Boebert invited to Trump’s RNC speech

Congressional candidate Lauren Boebert will be in attendance when President Donald Trump accepts his party’s nomination on the final day of the Republican National Convention.

Boebert, a Rifle Republican running in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, said Tuesday that she has been invited to the White House on Thursday.

“It is an absolute honor to be chosen as one of President Trump’s guests at this important event,” she said. “I look forward to spending time at the White House and listening in person as President Trump makes his case for re-election.”

Boebert is an adamant Trump supporter and made her loyalty to the president a central issue in the June 30 Republican primary, where she shocked Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez. Boebert will face Democrat Diane Mitsch Bush, of Steamboat Springs, on Nov. 3 in the western and southern Colorado congressional district.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Trump will accept the Republican nomination from the White House on Thursday evening. Critics say he is wrongfully using the White House for nakedly partisan purposes.

To the surprise of some political onlookers, Boebert was not invited to be a speaker at this year’s Republican National Convention. Other overtly proTrump congressional candidates, such as Sean Parnell of Pennsylvania and Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, are scheduled to speak at the event this week.

Colorado’s only RNC speaker thus far has been Rep. Ken Buck, a Windsor Republican who chairs the Colorado Republican Party. Buck spoke briefly during a roll call Monday, announcing Trump had the support of Colorado’s RNC delegates.

“They’ve given Americans great job opportunities with free trade agreements that are fair,” he said of Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. “They’ve appointed justices and judges who interpret the law and don’t legislate from the bench. They’ve created the greatest economic expansion in decades, that lifted all Americans. They protected us from a worldwide pandemic.”

A spokesman for the Colorado Republican Party later clarified

Buck’s claim that Trump and Pence “protected” Americans from coronavirus — which has killed about 178,000 Americans to date — by noting the president imposed travel restrictions on coronavirus hot spots, such as China and Italy.

Meanwhile, back in the 3rd Congressional District, Mitsch Bush launched her first television ad of the year Tuesday morning, around the time Boebert was announcing her plans to visit the White House. The ad focuses on health care.

“Boebert’s views are so rigid and extreme that she supports ending health coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, even in a pandemic,” a narrator in the ad claims, referring to Boebert’s opposition to the Affordable Care Act.