Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley will speak at the party convention on Tuesday, as Donald Trump seeks to consolidate the support of his primary voters in his rematch against Joe Biden in November.
Haley, who dropped out of the presidential race in March, made some harsh criticisms of Trump during her campaign but has since indicated she will support the former president in November. His appearance at the convention, which was a last-minute addition to the schedule, offers Trump the opportunity to present a united Republican front as Democrats clash over Biden’s candidacy.
Haley’s speech comes after Republicans opened their nominating convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with great energy. Trump kicked off the convention on Monday with the announcement that Ohio Senator JD Vance would serve as his running mate, ending months of heated speculation about who would join the former president at the top of the ticket. After formally winning the nomination in the afternoon, Trump brought convention attendees to their feet when he made a surprise appearance at the Fiserv Forum on Monday night.
In his first public appearance since the assassination attempt on him on Saturday, Trump appeared at the convention with a bandage on his ear, which was injured in the attack. Several speakers who spoke at the convention on Monday express deep gratitude that Trump survived the shooting, which left a rally attendee and the alleged shooter dead.
Related: Trump appears with bandaged ear at Republican national convention
“Two days ago, evil struck the man we so admire and love,” far-right Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene told convention attendees. “I thank God his hand was on President Trump.”
On Tuesday, Republicans are expected to focus their attention on crime and immigration, as the theme of the day will be “Making America Safe Once Again.” Immigration has become a rallying cry for Republicans, with Trump and his allies repeatedly and falsely accusing Biden of supporting “open borders.”
Trump has previously called for the deportation of 15 to 20 million undocumented immigrants if he wins re-election, and Vance expressed his own support for mass deportation in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday.
“We have to deport people,” Vance told Hannity. “We have to deport people who violated our laws and came here. And I think we need to start with violent criminals.”
As Republicans speak out, Biden and his Democratic allies are resuming some campaign communications after suspending their planned anti-Trump ads in response to the assassination attempt. At a press conference in Milwaukee on Tuesday, Biden campaign officials said the assassination attempt on Trump would not change their messaging strategy going forward.
“The president and vice president have been very clear about their vision when it comes to the agenda they intend to present to Americans. Our campaign has been talking about this for months,” said Quentin Fulks, Biden’s chief deputy campaign manager. “And we will continue to draw the contrast between what this work really means and what it means to the lives of the American people.”
Biden himself repeated that message in an NBC News interview with Lester Holt that aired Monday night. Even as 19 congressional Democrats called on Biden to drop out of the race following his disastrous debate performance last month, the president defended his re-election while acknowledging that it was a “mistake” to say during a recent donor call that Trump should be the “ target” of the party at this time.
“I meant focus on him. Focus on what he is doing. Focus on – your – his policies. Focus on the number of lies he told in the debate,” Biden said. “I’m not the guy who said I want to be a dictator from day one. I’m not the guy who refused to accept the election results. I wasn’t the one who said I wouldn’t automatically accept the result of this election. You can’t just love your country when you win.”
Right now, it appears Biden still needs to sell that message to more voters. National surveys show a tight race between Biden and Trump, and Biden appears to be in trouble in several states he won in 2020.
Despite these warning signs, Fulks insisted that the Democratic National Committee would move forward with its previous plan to nominate Biden through a virtual roll call vote before its convention in Chicago next month. Democrats initially proposed virtual roll call voting because of Ohio’s Aug. 7 voting deadline, but state lawmakers passed a bill to address that issue. Still, Biden’s team is not intimidated.
“We move forward. We instituted this before they had a solution and we will continue on that path,” Fulks said.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker traveled to Milwaukee for the press conference to express his strong support for the president’s agenda and appeared to grow increasingly frustrated as he listed the many policy differences between Biden and Trump.
“We know what we have. And so our whole job is simply to tell the truth,” Booker said. “At this time in our democracy, please vote for decency, kindness, empathy and grace. These are the best American values.”
