Republican convention featured felons despite party’s ‘law and order’ pledge

Trump and Peter Navarro – fresh out of Florida jail – both addressed convention with Paul Manafort in attendance

The Republican party that promised in its 2024 policy platform to restore “law and order” as a “pillar” of “American civilisation” packed up and left Milwaukee on Friday after a convention featuring numerous felons.

The most prominent was the keynote speaker: Donald Trump, the former president turned nominee who in May was convicted in New York on 34 criminal charges of falsifying business records arising from hush-money payments to an adult film star.

Continue reading...

More Democrats call for Biden to exit 2024 race as president vows to return to campaign trail – as it happened

This live blog is now closed. For the latest on Biden’s campaign, you can read:

The report is consequential because Biden relies heavily on his family to make major political decisions. They are his inner circle and his brain trust and include his wife, Jill Biden, his only living son, Hunter Biden, and his sister, Valerie Biden.

Behind the scenes, those close to Biden, his family and top allies, are reportedly seething over the way he is being treated. They believe the effort to dislodge him from the campaign has been “backhanded and disrespectful” according to the NBC report, which says the family is “distraught and moving through the stages of anger and grief over how people they perceived to be friends have treated the president”.

Continue reading...

When is Trump’s RNC speech? How to watch and what’s at stake

The former president will speak from the Republican national convention in Milwaukee on Thursday night

The biggest event of the Republican convention kicks off Thursday night, with Donald Trump’s address to thousands of party loyalists in attendance.

Trump appeared at the opening night of the Republican national convention on Monday, when he was greeted with thunderous applause, marking his first public appearance since surviving an assassination attempt at his campaign rally. Earlier in the day, Trump announced JD Vance, the Ohio senator and once vocal critic of Trump, as his running mate.

Continue reading...

Donald Trump to give RNC speech as Joe Biden faces ongoing pressure to stand aside – US politics live

Former president to address RNC after his running mate JD Vance gave populist-tinged speech on Wednesday

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has written a column for the Guardian, arguing that Trump’s near assassination transformed his theology, giving the decidedly earthly ex-president a powerful spiritual sheen.

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has transformed the theology of Trump. He has long portrayed himself as an innocent lamb falsely accused, the target of slings and arrows to bear the suffering of believers. Now the bullet and the blood of Butler, Pennsylvania, have sanctified him for the faithful and brought forth a new gospel.

Continue reading...

Trump expected to call for national unity in first speech since assassination attempt

Strategists view Republican convention address as time to ‘pivot’ ex-president’s image, while critics remain skeptical

With political winds at his back, Donald Trump on Thursday is expected to use his first speech since surviving an assassination attempt to plead for national unity.

Strategists view the Republican national convention address, likely to be watched by tens of millions of Americans on primetime television, as a unique opportunity to redefine the former US president as more palatable to moderate voters.

Continue reading...

JD Vance fires salvos at Democrats in first speech as Trump’s running mate

Junior senator of Ohio leaned into his own background and attacked Biden in Republican national convention address

JD Vance formally accepted the Republican vice-presidential nomination on Wednesday with a deliberate, and at times divisive, pitch to re-elect Donald Trump in November.

Addressing delegates in Milwaukee on the third night of the convention, Vance, the junior senator of Ohio, presented the Republican party as a champion of working-class Americans while denouncing Democrats as out of touch and ineffective. The populist-tinged rhetoric offered the latest sign of how Trump has reshaped the Republican party and rejected much of the traditional conservatism of its past.

Continue reading...

JD Vance tells Republican convention ‘people who govern this country have failed and failed again’ – as it happened

This live blog is now closed. You can read some of our latest stories on the RNC below:

In his speech to the Republican convention, Greg Abbott gave a strenuous and well-received defense of his state’s forays into immigration enforcement, and vowed to keep up his controversial practice of bussing migrants from the state to cities nationwide.

“When Biden took 50 acres of Texas border property to illegally process up to 5,000 illegal immigrants a day, I directed the Texas National Guard to take back our land and wire it shut,” Abbott said, in an apparent reference to a legal clash between the state government and the Biden administration earlier this year.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refused to even come to Texas and to see the border crisis that they created. I took the border to them. I began bussing illegal immigrants to Washington DC, and we have continued bussing migrants to sanctuary cities across the entire country, and those busses will continue to roll until we finally secure our border.

