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President
Donald
Trump
and Vice
President
Mike
Pence
give a
thumbs
up after
speaking
during
the
first
day of
the
Republican
National
Convention
Monday,
Aug. 24,
2020, in
Charlotte,
N.C.
(Travis
Dove/The
New York
Times
via AP,
Pool)
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Republican
convention
showcases
rising
stars,
dark
warnings
By
STEVE
PEOPLES,
MICHELLE
L. PRICE
and
ZEKE
MILLER
apnews.com
WASHINGTON
- A
rising
generation
of
Republican
stars
offered
an
optimistic
view of
President
Donald
Trump’s
leadership
but was
undermined
on the
opening
night of
the
GOP’s
scaled-back
convention
by
speakers
issuing
dark
warnings
about
the
country’s
future
and
distorting
the
president’s
record,
particularly
on the
coronavirus
pandemic.
As
Trump
faces
pressure
to
expand
his
appeal
beyond
his
loyal
supporters,
Sen. Tim
Scott of
South
Carolina,
the
Senate’s
sole
Black
Republican,
and
former
U.N.
Ambassador
Nikki
Haley,
the
daughter
of
Indian
immigrants,
sought
to cast
the GOP
as
welcoming
to
Americans
of
color,
despite
the
party’s
overwhelmingly
white
leadership
and
voting
base.
“I
was a
brown
girl in
a black
and
white
world,”
Haley
said
Monday
night,
noting
that she
faced
discrimination
but
rejecting
the idea
that
“America
is a
racist
country.”
She also
gave a
nod to
the
Black
Lives
Matter
movement,
saying
“of
course
we know
that
every
single
Black
life is
valuable.”
But
the
prime-time
convention
proceedings,
which
featured
a blend
of taped
and live
speeches,
focused
largely
on dire
talk
about
Joe
Biden,
Trump’s
Democratic
challenger
in the
November
election.
Speakers
ominously
warned
that
electing
Biden
would
lead to
violence
in
American
cities
spilling
into the
suburbs,
a
frequent
Trump
campaign
message
with
racist
undertones.
One
speaker
called
Trump
the
“bodyguard
of
Western
civilization.”
Scrambling
to find
a
message
that
sticks,
Trump’s
team
tried
out
multiple
themes
and
tactics
over the
course
of the
night.
They
featured
optimism
from
those
who
could
represent
the
GOP’s
future,
attempts
to
characterize
Biden as
a vessel
for
socialists
and
far-left
Democrats
despite
his
moderate
record
and
humanizing
stories
about
the
74-year-old
man who
sits in
the Oval
Office.
Trump
and a
parade
of
fellow
Republicans
misrepresented
Biden’s
agenda
through
the
evening,
falsely
accusing
him of
proposing
to
defund
police,
ban oil
fracking,
take
over
health
care,
open
borders
and
raise
taxes on
most
Americans.
They
tried to
assign
positions
of the
Democratic
left to
a
middle-of-the-road
candidate
who
explicitly
rejected
many of
the
party’s
most
liberal
positions
through
the
primaries.
The
opening
night of
the
four-day
convention
reflected
the
rising
urgency
fueling
Trump’s
push to
reshape
a
presidential
contest
that
he’s
losing,
at least
for now,
with
Election
Day just
10 weeks
away. It
will
continue
Tuesday,
when
first
lady
Melania
Trump
will
deliver
remarks
from the
White
House.
Biden
and his
running
mate,
California
Sen.
Kamala
Harris,
are
keeping
a
relatively
low
profile
this
week. In
a tweet
Monday
night,
Biden
told
supporters
to “stay
focused.”
The
emphasis
on
diversity
at
Trump’s
convention
was an
acknowledgement
he must
expand
his
coalition
beyond
his
largely
white
base.
Polling
shows
that
Black
Americans
continue
to be
overwhelmingly
negative
in their
assessments
of the
president’s
performance,
with his
approval
hovering
around 1
in 10
over the
course
of his
presidency,
according
to
Gallup
polling.
