Republican national convention 2024

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      Peter Navarro airs grievances in convention speech hours after prison release

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      Walking out to a standing ovation, Peter Navarro, the former Trump official, delivered a speech of personal grievances at the Republican national convention on Wednesday, hours after he was released from federal prison following his conviction on contempt of Congress charges for obstructing the January 6 committee investigation.The former Trump White House adviser tried – as he has done previously – to portray his criminal case as an egregious overreach of prosecutorial power, taking a page from Trump’s own playbook to claim he was a martyr taking hits on behalf of voters.“If they can come for me, if they can come for Donald Trump, they can come for you,” Navarro said. “If we don’t control our government, their government will control us.”“I went to prison so you don’t have to,” Navarro later added.Navarro, 75, was found guilty last September on two counts of contempt of Congress after he refused to produce documents and testimony in the congressional investigation into the 2021 Capitol attack, claiming executive privilege protections meant he did not have to cooperate.The committee took a special interest in Navarro because of his proximity to Trump and his involvement in a series of efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including to have members of Congress throw out the results in a plot he named “the Green Bay Sweep”.But Navarro’s subpoena defiance prompted a criminal referral to the US attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, which brought the charges and ultimately asked for six months in jail because he brazenly ignored the subpoena even after being told executive privilege would not apply.“He cloaked his bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt behind baseless, unfounded invocations of executive privilege and immunity that could not and would never apply to his situation,” prosecutors wrote of Navarro in their sentencing memorandum.At trial, Navarro’s lawyers offered evidence that Trump had asserted executive privilege over a subpoena issued by a different congressional committee examining the Trump administration’s handling of the Covid pandemic. But there was no such explicit letter for the January 6 subpoena.The reality of the charges did not dissuade Navarro from offering a sanitized version of the story, for which he received thunderous applause from the crowd at the convention.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Your favorite Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, created your favorite committee, the sham Jan 6 committee, which demanded that I violate executive privilege,” Navarro said as the crowd booed. “What did I do? I refused.”“The January 6 committee demanded that I betray Donald John Trump to save my own skin. I refused,” Navarro continued. “And the Democratic majority in the House then voted to hold me in contempt.”At the end of his remarks, Navarro brought out his fiance, who appeared in a red Maga hat, and abruptly jumped into a kiss – before continuing his remarks assailing the justice department for causing his separation from his family: “On election day, the American people will hold these lawfare jackals accountable.” More

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      Biden hasn’t done enough to ease age concerns, former top Obama adviser says – live

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      David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, warns that Joe Biden has not done enough to relieve voters’ concern about his age since last month’s hapless debate performance.“I’ve felt for a long time, and I’ve said for a long time, it’s not in any way a commentary on his record, which I think will be honoured more by history than it is by voters right now,” Axelrod told the Guardian in Milwaukee on Wednesday.“But it’s a very hard case to make that anyone should be elected president in the United States at the age of 82, not for political reasons but for actuarial reasons. This is the hardest job on the planet. It takes a lot out of you. It’s a legitimate concern that people have and that concern has been intensified by what happened at the debate. I don’t think anything that’s happened has relieved that concern.”Axelrod, chief strategist for the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaigns, was speaking after an event organised by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and the Cook Political Report on the sidelines of the Republican national convention.Asked whether he thinks Biden can survive, Axelrod replied: “That’s entirely in his hands and that’s been the case. This whole race has been in his hands, his decision to run and now his decision to stay.“There’s a lot to think about because I know he’s laid out the stakes in this election. The question he has to answer is, what are the odds of his winning? Would the odds be better with another candidate? I’m sure there’s a lot of discussion about that.”The president’s re-election campaign has ended the pause on advertising it imposed following the Saturday assassination attempt against Donald Trump, a Biden-Harris campaign official told the Guardian’s US politics live blog.The first new ad features abortion-rights activist Hadley Duvall, and in addition to attacking Trump singles out JD Vance, Trump’s newly announced running mate. See it here:Jack Smith, the justice department special counsel, has filed an appeal of judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling earlier this week dismissing Donald Trump’s indictment on charges of illegally possessing classified documents.Here’s the latest on this long-running legal saga:The Trump campaign has announced that it will not yet schedule a debate between JD Vance and Kamala Harris, citing uncertainty over who will be the Democratic nominee for vice-president.The decision is a reference to continued tension among Democrats over whether Joe Biden should seek re-election, after his poor showing at his first debate with Donald Trump. The president insists he has no plans to step aside, but if he did, the new nominee would have to find their own running mate.“We don’t know who the Democrat nominee for vice-president is going to be, so we can’t lock in a date before their convention. To do so would be unfair to Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer, or whoever Kamala Harris picks as her running mate,” Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said in a statement.The Biden-Harris campaign had previously proposed three possible dates for the vice-presidential debate, all before the beginning of the Democratic convention on 19 August, where the party will formalize the presidential ticket.Donald Trump’s campaign has encouraged speakers at the Republican national convention to stay away from extreme rhetoric, and in some cases directly edited their speeches, NBC News reports.At the convention thus far, there have been few to no mentions of topics liked the January 6 insurrection, or Trump’s baseless claims that he lost the 2020 election unfairly. That’s a deliberate strategy his campaign shifted to following the assassination attempt on Saturday, as it now looks to project an image of unity.Here’s more on that, from NBC:
      Trump said that he had rewritten his own speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination ahead of Thursday night after surviving an assassination attempt. The Trump campaign has said that now he intends to home in on the theme of unifying America.
      Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga, said Wednesday before delivering his convention address, ‘Frankly, they sent the same message to those of us giving speeches.’
      ‘We always planned to be a reflection of our party’s unity and remind the American people of the difference between President Trump’s success and Crooked Joe Biden’s failure,’ Brian Hughes, a senior Trump campaign adviser, said in a statement. ‘The convention messages from everyday Americans and policymakers have met that goal. This convention is one of the greatest ever held and will launch us forward to victory in November.’
      While convention speakers this week have served up plenty of red meat to the thousands of delegates in attendance, particularly on the issues of immigration and crime, they have steered away from some of the party’s more divisive topics and talk of seeking retribution.
      Through the convention’s first two nights, speakers have not mentioned the following issues: unfounded claims of stolen elections; the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol; investigating Trump’s political opponents, including Biden; and investigating the prosecutors who have sought indictments against him, like Special Counsel Jack Smith, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg or Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
      A video where Trump mentions the unsubstantiated threat of Democrats ‘cheating’ in the upcoming election was played during the first two nights of the convention.
      Asked if the toned-down theme would continue through the week, Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., said, ‘I do.’
      ‘I mean, it starts with Trump,’ he continued. ‘Hopefully, JD [Vance] picks that up. And others. Trump said he didn’t want people to change their speeches, but I think that they will.’
      Anyone attending the Republican national convention could be forgiven for thinking they have stepped into a mirror world where Donald Trump is a saint, not a twice-impeached former president convicted of 34 felonies.On Wednesday, Brenna Bird, the attorney general of Iowa, was asked why she travelled to New York to support the former US president during his hush-money trial.“I was glad to go out to New York to support him during that trial because I’m a prosecutor and I have prosecuted many criminal defendants, but I’ve never seen anything like that,” Bird told international reporters at a Foreign Press Centers briefing.“It’s a travesty. It’s not how the legal process is supposed to work. As a prosecutor, I’ve never taken someone’s politics into account when deciding whether to charge a crime. That is just wrong and, if it’s allowed to happen, it breaks down the rule of law and the constitutional order.”Bird added: “I went there specifically as a prosecutor to support President Trump because what was happening was an injustice and I wanted to be there and stand up for what was right and support President Trump. I think we saw his character during that trial. He doesn’t give up and he keeps on moving forward and that’s exactly what our country needs right now.”In May, Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records alleging he was involved in a scheme that sought to cover up extramarital affairs in advance of the 2016 presidential election. The New York state prosecution had no connection to Biden and there was no evidence of jury bias against Trump.Here’s where the day stands:

      Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News. According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race. In response, Biden said: “If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.”

      John Hinckley, the man who shot and wounded president Ronald Reagan in 1981, has released his own statement following Donald Trump’s assassination attempt on Saturday. In a tweet on Wednesday, Hinckley, who was released in 2022 after spending 41 years under federal oversight, wrote: “Violence is not the way to go. Give peace a chance.”

      Kamala Harris has accepted a third possible date to hold a CBS-hosted vice-presidential debate against Trump’s newly announced running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance. The Biden-Harris campaign said it was open to a showdown with Vance on Monday, 12 August, as well. Harris had previously agreed to participate in the debate on either Tuesday, 23 July, or Tuesday, 13 August.

      The high-profile California Democrat Adam Schiff has called on Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race. Schiff, in a statement to the Los Angeles Times, said that Biden “has been one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history, and his lifetime of service as a Senator, a vice president, and now as president has made our country better” adding: “But our nation is at a crossroads.”

      Joe Biden lashed out at a “tense” meeting with dozens of House Democrats who bluntly questioned his viability as their party’s presidential nominee, according to reports. During the Saturday Zoom call, Colorado representative Jason Crow told Biden that voters are concerned about his vigor and strength, and noted the importance of national security in the November election, the reports say.

      Lloyd Doggett, the Texas representative who became the first House Democrat to publicly call on Joe Biden to step aside, has doubled down and urged the president to withdraw from the ticket in the face of “the reality of steadily, worsening poll numbers”. “My call for President Biden to step aside remains even more urgent,” Doggett said in a statement on Wednesday.

      During the Democratic press conference in Milwaukee, the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, was pressed on the party’s plans to nominate Joe Biden via a roll call vote in the coming days. Walz, who co-chairs the Democratic national convention’s rules committee, confirmed that delegates would not begin voting before 1 August, and the governor’s spokesperson confirmed that the process should wrap up by 7 August.

      Donald Trump does not have stitches but has a “nice flesh wound”, his son Eric Trump said following his father’s assassination attempt. In an interview with CBS, Eric said: “You know, he was millimeters away from having his life expunged … I’m sure the ear doesn’t feel well.”

      Nearly two-thirds of Democrats want Joe Biden to withdraw his re-election bid, a new AP-NORC poll has found. According to the poll, which was mostly conducted before Donald Trump’s assassination attempt on Saturday, 65% of Democrats say that Biden should withdraw. Overall, seven in 10 American adults say that Biden should drop out of the race.