Continue reading...

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

David Axelrod, former top Obama adviser, says the question of whether Biden can survive is ‘entirely in his hands’

Today’s theme at the Republican national convention will be “Make America Strong Once Again,” and many of the speeches are expected to focus on foreign policy.

“Each one of these has a theme, like last night was ‘bend the knee and grovel’ apparently,” Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, said at a Democratic press conference in Milwaukee. “And today is ‘celebrate Russia day,’ I guess.”

Continue reading...

Nikki Haley says Donald Trump ‘has my strong endorsement’ as she is greeted by boos and cheers at Republican convention – live

Former rival for Republican presidential nomination takes to stage in Milwaukee to formally endorse Trump

In addition to getting Donald Trump back in the White House, Republicans really want to retake the majority in the US Senate in the November elections, and have dedicated much of the convention tonight thus far to promoting their candidates for crucial seats.

In addition to Kari Lake, who is vying for Arizona’s open senate seat, the convention has heard from Eric Hovde, the party’s candidate to beat incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin. Here’s what Hovde told the crowd:

Tammy Baldwin called the Biden administration the most successful in generations. Can you believe that one? I mean, seriously, this shows how detached she is from everyday Wisconsinites. It doesn’t have to be this way. Under President Trump, family budgets were more secure, our border was secure, our world was secure. Where Biden and Baldwin have failed, President Trump and I will get the job done.

I love America, and I’ve lived the American dream. I married my best friend, raised a family, built successful businesses and created thousands of jobs for hard-working Americans. But the American dream that I lived is under attack from Joe Biden and his enablers in the Senate like Sherrod Brown.

Continue reading...

Republican convention speakers ramp up anti-Democratic rhetoric despite campaign promise of unity

Kari Lake attacks media as ‘fake news’ as Elise Stefanik calls Biden ‘feckless and failed’ and says he’s caused ‘chaos’

Speakers at the Republican national convention ramped up their rhetorical attacks on Democrats on Tuesday night despite Donald Trump’s presidential campaign signalling that the party would adopt a serious tone and message of unity in the face of political violence.

Kari Lake, a Trump ally and Republican candidate for senate in Arizona, used her speech time to launch an attack on the media, which she called “fake news”, and said more Americans were no longer tuning in to mainstream media.

Continue reading...

‘Not welcome in our city’: protesters march on Republican convention

Coalition of progressive groups wave Palestinian flags and anti-Trump banners on protest in downtown Milwaukee

As the Republican national convention kicked off in Milwaukee on Monday, about a thousand people led a spirited demonstration against Donald Trump and his party on the streets outside.

The March on the RNC gathered in a park a couple of blocks from the Fiserv Forum, where Trump was formally nominated at the Republican candidate for president.

Continue reading...

Who is JD Vance, Trump’s vice-presidential pick?

Once an outspoken Trump critic, the senator believes the former US president is the ‘best president’ of his ‘lifetime’

Donald Trump has selected JD Vance, the junior senator of Ohio and author of the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, as his running mate in the presidential race.

The announcement, made on Monday during the first day of the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, marked the culmination of Vance’s stunning political evolution over the past several years.

Continue reading...

Trump picks JD Vance as his running mate – live

Donald Trump has announced that Ohio senator JD Vance will be his running mate

President Joe Biden has postponed a planned trip to Texas today, where he was to speak on the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the Lyndon B Johnson presidential library.

An NBC News interview between Biden and anchor Lester Holt will now occur at the White House, instead of in Texas, as initially planned, Associated Press reports.

There is no place in America for this kind of violence or for any violence for that matter.

An assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for as a nation. Everything. It’s not who we are as a nation. It’s not America, and we cannot allow this to happen.

Continue reading...

Trump to keep schedule for Republican convention after rally shooting

Next public appearance is tentatively set for Tuesday at the convention but sources caution that could still change

Donald Trump huddled with his senior advisers at his Bedminster club in New Jersey a day after surviving what federal investigators called an assassination attempt, preparing for the Republican national convention, which kicks off on Monday.

Trump was keeping the same schedule as originally planned, according to sources familiar with the situation. His next public appearance is tentatively set for Tuesday at the convention though the sources cautioned that could change.

Continue reading...