What Went Down On Night 2 Of The RNC

The second night of the RNC didn’t necessarily have as many high-profile speakers as Night 1. Sen. Rand Paul, for instance, was the only federal lawmaker to speak tonight. But Republicans did use tonight as an opportunity to build on many of the same themes introduced last night — including targeted criticisms of “cancel culture” — while at the same time promoting racial diversity within the GOP.

There were also a number of pivots on display tonight, including an impromptu naturalization ceremony with President Trump swearing in a handful of new citizens. This is noteworthy (and perhaps norm-defying) for a convention, but it also stood in stark contrast to the steps Trump’s administration has taken to make legal immigration to the U.S. more difficult, including limiting student visas and certain forms of work visas. That pivot tonight could be part of a larger movement among Republicans in this convention to win over voters outside of Trump’s base. The question will be whether it’s effective.

Scroll back through to relive the live blog in all its chronological glory, but if that’s too much, I’ve asked the members of the team to assemble their headlines for tonight.

• Amelia: On the Second Night of the RNC, The Hatch Act Gets Its 15 Minutes Of Fame
• Galen: The Prime-Time Hour Shows An Inclusive And Modulated GOP
• Julia: Monday Felt Like A Party Convention. Tonight Felt Like A Trump Show.
• Nathaniel: RNC Night 2 Flouts Federal Law While Hitting Same Themes As Night 1
• Shom: All Politics Is Personal. Tonight’s Convention Was About Trump As A Person (Sort Of).
• Meena: On Night 2, Republicans Attempt To Make The Case That The Trump Campaign Is Anti-Racist And Welcoming Of Women And Immigrants
• Matt: Republicans Try a More Positive Tone on Immigration, Race And Gender
• Kaleigh: Rare Appearance From FLOTUS … And Not Much Else
• Meredith: On Night 2, Republicans Talk Up Economic Progress in the U.S. (Until the Pandemic, But Don’t Blame Them For That.)
• Geoffrey: On Night 2, Republicans Continued To Promote The Party’s Diversity

I don’t know that tonight was very effective. There wasn’t a lot of star power or a lot of people with great speaking talent. And tonight volleyed a lot between different themes. But at least there’s some effort to reach out beyond the base — a bit more than I thought there might be — especially in Melania Trump’s speech. A lot of it depends on whether voters buy into the theatrics of stuff like, say, Trump holding a naturalization ceremony, or just think he’s being an opportunist/hypocrite/cynic given his track record on immigration.

Tonight was kind of a grab bag — the speakers talked up women in the Republican Party, the Trump administration’s record on religious liberty and we saw a rather stunning video of a naturalization ceremony at the White House featuring Trump. There were a lot of moments that seemed at odds with the reality of the Trump administration, particularly in light of his extremely restrictive record on legal and illegal immigration. I’m not sure how it will play with viewers, to be honest. There were some reminders that Trump has delivered to some of his strongest supporters, like white evangelical Protestants. But presenting Trump as pro-immigration just seems weirdly off-brand.

This night was fundamentally about building up Trump’s character as a fighter with a warm heart. Taking into account last night’s more law-and-order focused theme, tonight was about making voters feel safe after they’ve been scared. I’m not sure if this was really effective at persuading the “Never Trump” Republicans, so this set of speeches felt more like it was giving the base some confidence that they are going with the right choice.

For a night without a lot of star power, there was a lot to chew on. I thought the speakers in the final hour were pretty good. Eric Trump gave perhaps the most rhetorically sophisticated speech of the RNC. Daniel Cameron is a rising star in the party who once again made the case that Black voters can be Republicans too (although his speech was probably geared more toward assuring white voters that the GOP isn’t racist). And Melania Trump gave a speech with a lot of crossover appeal, although her apparent lack of comfort while speaking means it’s unlikely to get a lot of airtime. However, the most striking feature of the night were the multiple norm violations, even Hatch Act violations. The cut-ins to Trump in the White House (pardoning a criminal justice activist, swearing in new citizens) explicitly used official government instruments for electoral gain, and that deserves plenty of criticism.