      The Democratic National Committee said that its virtual roll call to officially nominate Joe Biden as its party’s presidential nominee will happen in August, CBS reports. In a letter obtained and reported by CBS on Wednesday, the chairs of the Democratic national convention’s rules committee, Leah Daughtry and Tim Walz, wrote: “We have confirmed with the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic National Convention that no virtual voting will begin before August 1 … .”
      David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, warns that Joe Biden has not done enough to relieve voters’ concern about his age since last month’s hapless debate performance.“I’ve felt for a long time, and I’ve said for a long time, it’s not in any way a commentary on his record, which I think will be honoured more by history than it is by voters right now,” Axelrod told the Guardian in Milwaukee on Wednesday.“But it’s a very hard case to make that anyone should be elected president in the United States at the age of 82, not for political reasons but for actuarial reasons. This is the hardest job on the planet. It takes a lot out of you. It’s a legitimate concern that people have and that concern has been intensified by what happened at the debate. I don’t think anything that’s happened has relieved that concern.”Axelrod, chief strategist for the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaigns, was speaking after an event organised by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and the Cook Political Report on the sidelines of the Republican national convention.Asked whether he thinks Biden can survive, Axelrod replied: “That’s entirely in his hands and that’s been the case. This whole race has been in his hands, his decision to run and now his decision to stay.“There’s a lot to think about because I know he’s laid out the stakes in this election. The question he has to answer is, what are the odds of his winning? Would the odds be better with another candidate? I’m sure there’s a lot of discussion about that.”Following Rudy Giuliani’s fall at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee on Tuesday, the 80-year-old disbarred lawyer’s spokesperson Ted Goodman released the following statement on Wednesday:
      Mayor Rudy Giuliani appreciates everyone’s concern after tripping over a dip in the walkway on the convention floor of the convention.
      The mayor and I were both filming footage for his social media and livestream programs on the floor of the convention, when he turned to set some equipment on a chair and tripped over a dip between the walkway and chairs.
      Those falsely suggesting anything else are misleading the public for their own agendas.
      The rift among Democrats is deepening over Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy despite party leaders saying Biden is the nominee.Joan E Greve and Martin Pengelly report for the Guardian:Demands for Joe Biden to step aside as the Democrats’ presidential pick to face Donald Trump have slowed since the Republican survived an assassination attempt last weekend, to the extent that on Wednesday one “prominent strategist” was moved to say of the rebellion: “It’s over.”The strategist spoke anonymously to the Hill – and before the influential California congressman Adam Schiff said publicly that Biden should quit.Nonetheless, in Milwaukee, at a press conference during the Republican national convention, Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor and a party grandee, said Biden would be confirmed as the Democratic nominee by virtual vote between 1 and 7 August, before the Chicago convention.For the full story, click here:Joe Biden’s campaign team released a new ad on Wednesday featuring Hadley Duvall, a 22-year-old abortion-rights activist from Owensboro, Kentucky.In the ad, Duvall, who was in an emotional ad last year during governor Andy Beshear’s re-election campaign, describes her experience of being impregnated by her stepfather, who raped her when she was 12 years old.She said:
      I’m from Kentucky where, because of Donald Trump, an extreme abortion ban is now in place, with no exceptions for rape or incest. During the overturn [of Roe v Wade], I went back to the time I was 12 years old and I was holding my first pregnancy test in my hand …
      Trump brags about overturning Roe v Wade. He is ‘proudly responsible’ for each and every abortion ban across the country. And he calls them a ‘beautiful thing to watch.’ What is so beautiful about telling a 12-year-old girl that she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her? The stakes of this election could not be higher for our choices. More

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      Ivanka Trump said she was done with politics – but is the Maga Princess plotting a return?

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      If you’re a woman freaking out about the imminent possibility of another Trump term, don’t despair quite yet. Yes, Project 2025 is hoping to turn the US into a Christian nationalist country. Yes, JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running partner, has been primed for the job by Peter Thiel, a man who has mused that women having the vote is problematic. Yes, experts are raising the alarm that “a Trump-Vance administration will be the most dangerous administration for abortion and reproductive freedom in this country’s history.” But it’s not all doom and gloom: there may well be a beacon of light and female liberation coming into the White House as well. Signs suggest Ivanka Trump is considering a return to politics. Ladies and gentlewomen, the patron saint of female empowerment may selflessly serve us once again!To be clear: the younger Trump hasn’t explicitly said that she’s interested in another go at being Daddy’s special adviser. In fact, she’s spent the last few years getting as far away from politics as possible. A renaissance woman, Trump has sold everything from handbags to shoes to real estate – but her most valuable product has always been herself. The former first daughter has always been very careful about protecting her personal brand. And, for a while, that meant staying well clear of her father.With Donald Trump now formally the nominee, it can be hard to remember just how bad things looked for the former president a couple of years ago. After an underwhelming performance by GOP candidates in the 2022 midterm elections, a lot of Trump’s former acolytes started turning on him. High-profile Republicans complained that Trump was a drag on the party. Even the New York Post, once Trump’s personal Pravda, thought he was a joke: “TRUMPTY DUMPTY”, a post-midterm front page crowed. And then, of course, there were Trump’s mountains of legal problems. A lot of people wrote Trump off.Ivanka was noticeably not by her father’s side during his hours of need. The moment that Donald got kicked out of the White House, Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, followed him to Florida but kept a safe distance from the political goings on at Mar-a-Lago. Can’t have an insurrection ruining one’s image, after all.View image in fullscreenA company called College Hunks Hauling Junk helped them clear out their DC mansion and the pair decamped to Miami’s “Billionaire Bunker”. They didn’t go empty-handed, of course. The couple reported between $172m and $640m in outside income while working in the White House and Saudi Arabia gave Kushner’s private equity firm $2bn to invest. Enough to keep them busy for a while.For a long time, Javanka stayed fairly under the radar. Ivanka Trump would pop up in headlines now and again in Fun-loving Mother and Caring Philanthropist mode. Behold, a flattering headline about Ivanka helping deploy medical supplies and meals to Ukraine! Look: here’s an Instagram slideshow of the whole family skiing! Now here’s a fun picture of the Javanka family at the flashy Ambani wedding!A cynic might say these carefully curated images were designed to humanize Trump and erase her messy political past. Aiding this was a consistent drip-drip of mysterious sources telling the press that Javanka had no desire whatsoever to return to politics. Even this year, when Donald Trump became the presumptive nominee, media “sources” kept insisting that the former first daughter wanted nothing to do with the White House. “She is very happy, living her best life,” a source told People in March. “She left politics totally in the rearview mirror and so this time around, even if her dad is the leading Republican candidate, she basically doesn’t care. She told him when he said he was going to run again that she didn’t want to be involved.”Mary Trump, the woman who has made a career out of being Donald Trump’s disgruntled niece after a legal battle over her inheritance, has been blunt about why Ivanka seems to have retreated from politics. “I think Ivanka made very clear that she doesn’t get enough out of [her relationship with her father] any more,” Mary Trump told CNN at the end of May. “She’s barely been heard from for months; she could not be bothered to show up at [her father’s] trial [over falsifying business records].”As the election inches closer, however, Ivanka seems to have reassessed the value of her relationship with her father. In early May, the media outlet Puck reported that she was “warming to the idea of trying to be helpful again … She’s not like ‘Hell no’ any more.” A similar report from Business Insider soon followed: according to a “friend of Ivanka”, the entrepreneur wasn’t ruling politics out. A spokesperson for the couple told Puck that this was all nonsense but rumours of a political comeback kept mounting.Then, a couple of weeks ago, Ivanka jumped back into the spotlight with an appearance on Lex Fridman’s highly influential podcast. (Fridman has more than 4 million subscribers on YouTube.) In this she opened up about how working at the White House was “the most extraordinary growth experience of my life” and how privileged she was to have been asked by her father to help so many people. During the conversation, she also carefully recapped some of (what’s she’s claimed as) her key achievements in the White House, such as boosting the child tax credit. It wasn’t so much an interview as it was a hype project by a friend. It felt a lot like it was teasing Trump’s return to political life should her dad be re-elected.So, after years in the Floridian wilderness, has the Maga Princess officially returned to the family fold? It’s a tad too early to tell but it increasingly looks that way. As one would expect, Ivanka Trump has spent the last few days close to her father after the attempt on his life: she’s very much thrown herself into the role of doting daughter again.And while Ivanka has been absent from the Republican national convention so far, she and Jared are expected to be at Donald’s side on Thursday when he formally accepts the party’s nomination. And if that happens and images of Ivanka standing next to her father hit the headlines, it won’t just be a celebratory photoshoot – it’ll be a preview of Trump’s second term. More

