Takeaways from the second night of the Republican National Convention
CNN
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, in her speech to the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, cheered America’s “incredible ability to self-correct.”
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, in her speech to the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, cheered America’s “incredible ability to self-correct.” Haley, so recently a political rival and fierce critic of former President Donald Trump, might have been talking about herself. On the second night of the convention in Milwaukee, less than 24 hours after a top union leader denounced corporate America in the same hall, Haley executed a stark about-face, pledging her support to Trump and asking others who had expressed similar concerns about his potential return to power to consider the alternative: President Joe Biden. Other speakers, such as Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump and grief-stricken parents telling their own families’ agonizing stories, offered more poignant messages as the GOP and Trump’s campaign tried again to sand off the former president’s rough edges. “I will start by making one thing perfectly clear: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement. Period,” Haley said at the beginning of her speech – dispelling any remaining suggestions to the contrary and, in the moment, warming up a crowd that had greeted her coolly. Haley’s speech, delivered a night after Trump was formally nominated, firmly closed the door on whatever remains of the dissent that hung over parts of the 2024 GOP primary campaign. But if she was trying to thread a needle, backing Trump the candidate without endorsing all his ideas, she was the exception. The other speakers were unanimously loyal to the former president, describing him as a self-sacrificial leader who, while in office, took America to its greatest heights only to see his work undone by Biden’s feckless presidency. Former foes lined up to sing Trump’s praises, admit the error of their ways and tell voters that the halcyon days of Trump’s first term would seem mild compared with the promise of another.
Senate Democrats grilled Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over his various controversial statements including his stance on vaccines during his confirmation hearing to be President Donald Trump’s health and human services secretary, and most left feeling overwhelmingly unsatisfied by the answers they received.
A Nigerian man has been extradited to the US to face charges in the “sextortion” of a South Carolina teen who died by suicide in 2022. Prosecutors allege the scammer posed as a young woman, persuaded 17-year-old Gavin Guffey to send him nude photos and then threatened to publicize them if Guffey didn’t send money.