The second night of the 2016 Republican convention was focused on the economy. Tonight skipped wildly from topic to topic, with no clear theme. But the prime-time hour with Melania and the naturalization ceremony may have helped reassure reluctant Republican voters that their party has not entirely become an anti-immigrant party and effectively used the majesty of the White House.

I mused last night that the back-to-back podium speakers might get redundant after awhile, and I think that was proven true tonight. There were a few dramatic flourishes (a naturalization ceremony, a pardoning) but tonight largely paralleled Night 1 in tone and theme: school choice, low taxes, anti-regulation, etc.

For the second straight night, the Republican convention featured a diverse array of speakers along with members of the Trump family and inner circle. The party has made a clear effort to demonstrate that it does have some racial and ethnic diversity, although voters of color will almost certainly back Biden in large numbers come November. With the president under fire for his handling of race relations, the speakers and their speeches have sought to combat the notion that Trump is racist.

Social media discussion about the president gets slightly more positive as the total volume declines. Reception to Melania Trump is highly positive — she actually surpasses POTUS in volume temporarily.

Address important party groups – Proficient. Several speeches directed at cultural and religious conservatives (Abby Johnson’s speech about abortion, Nicholas Sandmann’s speech about “cancel culture”). Larry Kudlow also brought an economically conservative perspective.

Create party unity – Adequate minus. Not many mainstream Republicans tonight. Rand Paul made a brief appearance as a 2016 rival, and the only federal lawmaker.

Reach beyond the party base – Proficient. When not talking about issues of cultural grievance, there was a lot of emphasis on criminal justice reform and stories of transformation. Additionally, the impromptu naturalization ceremony (!!!) flew directly in the face of the anti-immigration sentiment that Trump’s administration has been known for.

I wonder, however, if the scenes with people unmasked and not following social distance guidelines, will cut against the convention’s broader appeal.

Command the news cycle – Proficient. The unusual merging of official functions and convention politics – the citizenship ceremony, the presidential pardon of Jon Ponder – are the likely headline grabbers. This might have been a clever move, because it’s hard for media outlets to question these norm violations without throwing the people involved under the bus.

And those are likely to overshadow what’s arguably the most serious norm violation of the evening: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressing the convention. There’s a reason we usually keep the highest levels of diplomacy separate from party politics – we want to show a united face to the world.

Unclear how tonight’s events will play out in the news cycle, but Sen. Tim Scott’s speech seems to have captured some good press last night.

Rally sentiment against Democrats – Adequate. There have been some lines about Biden being a “puppet” of the far left, with familiar attack lines about socialism and gun rights that are sure to play to the party’s base.

Explain and publicized the party’s positions – Inadequate. The first half of the night had some policy content – some vivid reminders of the party’s position on abortion, for example. But this deteriorated over the course of the evening, and the “surprises” detracted from actual policy content. It’s to be expected from the presidential spouse’s speech, but Melania’s speech had only a modest amount of policy content, highlighting opioid addiction toward the end.

Melania Trump explicitly says she doesn’t want to attack the other side and sow further division.

Gotta say, the crickets are a nice backdrop.

For a Wisconsin-heavy night, there has been limited mention of the current situation in Kenosha and Jacob Blake.

OK, as Trump’s speech is wrapping up, she finally starts to talk up her husband’s leadership.

There is remarkably little about President Trump in this speech, though. It’s definitely a contrast with Jill Biden’s speech last week, which was extremely personal and had a lot of detail about her husband.

Melania Trump just offered an acknowledgment of the racial unrest in the country, another thing that’s been pretty lacking so far in the convention.

The optimistic case for Trump is that an important target audience of the convention is traditional Republican voters who have concerns about Trump personally and need modest reassurance. The combination of conservative messaging, presidential imagery and overt efforts to answer criticisms of racism could be enough to give them an excuse to follow through on their leanings.