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      Republican convention day three: JD Vance to speak as focus turns to foreign policy

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      JD Vance will give his first major address as Donald Trump’s running mate on Wednesday and Republicans will turn their focus to foreign policy during the third day of the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.Vance will be introduced by Donald Trump Jr. The theme for Wednesday – “Make America Strong Once Again” – comes amid internal divisions on how to handle the war in Ukraine. Earlier this year, House speaker Mike Johnson only narrowly passed a bill to provide additional funding for Ukraine over the loud objection of some Republicans.The day will also offer an opportunity for Republicans to attack Joe Biden over his handling of the US military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the war between Israel and Gaza.Some Republicans have already started attacking Biden’s foreign policy.“When Donald Trump was president, Putin did nothing. No invasions. No wars. That was no accident. Putin didn’t attack Ukraine because he knew Donald Trump was tough. A strong president doesn’t start wars. A strong president prevents wars,” Nikki Haley, said on Tuesday.The focus on foreign policy comes after Republicans focused on crime and safety Tuesday and on the economy on Monday.The four-day event has marked a full-on coronation for Trump, who has made his dramatic return to the campaign trail after surviving an assassination attempt over the weekend.It has also underscored the firm hold he has on the party.Haley and Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who challenged Trump for the GOP nomination, both unequivocally backed Trump in speeches from the convention floor on Tuesday. “You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him. Take it from me. I haven’t always agreed with President Trump. But we agree more often than we disagree,” Haley said in her remarks.Other speakers on Tuesday highlighted crimes they blamed on the Biden administration. Texas senator Ted Cruz, for example, highlighted Americans who had been killed by undocumented people. Madeline Brame, one of several ordinary Americans picked to speak during the convention, blamed Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg for not prosecuting her son’s killer.Other speakers on Tuesday included Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Marco Rubio, Elise Stefanik, Ben Carson, and Rick Scott and Tom Cotton. More

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      Day two of the Republican National Convention: key takeaways

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      1. Confident in Trump’s victory, Republicans focused on winning control of the US SenateThe official theme of the Republican national convention’s second night was “Make America Safe Again”, with a focus on crime and border security. But as a series of Republican senate candidates got their turn in the spotlight on Tuesday, it was clear that a major theme of the night was helping the GOP win a majority in the US Senate. Among the featured speakers locked in competitive senate races were Kari Lake of Arizona, Eric Hovde of Wisconsin, Bernie Moreno of Ohio, Sam Brown of Nevada and Hung Cao of Virginia.Earlier on Tuesday, Chris LaCivita, the co-manager of Trump’s campaign, said the campaign was now very confident in Trump’s chances of victory. “We have nearly 20 paths to get to where we need to get,” LaCivita said. “[Democrats] have one, maybe two.” It’s a dramatic reversal just four years after Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to forcibly prevent the certification of Biden’s victory.If Republicans win a majority of seats in the US Senate and keep control of the US House, they will have achieved the trifecta of power in Washington. Republicans will effectively have majority control over all three branches of government, with even the increasingly partisan supreme court dominated by a majority of rightwing appointees.Leading Democratic members of Congress are also raising concerns about Republicans taking the Senate majority, with representative Adam Schiff reportedly telling Democratic donors that he believes Democrats will not only lose the presidency if Biden continues as the party’s nominee, but that they may “very well lose the Senate” as well.2. Republicans falsely claimed Democrats rely on ‘votes from illegals’Trump supporters were still chanting “build the wall”. Trump and his vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, have both said they support “mass deportations”, and multiple RNC speakers falsely suggested that Democrats were trying to win elections by encouraging undocumented immigrants to vote.Florida senator Rick Scott falsely claimed it was “easy for Democrats” to rig elections, saying they did so by allowing “all the non-citizens to vote”.“Democrats decided they wanted votes from illegals more than they wanted to protect our children,” Ted Cruz, the Texas senator, said in a speech in which he referenced several examples of women and girls who had been raped by undocumented immigrants. It’s an echo of the remarks that Trump made at his campaign launch in 2015, when he falsely said that many Mexican immigrants to the US were rapists.Kari Lake, the Arizona senate candidate, falsely claimed that Ruben Gallego, the Democrat she is running against, had voted to allow undocumented immigrants to cast ballots in the upcoming election, a claim that Gallego’s campaign labeled “a blatant lie”.It’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote, and there’s no evidence that it happens often: a Brennan Center study found just 30 instances of suspected non-citizen voting out of 23.5m votes cast in the 2016 general election.3. Trump’s criminal cases and convictions went unmentioned amid rhetoric on ‘crime’As Republicans portrayed themselves as the party of law and order, there was little mention of the fact that their candidate has been juggling multiple criminal cases throughout the campaign and recently made history as the only former president to be convicted of felonies, in being found guilty on 34 felony counts as part of a hush-money scheme to cover up an affair.“Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, they stand with the criminals,” Randy Sutton, a former police officer, said in his remarks Tuesday night. In reality, though both Democrats have supported some criminal justice reforms, Biden has been an enthusiastically pro-cop Democrat for decades, and Harris was a career prosecutor who literally served as California’s top cop in her role as state attorney general. Neither of them has a mug shot or is able to continue campaigning only because they can afford bail, as is the case with Trump.As one Republican after another linked undocumented immigrants to rape, crime and violence, they did not talk about how Trump had been found liable in 2023 of sexual abuse and defamation in a civil trial brought by magazine writer E Jean Carroll, after being accused of sexual misconduct by more than two dozen women in alleged incidents that spanned decades.Trump is characteristic of a much broader trend: US citizens are much more likely to be arrested for crimes than undocumented people. A recent study using data from Texas found that US-born citizens were more than twice as likely to be arrested for violent crimes and more than four times as likely to be arrested for property crimes than undocumented immigrants.But in less explicit ways, Trump’s own legal troubles have lurked in the background of the RNC speeches, as Republicans have railed against progressive prosecutors and the media. Critical mention of Alvin Bragg, the New York district attorney who secured Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts in the hush-money case, prompted one of the loudest boos of the night. Bragg was accused of being a “soft-on-crime prosecutor” by a New York mother, Madeline Brame, whose son was murdered, and who accused Bragg of dismissing and reducing the charges faced by her son’s killers.4. In the name of ‘unity’, Trump’s Republican critics kissed the ring and urged others to fall in lineNikki Haley, one of Trump’s most determined rivals in the 2024 Republican primary, took the stage at the RNC, announcing, to cheers: “President Trump asked me to speak to this convention in the name of unity.”“Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period,” Haley went on, prompting chants of: “Trump! Trump! Trump!”Earlier this year, Haley publicly called Trump “unhinged” and “diminished” and said he was “not the same person he was in 2016”.But on Tuesday night, both she and Florida governor Ron DeSantis, another Trump primary campaign rival, proclaimed their loyalty to Trump. Haley, in particular, urged Republicans who did not agree with Trump to nonetheless fall in line behind him in the election.“You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him. Take it from me,” she said. “I haven’t always agreed with President Trump, but we agree more often that we disagree.”Another never-Trump critic, JD Vance, who once wondered whether Trump was “America’s Hitler”, was named Trump’s vice-presidential pick yesterday.5. Despite talk of ‘national unity’ at the convention, Republicans went on attack Republican speakers at the convention continued to frame Trump’s survival of an assassination attempt this weekend as a miraculous act of God, rather than blaming the attack on Biden or on broader Democratic rhetoric.“God spared President Trump from that assassin, because God is not finished with him yet,” Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.But by the end of the day Tuesday, any idea that Trump’s party might embrace a tone of broader national unity had evaporated, amid fierce attacks on Harris, comparisons of Biden to the corpse in the film Weekend at Bernie’s, and Lake’s renewed attacks on the media. Lake, a former television anchor, said: “I don’t welcome everybody … in this room. You guys up there in the fake news have worn out your welcome.”Joan E Greve and Alice Herman contributed reporting More

