Day 2 of convention features the first lady, a pardon and Pompeo
WASHINGTON — The people closest to President Donald Trump — his family — were starring on the second night of the Republican National Convention as the GOP worked to reintroduce the president to American voters in the midst of the pandemic and heated campaign.
First lady Melania Trump was delivering Tuesday evening’s keynote address at the White House, while the president’s daughter Tiffany and son Eric were to be featured, too. Trump himself played a significant role throughout the night.
The convention’s planned humanizing focus on Trump’s family was overshadowed at the outset by a controversy that led to one conservative activist being pulled from the program minutes before it began.
The first-term president is laboring to improve his standing in a 2020 presidential race he is currently losing. 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.
On Tuesday night, Trump used the trappings of his office to elevate his message: pardoning a convicted felon, featuring his chief diplomat who was on assignment in Israel, and using the White House Rose Garden for his wife’s keynote address.
Tuesday’s two-and-ahalf-hour program featured an array of elected officials in addition to the secretary of state and Trump’s chief economic adviser. But in line with Democrats a week earlier, the lineup included several everyday Americans.
There was a Maine lobsterman, a Wisconsin farmer, a Native American leader. Social conservatives were represented by an anti-abortion activist
and Billy Graham’s granddaughter. The convention also featured a Kentucky high school student whose interaction last year with Native Americans became a flashpoint in the nation’s culture wars.
There was little mention of the pandemic through the first hour of the program, although it remains a dominant issue for voters this fall.
In a show of compassion, before Tuesday’s program began Trump pardoned bank robber Jon Ponder, a Black man who has founded an organization that helps prisoners reintegrate into society.
“We live in a nation of second chances,” Ponder said, standing alongside Trump.
“John’s life is a beautiful testament to the power of redemption,” Trump said before he signed Ponder’s pardon.
Convention organizers had promised an uplifting and hopeful message the night before as the convention began, but that was undermined by dark and ominous warnings from the president and his allies about the country’s future if he should lose in November.
There were fierce attacks on Biden throughout, although the lineup generally maintained a more positive tone — in part due to some last-minute changes.
Mary Ann Mendoza, an Arizona woman whose son, a police officer, was killed in 2014 in a car accident involving an immigrant in the country illegally, was pulled from the program minutes before the event began. She had directed her Twitter
followers to a series of anti-Semitic, conspiratorial messages.
There were also barrier breakers featured like Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, the first African American to hold statewide office in Kentucky, 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.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was addressing the convention and 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.