First lady featured in RNC program
Wife, 2 of Trump’s kids put focus on president’s family
President Trump’s family were center stage on the second night of the Republican National Convention.
WASHINGTON — The people closest to President Donald Trump — his family — starred on the second night of the Republican National Convention as the GOP worked to reintroduce the president to the American electorate amid the campaign and pandemic.
First lady Melania Trump delivered Tuesday night’s keynote address before a small audience at the White House, while the president’s daughter Tiffany and son Eric were featured too. As on the night before, Trump himself was expected to play “a significant role” in the prime-time programming, a campaign spokesman said.
The focus on Trump’s family comes as the president seeks to improve his standing in a 2020 presidential race he is currently trailing. Most polls report that Democratic rival Joe Biden has a significant advantage in terms of raw support; the former vice president also leads on character issues such as trustworthiness and likability.
With Election Day 10 weeks off and early voting beginning much sooner, Trump is under pressure to reshape the contours of the campaign.
But as he struggles to counter fallout from the pandemic and the related economic devastation, Republicans have not appeared to have coalesced around a consistent political message arguing for his reelection.
Convention organizers had promised an uplifting and hopeful message on the opening night of the scaledback proceedings, but that was overshadowed by dark and ominous warnings from the president and his allies about the country’s future if he should lose in November.
Early estimates suggest that fewer voters are watching Trump’s nominating convention than the Democrats’ affair last week.
The featured final hour of Trump’s opening night was seen by 15.8 million people across the top six television networks, according to the Nielsen company. That’s down from the 18.7 million who watched Biden’s first night.
Tuesday’s program was designed around the theme of “Land of Opportunity.”
Beyond the president’s family, the speakers were scheduled to include the mother of a police officer killed by an immigrant in the country illegally, a former Planned Parenthood official who became an antiabortion activist, and a Kentucky high school student whose interaction last year with a Native American man became a flash point in the nation’s culture wars.
The student, Nicholas Sandmann, assailed the media, as Trump often does, in prepared remarks.
“In November, I believe this country must unite around a president who calls the media out and refuses to allow them to create a narrative instead of reporting the facts,” he said.
The program also offered a look inside the Republicans’ attempts to expand Trump’s coalition from his largely white base.
There were barrier breakers like Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, the first African American to hold statewide office in his state, and Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez, first Latina to hold that office in her state.
And the convention lineup featured a Democrat for the second night: Robert Vlaisavljevich, the mayor of Eveleth, Minnesota, praised Trump’s support for his state’s mining industry in particular.
“President Trump is fighting for all of us. He delivered the best economy in our history and he will do it again,” Vlaisavljevich said in prepared remarks.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was also to adress the nation during an official overseas trip in Israel.
Pompeo’s taped appearance breaks with decades of tradition of secretaries of state avoiding the appearance of involving themselves in domestic politics.
That his video was filmed in Jerusalem, where he was on an official foreign trip, has raised additional questions of propriety.
Federal officials are prohibited from engaging in political activities on government time or at government expense. The State Department says Pompeo filmed the video during personal time on the trip, with the cost picked up by the GOP convention.
Overall, there were more than a dozen speakers planned for the evening’s prime-time program, most of them appearing in prerecorded video or inside a largely empty Washington auditorium. But there is one intended star.
“Tonight is the first lady’s night,” said campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh.
Out of the public view for much of the year, Melania Trump will step into the spotlight to argue for a second term for her husband — while trying to avoid the missteps that marred her introduction to the nation four years ago.
At her 2016 convention speech, she included passages similar to what former first lady Michelle Obama had said in her first convention speech.
A speechwriter for the Trump Organization later took the blame.