RNC: Trump paints Biden as a ‘radical’ candidate and a danger to America
President accepts Republican presidential nomination in event staged at White House, raising ethical concerns
Against a backdrop of a global pandemic, heightened racial tensions, and widespread unemployment, Donald Trump framed his Democratic rival Joe Biden as the real danger to the country’s safety and economic welfare in his address to the Republican convention on Thursday.
Accepting the party’s presidential nomination ahead of November’s elections, Trump argued for more than an hour that his administration had accomplished everything it had set out to do and warned that a Biden presidency could be ruinous.
“This is the most important election in the history of our country,” Trump told an audience of around 1,500 supporters and officials on the South Lawn of the White House, raising concerns over the ethics of holding a political rally at the site, and over the apparent lack of social distancing measures.
“At no time before have voters faced a clearer choice between two parties, two visions, two philosophies, or two agendas.”
Trump went on to excoriate the Democratic party and argue that the choice for voters is between a “law and order” president who has a record of unmatched accomplishments, and a “socialist” opposition party and “radical” candidate eager to bring anarchy to the streets.
Trump and his campaign have charged again and again that Biden is a “socialist” and liberal extremist who wants to defund police across the country and supports a government-run Medicare for All healthcare plan championed by the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. Both are untrue, and Biden is seen as a moderate in the party.
Biden himself has pointed out that the dire picture Trump has described is actually what’s going on now, during his time in office.
“The violence you’ve seen is in Donald Trump’s administration. Donald Trump’s America,” Biden said on Thursday.
Donald Trump and Melania Trump arrive on the South Lawn of the White House on the fourth day of the Republican national convention on Thursday. Photograph: Doug Mills/AP
Trump, Mike Pence, and other speakers have also argued that under Trump the economy has only improved, foreign terrorists have been defeated, and the coronavirus pandemic is an afterthought. But the US defense department says Isis has not been entirely defeated; tens of millions remain unemployed; and Covid-19 is still claiming hundreds of lives every day.
Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and White House advisor, gave the most effusive speech of the evening,.
“My father isn’t deterred by defeatist thinkers. The word impossible, well it only motivates him. Donald Trump rejects the cynical notion that our biggest accomplishments are behind us,” she said.
Besides the Trumps, the Arkansas senator Tom Cotton and Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani delivered speeches.
Former New York mayor and Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani seen on a video screen addressing the final night of the Republican national convention. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters
Giuliani, the former New York mayor, used his speech to paint a portrait of an America on the verge of anarchy, and accused New York current mayor Bill De Blasio of allowing protests and crime to spiral.
“Today, my city is in shock. Murders, shootings, and violent crime are increasing in percentages never heard of in the past,” Giuliani claimed. In reality, serious crime is down under de Blasio, the annual number of murders is around half the number it was under Giuliani.
“These continuous riots in Democratic cities gives a good view” of a Biden administration, Giuliani claimed. He ended by saying “Mr President, make our nation safe again!”
In a taped speech, senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, described Trump as his friend, and framed himself as a midwestern champion leading the defense of the Senate from Democrats.
“Today’s Democratic party doesn’t want to improve life for middle America,” McConnell said in the video, going on to say “we are the firewall against Nancy Pelosi’s agenda”.
Unlike most speakers this week, Trump’s housing secretary Ben Carson directly addressed Blake’s shooting, starting his remarks by saying “our hearts go out to the Blake family” before launching into a full throated defense of Trump on the African American community.
“Before the pandemic African American unemployment was at an all time low,” Carson said, in a somewhat misleading statement. “At this point in time President Trump is the man with the courage, the vision, and the ability to keep it shining brightly.”
The RNC has notably lacked some key party figures and the presence of the last Republican president, George W Bush. Meanwhile, Democrats’ convention included speeches by former Republican elected officials who have emerged as outspoken critics of the president.
On Thursday morning, aides to the previous two Republican nominees for president, the late John McCain and the Utah senator Mitt Romney, released statements endorsing Biden. The Biden campaign hopes that support will motivate moderates and Republicans to support the centrist Democrat.
Earlier on Thursday, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, delivered a scathing rebuke of the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic.
“The Republican convention is designed for one purpose: to soothe Donald Trump’s ego, to make him feel good,” Harris said. “But here’s the thing: he’s the president of the United States, and it’s not supposed to be about him. It’s supposed to be about the health and the safety and the wellbeing of the American people.”
Thursday night’s events ended with Trump and his family standing on the stage in front of the White House balcony listening to a band play Ave Maria, another norm-shattering piece of Trump’s convention.
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