MILWAUKEE (AP) — Donald Trump was celebrated Tuesday at the Republican National Convention by former rivals including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who just months ago leveled harsh critiques about him.
Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador who was Trump’s final challenger in the GOP primary, directly addressed her supporters after taking the stage to a mix of cheers and boos.
“My message to them is simple: You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him,” Haley said.
She was followed by DeSantis who has worked to rebuild his relationship with the former president since dropping out of the primary. DeSantis ended his presidential bid in January after finishing a distant second in the Iowa Caucus.
“Donald Trump stands in their way and he stands up for America. Donald Trump has been demonized. He’s been sued. He’s been prosecuted. And he nearly lost his life,” DeSantis told the crowd. “We cannot let him down. And we cannot let America down.”
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Such overtures are typical in political conventions, where the purpose is often to bring a party together after bitter primaries. But the Haley and DeSantis appearances were particularly notable given the personal animosity that defined this year’s GOP contest — much of that being directed by Trump at Haley and DeSantis.
DeSantis was once seen as best positioned to challenge Trump’s position at the top of the party. As a presidential candidate, he was slow to criticize Trump directly before eventually accusing him of repeatedly failing to follow through on his promises.
Haley, meanwhile, painted Trump as chaotic and suggested the 78-year-old was too old to serve another term. Unlike DeSantis, she did not immediately endorse Trump after she dropped out, instead waiting a few months to announce he had her vote.
Highlights of DeSantis’ remarks
On the convention stage, DeSantis spent most of his speech criticizing Democrats’ policies on education, gender identity and immigration.
“We stand for strong borders and believe that our nation must have a shared civic culture and we oppose any immigration that stands apart or in contrast to our American values,” Gov. DeSantis said during his speech.
DeSantis said the country needs to vote out President Biden saying he has failed as a leader. “I am alarmed that the current president of the United States lacks the capability to discharge the duties of his office,” he said.
You can listen to DeSantis’ full remarks on YouTube. He’s introduced at 4:40:26 into the video.
The recent attempt on Trump’s life lingers over convention
Trump’s survival of an attempted assassination Saturday at a rally in Pennsylvania was on the minds of many inside the hall. One of the delegates in the crowd could be seen with a folded white piece of paper over his ear — an apparent tribute to the bandage Trump wore when he entered the hall Monday to a roaring crowd.
Trump was again wearing a bandage when he arrived Tuesday night, appearing even earlier in the arena than he did the night before. Trump entered a few minutes after his newly chosen running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
In the wake of Saturday’s attempt on Trump’s life, there was a heightened focus on security at the convention, which drew thousands of people to downtown Milwaukee, including a number of high-profile elected officials.
A man armed with an AK-47 pistol and wearing a ski mask was taken into custody Monday, the convention’s first day, near the Fiserv Forum where the convention is being held, a federal law enforcement official said Tuesday. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
There’s growing anticipation for Trump’s speech
Trump and Vance were expected to appear in the hall each night of the convention. Vance is slated to speak Wednesday and Trump will speak Thursday.
Trump, who has long decried rivals with harsh language and talked about prosecuting opponents if he wins a second term, seemed poised to deliver a more toned-down speech. His eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said in an Axios interview outside the RNC that he spent three or four hours going through his father’s convention speech with him, “trying to de-escalate some of that rhetoric.”
“I think it lasts,” the younger Trump said of the change in his father’s rhetoric. “There are events that change you for a couple minutes, and there are events that change you permanently.”
But there were also hints in Tuesday’s programming of some of Trump’s old grievances, including several references to Trump’s disproven theories of election fraud. One of the primetime speakers, Madeline Brame, railed against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office prosecuted Trump for illegally orchestrating a hush money scheme to influence the 2016 election. That made Trump the first former president convicted of a felony crime.
Brame accused Bragg of having mishandled the cases against the people accused of killing her son. Of Trump, she said, “He’s been a victim of the same corrupt system that I have been and my family has been.”
Then she echoed a version of a line he has delivered at his rallies for years.
“They’re after us,” she said. “He’s just standing in the way.”