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      Speeches turn to Bible verses and depiction of Trump as ‘grandpa’ after Haley and DeSantis rouse GOP delegates with endorsements – as it happened

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      Nikki Haley and Donald Trump were rivals during the Republican primaries. But after dropping out of the race, Haley would go on to say she would vote for him, though didn’t quite say she endorsed him.“I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period,” Haley said.Haley was greeted by boos as well as cheers as she took to the stage in Milwaukee.Thanks for reading our coverage of the second evening of the Republican national convention.Delegates will return to Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum at 5.45pm CT tomorrow for the third session of the convention. The four-day event concludes on Thursday.Here’s a look back at what happened this evening:

      Nikki Haley gave Donald Trump her “strong endorsement”, and tried to sway wary Republicans to his cause.

      Ron DeSantis launched a volley of attacks on Joe Biden, in a stark contrast with Haley that underscored the ultimately unsuccessful strategies both deployed as candidates to try to win the GOP’s presidential nomination instead of Trump.

      Trump and his running mate JD Vance both returned to the convention to watch the primetime speakers, though neither gave remarks.

      Biden said in an interview with BET that only a “medical condition” would convince him to abandon his run for re-election, despite ongoing concern over his fitness to continue serving.

      Kari Lake, the GOP nominee for Senate in Arizona, kicked the evening off with an acerbic attack on journalists in the convention hall.

      Elise Stefanik, the House Republican conference chair, boasted of her role in getting the presidents of two top universities to resign.

      House Speaker Mike Johnson described the country as locked in “a struggle between two completely different visions of who we are”.

