Republicans kicked off their convention with a lineup of speakers focused on touting the successes of President Trump in his first term.
.jpg)
Former Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley argued that Trump “has earned four more years as president,” praising his relationship with China and military gains against ISIS. “He tells the world what it needs to hear,” Haley added.
Speaking to the president's character, Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise stressed the support he received from the president and first lady Melania Trump after he was shot in 2017. “They were there for my family in my darkest hours,” Scalise said.
Anti-Democratic rhetoric also dominated the evening, with speakers criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.
In one of the most memorable speeches of the evening, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott argued that Biden “would turn our country into a socialist utopia.” Scott, who is the only Black Republican in the Senate, also attacked Biden's criminal justice record and the Democrats' policy response to the racial unrest over the killing of George Floyd.
The president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., took direct aim at Biden in his speech. “Joe Biden and the radical left are also now coming for our freedom of speech and want to bully us into submission,” he said.
Earlier in the day, over 300 delegates agreed in Charlotte, N.C., and officially voted to make Trump the Republican Party's nominee for president. Trump spoke at the convention during the day as well as at an event nearby in Mills River.
“This is the most important election in the history of our country,” Trump said during the convention. “This is the biggest — this is it. Our country can go in a horrible, horrible direction or an even greater direction. And before the plague came in from China, that's where we were going. “We were going in a direction like we had never seen.”