18 held over flag-burning at protest
after being hounded during the Republican National Convention on Wednesday. AP pic
an opening day floor revolt from anti-Trump delegates and other missteps by the campaign.
“Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn’t honour the pledge!” Trump tweeted, referring to the pledge all 17 Republican candidates took to endorse the eventual nominee, whoever he or she would be.
“I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!”
The political theatre stepped all over Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s moment in the Republican spotlight as he introduced himself to US voters as Trump’s running mate.
Pence accepted the vice-presidential nomination, saying he was “deeply humbled by your confidence”. The delegates rose collectively for a standing ovation.
But his task may have been made harder by Cruz’s stunt.
The floor drama angered some delegates, including Mary Balkema, who called Cruz’s speech “deplorable”.
Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, was harsher, saying Cruz “committed political suicide”.
The upset came hours after Team Trump moved to draw a line under a damaging plagiarism row implicating his ex-model wife that overshadowed the opening of the Cleveland gathering.
A Trump staffer admitted to lifting quotes from a Michelle Obama speech from 2008 and slotting them into remarks delivered on Monday by Trump's Slovenia-born wife, apologising and offering to resign.
“This was my mistake, and I feel terrible for the chaos I have caused,” said the staffer, Meredith McIver.
Trump’s campaign defied political norms — embracing racially inflammatory policies, offending key voting blocs, eschewing big-spending advertising campaigns and relying on saturated media coverage above campaign structure.
In an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday, he raised anew questions about whether, as president, he would come to a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally's defence if it were attacked, saying it would depend “if they fulfil their commitments to us”. AFP CLEVELAND: Police arrested 18 people on Wednesday outside the Republican National Convention in Cleveland after protesters tried to burn American flags.
Two officers were assaulted and suffered “minor bumps and bruises”, Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams said.
Two people were arrested on felony counts and 15 others on misdemeanour charges.
Tensions flared on the street in front of a secure entrance area to the Quicken Loans Arena, where Republicans anointed Donald Trump as their party’s 2016 presidential nominee.
A protester tried to set an American flag on fire, and in the process, caught his pant leg on fire.
A police officer responded to put the flames out, and the protester punched and pushed the officer.
In the skirmish, the pant legs of two other people nearby also caught on fire, Williams said.
Security forces, including horsemounted police, closed ranks around the protesters, and detained people were seen kneeling with their hands behind their backs.
A group calling itself the Revolution Club sent out a press release earlier saying that Joey Johnson, a “notorious flag burner and revolutionary communist”, would conduct civil disobedience here. AFP A bus inferno near Taipei on Tuesday that killed 26 people. Chinese relatives grieving as they arrive at a memorial service yesterday.
Agency pix