      Lara Trump closed the evening with a speech all about “the Donald Trump that I know.”
      With a bang of his oversized gavel, Michael Whatley, the chair of the Republican national convention, has concluded its second night.Stay tuned as we present a look back at what happened this evening.The Republican national convention is about finished for the night.Some delegates and guests have already left, though Donald Trump, JD Vance and other VIPs remain in their seats.If there’s a theme to Lara Trump’s speech, it would be “the Donald Trump that I know”.The former president’s daughter-in-law is describing how he is a family man, which is indeed a side that is not often seen by the public.“Donald Trump didn’t need to run for president for fame or money. Trust me, we all know he already had plenty of that. I’ll tell you why he did it and why he continues on, even in the face of the unthinkable – because he loves this country,” Lara Trump said.“He did it for his grandchildren, for your children and grandchildren and for the generations to come.”She described how: “I’ll never forget watching my two children run up to him with their drawings and hugs for grandpa, just moments before he took the elevator down in Trump Tower to address the media the day after his wrongful conviction.”Referring to the assassination attempt, Lara Trump said: “In that split second on Saturday, Donald Trump reminded us all of that very history and who we are at our core as a nation. That is the Donald Trump that I know.”Senator Tim Scott compared Donald Trump to a lion last night, and Lara Trump said the same thing tonight:“Proverbs 28 reads: ‘The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.’ And that truly epitomizes Donald Trump. He is a lion, he is bold, he is strong, he is fearless, and he is exactly what this country needs right now,” she said.In one of the last speeches of the night, Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, is discussing the emotional toll the assassination attempt took on their family.“Nothing prepares you for a moment like that,” said Trump, who co-chairs the Republican National Committee.“Our family has faced our fair share of death threats, mysterious powders sent to our homes, tasteless and violent comments directed towards us on social media, but none of that prepares you, as a daughter-in-law, to watch in real time someone try to kill a person you love. None of that prepares you, as a mother, to quickly reach for the remote and turn your young children away from the screen, so that they’re not witness to something that scars the memory of their grandpa for the rest of their lives.”As he closed his speech, Rubio directly referenced how Donald Trump had stood up and pumped his fist in the air after being injured in the assassination attempt on Saturday.“Our country has been injured, injured by the bad decisions of weak leaders. But now, though bloodied by our wounds, we stand up and we must fight,” Rubio said.He continued:
      Fight not with violence or destruction, but with our voices and our votes. Fight not against each other, but for the hopes and dreams we share in common and make us one, and fight for an America where we are safe from those who seek to harm us on our streets and from abroad, and we will not be alone in this fight. For leading us in this fight will be a man who, although wounded and facing danger, he stood up and raised his fist and reminded us that our people and our country are always worth fighting for.
      Florida’s Marco Rubio was on the shortlist to be Donald Trump’s running mate, but was passed over in favor of his Senate colleague JD Vance.Rubio is now addressing the convention, but hasn’t mentioned the snub, instead sticking to territory well-trod by previous speakers.“There is absolutely nothing dangerous or anything divisive about putting Americans first,” Rubio said.“Anyone who is offended about putting America first has forgotten what America is and what America means. America isn’t the color of our skin or our ethnicity. Americans are people as diverse as humanity itself. But out of many, we are one, because, as the life story of our next vice-president, JD Vance, reminds us, we are all descendants of ordinary people who achieved extraordinary things.”Ben Carson, the former secretary of housing and urban development who is speaking now, struck a similarly biblical tone when discussing the assassination attempt against Donald Trump.“Like many of you, last week, I watched with horror as the events unfolded in that Pennsylvania field. I saw President Trump, a dear friend, escape death by mere inches, and my thoughts immediately turned to the book of Isaiah that says: ‘No weapon formed against you shall prosper,’” said Carson.“Well, let me tell you the weapons that they use. First, they try to ruin his reputation, and he’s more popular now than ever. And then they tried to bankrupt him, and he’s got more money now than he had before. And then they tried to put him in prison, and he’s freer and has made other people free with him. And then, and then, last weekend, they tried to kill him. And there he is, over there, alive and well,” Carson said, to a round of hearty applause.Donald Trump has been found civilly liable for sexual abuse, and convicted on felony charges related to trying to cover up an affair.But to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, “The left doesn’t care about empowering women. Biden and Harris can’t even tell you what a woman is. They only care about empowering themselves.”“God spared President Trump from that assassin, because God is not finished with him yet, and he most certainly is not finished with America yet, either. With God as our guide and President Trump back in the White House, we will show the world that America is the place where freedom reigns and liberty will never die, Sanders said. More

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      Former rivals Haley and DeSantis back Trump at Republican convention

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      Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, once Donald Trump’s biggest rivals in the Republican party, both gave full-throated endorsements to Trump’s presidential candidacy on Tuesday, a call for unity that served to underscore the former president’s control of the Republican party.On the second night of the Republican national convention, Haley and DeSantis, who both unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination earlier this year, spoke back to back in the 8pm hour of the convention as Trump grinned and applauded from his box elevated above the floor of the Fiserv Forum, where the convention is taking place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.“I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period,” Haley said. She said her speech was aimed at those “who don’t agree with Donald Trump 100% of the time”.“You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him. Take it from me. I haven’t always agreed with President Trump. But we agree more often than we disagree,” she said.Haley, who served as the governor of South Carolina and Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, rattled off what she saw as Trump’s foreign policy accomplishments.“When Donald Trump was president, Putin did nothing. No invasions. No wars. That was no accident. Putin didn’t attack Ukraine because he knew Donald Trump was tough. A strong president doesn’t start wars. A strong president prevents wars,” she said, receiving loud applause.DeSantis also immediately made it clear that he was backing Trump.“Let’s send Joe Biden back to his basement and let’s send Donald Trump back to the White House,” he said.Neither Haley nor DeSantis initially had speaking slots at the convention, but they were added after the attempt on Trump’s life on Saturday as Republicans sought to project unity.“President Trump asked me to speak to this convention in the name of unity. It was a gracious invitation and I was happy to accept,” Haley said.Trump could be seen on the Jumbotron grinning widely as both gave their speeches. And he had reason to do so: just months ago, Haley and DeSantis were the most prominent Republicans critical of Trump.“He’s made it chaotic. He’s made it self-absorbed. He’s made people dislike and judge each other. He’s left that a president should have moral clarity, and know the difference between right or wrong, and he’s just toxic,” Haley said of Trump during an interview on The Breakfast Club in January.Haley, who has also called Trump “thin-skinned and easily distracted”, didn’t say she was voting for Trump until May.Austin Weatherford, the Biden campaign’s national director for Republican engagement, highlighted Haley’s words in a statement after her speech Tuesday.“Ambassador Haley said it best herself: someone who doesn’t respect our military, doesn’t know right from wrong, and ‘surrounds himself in chaos’ can’t be president,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“That’s why millions of Republicans cast their votes in protest of Donald Trump and his attacks on our institutions, our nation’s allies, and civility.”DeSantis endorsed Trump shortly after dropping out of the presidential race in January, but reportedly continued to privately criticize him. He needled him on the campaign trail, saying America didn’t need a president who had “lost the zip on their fastball”.DeSantis and Haley took slightly different tacks in their speeches on Tuesday, emphasizing their different approaches to campaigning.Haley spoke about the need to expand the Republican party in comments that were met with tepid applause from the delegates on the convention floor – many of whom represent some of the party’s most loyal base.“We must not only be a unified party, we must also expand our party,” she said. “We are so much better when we are bigger. We are stronger when we welcome people into our party who have different backgrounds and experiences.”DeSantis, by contrast, leaned into attacking Biden. “America cannot afford four more years of a Weekend at Bernie’s presidency,” he said. He touted the success that Republicans have had in recent years, saying “the woke mind virus is dead and Florida is a solid Republican state”.DeSantis went on to detail a rightwing policy wishlist, including severe restrictions on immigration and the destruction of the “administrative state”.Even though DeSantis’s Trump-like appeal was not enough to win him the Republican nomination, his hard-right talking points triggered a much more boisterous response from the delegates than Haley’s talk of unity and party outreach. More

