously absent was the Texas senator who blew up the Wednesday program. But hey, that astronaut with the memorable hairdo who mysteriously dropped a sentence endorsing Trump from her speech is there. So must just be an oversight, right?
Melania’s return
Trump’s wife returned to Cleveland for the first time since her speech Monday that exploded into a plagiarism scandal.
While the Trump camp had hoped speechgate was behind them (or at the very least, subsumed perhaps by the Cruz debacle), one super PAC is refusing to let it go just yet.
The Democratic Coalition Against Trump filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday alleging the Trump campaign illegally accepted a corporate campaign contribution by using a Trump corporate speechwriter, Meredith McIver, for campaign purposes.
McIver wrote her plagiarism apology on Trump corporate stationery and offered her resignation, ostensibly from the company, not the campaign, and the coalition alleges she used company time to write the campaign speech.
The coalition said the campaign told the group that she was a volunteer, but the group isn’t buying it. “If she was a volunteer for the campaign, then there should have been no job to resign from,” Scott Dworkin, senior adviser to the coalition, said in a statement.
It’s unlikely anything will come of it. The FEC tends to move at the speed of quicksand, in any case, so nothing will come of it anytime soon. But it’s another undulation in the speechgate uproar, nonetheless.
Fox walls off convention reporters
As news broke that Roger Ailes stepped down amid a sexual harassment probe at Fox News, the network’s personalities covering the convention here were suddenly being sought out themselves for interviews about the scandal. But the network installed security outside its area, cordoning them off and creating an unusual media-on-media stake out spectacle.