One
of
several
African
Americans
on
Monday
night’s
schedule,
former
football
star
Herschel
Walker,
defended
the
president
against
those
who call
him a
racist.
“It
hurts my
soul to
hear the
terrible
names
that
people
call
Donald,”
Walker
said.
“The
worst
one is
‘racist.’
I take
it as a
personal
insult
that
people
would
think I
would
have a
37-year
friendship
with a
racist.”
But
that
emphasis
clashed
with
Trump’s
instinct
to
energize
his
die-hard
loyalists.
He
featured,
for
example,
Mark and
Patricia
McCloskey,
the St.
Louis
couple
charged
with
felonies
for
pointing
guns at
what
prosecutors
deemed
non-violent
Black
Lives
Matter
protesters
marching
past
their
home.
“What
you saw
happen
to us
could
just as
easily
happen
to any
of you
who are
watching
from
quiet
neighborhoods
around
our
country,”
Patricia
McCloskey
said,
sitting
on a
couch in
a
wood-paneled
room.
“They’ve
actually
charged
us with
felonies
for
daring
to
defend
our
home,”
her
husband
said.
And
Rep.
Matt
Gaetz of
Florida
said
Democrats
will
“disarm
you,
empty
the
prisons,
lock you
in your
home and
invite
MS-13 to
live
next
door.”
Trump’s
political
future
may
depend
on his
ability
to
convince
voters
that
America
is on
the
right
track,
even as
the
coronavirus
death
toll
exceeds
177,000
and
pandemic-related
job
losses
also
reach
into the
millions.
A
deep
sense of
pessimism
has
settled
over the
electorate.
Just 23%
of
Americans
think
the
country
is
heading
in the
right
direction,
according
to a new
poll
from The
Associated
Press-NORC
Center
for
Public
Affairs
Research.
Trump
and his
supporters
touted
his
response
to the
pandemic
while
standing
alongside
front-line
workers
in the
White
House,
although
he
glossed
over the
mounting
death
toll,
the most
in the
world,
and his
administration’s
struggle
to
control
the
disease.
Organizers
also
repeatedly
sought
to cast
Trump as
an
empathetic
figure,
borrowing
a page
from the
Democrats’
convention
playbook
a week
ago that
effectively
highlighted
Biden’s
personal
connection
to
voters.
Those
cheering
Trump’s
leadership
on the
pandemic
included
a
coronavirus
patient,
a small
business
owner
from
Montana
and a
nurse
practitioner
from
Virginia.
“As
a
healthcare
professional,
I can
tell you
without
hesitation,
Donald
Trump’s
quick
action
and
leadership
saved
thousands
of lives
during
COVID-19,”
said Amy
Ford, a
registered
nurse
who was
deployed
to New
York and
Texas to
fight
the
coronavirus.
The
first
day of
the 2020
Republican
convention
began
early in
the day
as Trump
and Vice
President
Mike
Pence
were
renominated
by
delegates
who
gathered
in
Charlotte,
the city
originally
selected
to host
the
convention
before
the
pandemic
struck.
Trump
paid a
surprise
visit to
the
city,
where he
warned
delegates
that
“the
only way
they can
take
this
election
away
from us
is if
this is
a rigged
election,”
raising
anew his
unsupported
concerns
about
Americans’
expected
reliance
on mail
voting
during
the
pandemic.
Experts
say mail
voting
has
proven
remarkably
secure.
The
fact the
Republicans
gathered
at all
stood in
contrast
to the
Democrats,
who held
an
all-virtual
convention
last
week.
The
Democratic
programming
included
a
well-received
roll
call
video
montage
featuring
diverse
officials
from
across
the
nation.
The
Republicans
spoke
from the
ballroom
in
Charlotte
and were
overwhelmingly
white
before
the
proceedings
moved to
Washington
for
prime-time.
___
Peoples
reported
from New
York.
Associated
Press
writers
Jill
Colvin
and
Darlene
Superville
contributed
from
Charlotte,
North
Carolina.
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