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      Biden says ‘time to outlaw’ AR-15 rifle used in Trump assassination attempt – live

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      Joe Biden is commenting at length about the toll gun violence takes on American communities, and singled out the impact of assault weapons such as the AR-15.“An AR-15 was used in the shooting of Donald Trump. This was the assault weapon that killed so many others, including children. It’s time to outlaw them,” Biden said.In what was likely a reference to his involvement in passing the 1994 assault weapons ban, which expired 10 years later, Biden said: “I did it once, and I will do it again.”As he closed his speech to the NAACP, Joe Biden defended his ability to continue serving as president, despite mounting worries among Democrats over his advanced age.“Hopefully, with age, I’ve demonstrated a little bit of wisdom. Here’s what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job, and I know the good Lord hasn’t brought us this far to leave us now there’s more work to do,” Biden said.His comments came amid reports that the Democratic National Committee is moving to quickly nominate Biden, and quell a rebellion by lawmakers and others concerned about his ability to defeat Donald Trump:Joe Biden is warning the NAACP that a second Donald Trump administration would “undo everything” they stand for.The president said he has been “all about working people in this nation my whole career”, and: “That’s a stark contrast to my predecessor and his Maga visions. They’ll undo everything, undo everything the NAACP stands for. But now they’re trying to deny it. They’re lying about their Project 2025. They want to deny your freedom, the freedom to vote.”The crowd at the NAACP convention has started chanting “four more years!” after Joe Biden vowed to restore the constitutional right to abortion.“And, guess what, come hell or high water, we’re going to restore Roe v Wade as the law of the land,” the president said.In a sign that the detente between Joe Biden and Donald Trump will be brief, the president has attacked his predecessor for his comments about “Black jobs”.Biden was referencing a comment Trump made during their first debate, in which he claimed undocumented immigrants are “taking Black jobs now”.“Of course he thinks of Black jobs,” Biden told the crowd at the NAACP convention. “I love his phrase, ‘Black jobs’, tells a lot about the man and about his character. Folks, I know what a Black job is. It’s a vice-president of the United States.”“I know what a Black job is. The first Black president … Barack Obama,” Biden added.It was a reversion to form for the president, who had toned down his rhetoric over the past couple of days following the assassination attempt on Trump. Expect the former president to follow suit.Joe Biden is commenting at length about the toll gun violence takes on American communities, and singled out the impact of assault weapons such as the AR-15.“An AR-15 was used in the shooting of Donald Trump. This was the assault weapon that killed so many others, including children. It’s time to outlaw them,” Biden said.In what was likely a reference to his involvement in passing the 1994 assault weapons ban, which expired 10 years later, Biden said: “I did it once, and I will do it again.”Joe Biden appears to be making light of the efforts by his fellow Democrats to get him to step aside in favor of what they feel would be a more electable candidate.He related the adage, credited to former president Harry Truman, that “if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog”.“After the last couple weeks, I know what he means,” quipped Biden, who had earlier described Truman as someone who “was often counted out”.Joe Biden is now speaking to the NAACP convention.“My name is Joe Biden, and I’m a lifetime member of the NAACP,” the president began, speaking of the longstanding civil rights group.Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP, is introducing Joe Biden, who will address the civil rights group’s convention in Las Vegas.He recounted how Black voters were crucial to determining the 2020 election, but noted, “not everyone shares the same investment in a progressive vision”.Johnson is singling out Project 2025, the rightwing plan to remake the US government that several officials tied to Donald Trump are involved in.“This is a 900-page manifesto that seeks to undermine progress, promote violence, inflict harm on our community. They must know that NAACP, we will be here for that fight,” Johnson said.At a lawmaker panel hosted by the rightwing organization Moms for Liberty – a group that has earned a reputation for advancing local book bans – the conversation, which was largely focused on the virtues of private education, shifted to teachers’ unions.“You have the teachers, and then you have the union,” said the Florida congressman Byron Donalds, to jeers from the crowd. “The Democrats can’t win elections without the power of unions.”Proponents of private education rarely speak so candidly about the political motives behind the push to defund public education. Donalds’ acknowledgment of the electoral power of unions offers a more complete picture of the conservative push to expand private schools, where union density is low.Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson has said he has “no doubt” that Donald Trump would continue supporting Ukraine, following a meeting with him.In a post on X, Johnson wrote: “We discussed Ukraine and I have no doubt that he will be strong and decisive in supporting that country and defending democracy.”The meeting comes amid growing concern that Trump could withdraw support for Ukraine and possibly seek a peace deal directly with the Kremlin that may involve territorial concessions.Boris Johnson met Trump on the sidelines of the Republican national convention in Milwaukee. He’s not the only former British prime minister to swing through:Kamala Harris has formally invited JD Vance, the Ohio senator who Donald Trump yesterday named as his running mate, to debate, the Biden-Harris campaign said.“Vice-President Harris reached out to Senator Vance and left a message to congratulate him on his selection, welcome him to the race and express her hope that the two can meet in the vice-presidential debate proposed by CBS News,” a campaign official said.It is unclear when the debate will happen. CBS News proposed 23 July or 13 August, which the Biden campaign has accepted.Joe Biden is expected to soon make his first speech in public since a gunman attempted to kill Donald Trump at a campaign rally over the weekend.In the aftermath of the failed assassination, in which a rallygoer and the gunman were killed, Biden and Trump have dialed back their relentless attacks on each others’ records ahead of the 5 November election.The president is scheduled to address the convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People civil rights group in Las Vegas, Nevada, a swing state that could prove crucial to both campaigns.Biden is once again late to begin his speech, but we’ll let you know he says when it starts.Sharon Yancey, 77, said she has been a Republican voter for 10 to 15 years.“He’s a patriot and I’m a patriot. I love America, and he does too. And he wants to make America the best for everyone, all people, that are here, including the minorities,” Yancey, who was wearing a red Make America great again hat, said of Trump.“Other groups of people, they vote their conscience and they’re not vilified for it, they’re not looked down on and told to feel like you’re less of a person if you don’t vote Democrat,” she said.“One of my son-in-laws is white; he votes the way he wants to vote. And I have another son-in-law who’s Asian; he votes the way he wants to vote. So why am I vilified and called you know, less than a human being, and all those other derogatory things they say about Black people who don’t follow the line?”Tim Scott, the South Carolina senator who was among the candidates to be Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick, stopped at an outreach event for Black voters in Milwaukee on Tuesday.Speaking at the Wisconsin GOP’s Black coalition headquarters, alongside four local politicians, Scott was more subdued than he had been on Monday night, when he literally roared into a microphone after dubbing Trump an “American lion”.As Scott entered the room there were 16 people seated, 10 of whom were Black, and they sat through a rather dry conversation about “opportunity zones”, a bipartisan 2017 program designed to boost investment in lower-income communities.There was no mention of Trump, and little mention of the Republican party as a whole, aside from Scott saying: “We have not been as good at marketing the success that’s come out of the conservative movement as we should be.”In a room which had portraits of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump mounted along one wall, some people said they would vote for Trump in November.“I’ve just recently made the shift over to being a Republican. My family were Democrat, I think I was just born into it,” said Mario Dickens. A local business owner, he said he became a Republican about a year ago.“We just haven’t seen much benefit at all over last four years. And four years prior things were going great for us,” Dickens said.Donald Trump Jr joked with his father about hair in the aftermath of Saturday’s assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.Don Jr was out fishing with his daughter in Jupiter, Florida, when he received a call from his fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, informing him that Donald Trump had been shot.“It was 90 minutes before I even knew he was alive,” Don Jr said at Axios House on the sidelines of the Republican national convention in Milwaukee.
      That was a tough moment and then finally, get hit him on the phone and honestly, considering the heaviness of that moment, sort of give me a window for some levity and I asked him, well, most importantly, how’s the hair?
      The audience laughed and Don Jr proceeded to imitate his father’s voice: “The hair’s fine, Don, the hair’s fine. A lot of blood in it but it’s fine.”Reverting to his normal voice, Don Jr added:
      To be shot and to stand up with that kind of resolve, I just felt like: you’re the biggest badass I know. That was my opening salvo and then we started joking hair and I said, can I call you Evander Holyfield because of the little missing chunk of ear?”
      [Heavyweight boxer Holyfield had a part of his ear bitten off by opponent Mike Tyson in 1997.]Don Jr claimed this is why the world was at peace during Trump’s presidency.
      Compare and contrast that honestly to just about any clip of Joe Biden these days.One exudes strength, the other exudes weakness. And when you exude weakness, it’s the nature of predation: predators prey on the weak. Our enemies will prey on us.
      Even so, Don Jr promised that Trump’s Thursday speech will be “toned down” and warned against complacency in the Republican ranks. “People are like, ‘Oh, after Saturday it’s over,’” he told the Axios gathering.
      Nothing is over. There’s no level the other side won’t go. There’s no nonsense they won’t play. This is not in the bag. We have to keep our foot on the gas every second of the day until November.
      Don Jr welcomed the idea of Robert Kennedy Jr serving under Trump in a second term – “Maybe there’s a great place for him somewhere in an administration” – and described his own potential role in a presidential transition.
      All I want to do is block the guys that would be a disaster. I want to block the liars. I want to block the guys that are pretending they’re with you … You guys pick the guy that’s right. I want the veto power to cut out each and every one of those people.
      Asked by interviewer Mike Allen for his “least Trumpy” quality, Don Jr replied: “I don’t play golf.”The Texas congresswoman Veronica Escobar, a co-chair of Biden’s campaign, said the president will tout his record during remarks at the UnidosUs conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday.Among Joe Biden’s accomplishments, she said, was being the steward of record low unemployment for Latinos. Latinos are also starting businesses at a record pace. Meanwhile, she added, crime is down and wages are up.But polls have shown Donald Trump making inroads with Hispanic voters, particularly men. Escobar said the Biden campaign was pouring resources into reaching Latino voters, but that more was needed before November.Referencing the Heritage Foundation’s radical plan to reshape the federal government, she said:
      We’ve been talking to Latino communities, I’ve traveled the country to meet with Latino groups, to hear them out, to talk to them about the president’s positive vision for America and contrast that with the incredibly dark, terrifying vision that the Trump-Vance campaign has laid out through Project 2025.
      “There’s a lot of work we still have to do to make sure that Latino voters feel heard and that we inspire them to get to the polls,” she continued. “That’s the work that we have been doing and will continue to do on the Biden-Harris campaign.”Immigration advocates are pre-empting what they anticipate will be a “dark and dystopian vision” on display during the second night of the Republican national convention, themed “Make America Safe Again.”The congresswoman Veronica Escobar, a co-chair of Biden’s re-election campaign, said she wanted to “sound the alarm” on Republicans’ escalating attacks on immigrants.As the Democratic congresswoman from El Paso, Texas, where five years ago a white supremecist targeted Latino shoppers at a Walmart in the city, killing 23 people, Escobar said she knows first hand how dangerous rhetoric can have deadly consequences. She told reporters on a call Tuesday:
      The incredibly dark vision that Donald Trump and his running mate and the Republican GOP have in store for America is a throwback to very, very dark days that we have seen in American history.
      She added that Republicans “want the American public to fear and loathe immigrants”.On the call, advocates warned that Republicans would likely twist the facts and repeat many of their false claims about immigration and crime. “Here’s what they won’t tell you,” Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, said.
      They will not tell you about the essential role that immigrants play in the Wisconsin economy and across the country. They won’t tell you about the fact that there is no correlation between crime and immigration. And they also won’t tell you that despite their anti-immigration crusade and the millions of political ads being spent this cycle on immigration, the support for citizenship is durable and consistent.
      The quote by Vanessa Cárdenas was amended. More