To Geoff’s point, social media sentiment towards Melania Trump has remained more positive than POTUS throughout the evening, including as she has given her remarks.

FLOTUS’s reference to natural disasters is done in a way to downplay its connection to climate change. Research by Chad Hazlett and Matto Mildenberger at UCLA suggests that experiences with climate-related disasters, such as wildfires, polarizes Americans when it comes to supporting action to combat climate change.

A recent Politico/Morning Consult poll found Melania Trump was the only Republican they tested who received a net positive favorability rating, with 45 percent viewing her favorably and 38 percent unfavorably.

This speech does make you wonder why we don’t see more of Melania Trump. She comes off as very warm, even though she’s not really a natural public speaker. But as Kaleigh mentioned earlier, she seems to really dislike the spotlight.

Yeah, the content of this speech is by far the most broadly appealing of any RNC speech yet (though I wouldn’t call it a persuasive electoral argument).

This is a strikingly apolitical speech — not necessarily a surprise coming from a political spouse — but it stands in contrast to what we’ve seen so far this convention.

And it feels like a departure from the other messaging of the night.

That’s an important point, Amelia. But to Clare’s point, given the emphasis on her own story as an immigrant in the U.S., it does make you think this is a speech she had a lot of say in crafting — or it certainly comes across that way.

Melania Trump is now describing her own path to U.S. citizenship. It’s an inspiring, uplifting story — but once again there’s a lot of cognitive dissonance, given how much the Trump administration has done to limit legal immigration.

I am now incredibly curious about the story behind the first lady’s speech. Who wrote it, how much input did she have on its direction and is this was a message the campaign specifically thought would be best delivered by her? Seems odd that she’d be the only person to be the public griever/empathizer, so I’m leaning towards “this is something she wanted to talk about.”

Trump has always appeared a bit of a reluctant FLOTUS. She doesn’t make a lot of public speeches, and very rarely at this scale.

Melania Trump highlights an exhibit at the White House commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, and how she’ll be so proud to vote for her husband this November.

It’s a much more empathetic description of the suffering created by the pandemic than we’ve heard so far in the RNC, I think. Which is especially striking given that Trump has been criticized so heavily for not extending sympathy to victims of COVID-19.

Actually, is this the first mention of the pandemic at all tonight? That can’t be right, but I don’t remember one?

Like Sarah said, Melania Trump refers to COVID-19 as “the invisible enemy.” Many others tonight have called it “the China virus.”

Trump thanks the people “who took a chance” to support a businessman who entered politics to become president.

Yeah, that was really one of the first acknowledgements of the scale of COVID-19 at this convention so far.

“I want to acknowledge that, since March, our lives have changed drastically.” Trump is perhaps going farther than any speaker of the RNC so far in acknowledging the seriousness of the pandemic.

“The invisible enemy, COVID-19,” says Melania Trump in describing how much life has changed since March and the spread of the pandemic.

The intro video mentioned Melania Trump’s renovation of the White House Rose Garden, which has not gotten good reviews online.

Leading into Melania Trump’s speech, the Trump kids tonight have gotten some buzz in social media conversations, but none of them have exceeded the president in volume.

At least they’re outdoors? But, yeah. There has been a conspicuous lack of masks and social distancing at this convention. Not completely lacking, but enough to create a big contrast with Democrats.

Masks were encouraged, Kaleigh, but not required, according to guidance we received from ABC on the speech.

So, while there seems to be some attempt at distancing attendees at the Rose Garden for Melania Trump’s’s speech … this is not nearly enough. That’s a lot of people within feet of each other and very few masks, violating CDC recommendations.

This is what Pompeo tweeted when Hillary Clinton, his predecessor, spoke at last week’s convention:

Pompeo’s decision to speak at the convention was controversial because it’s been seen as breaking with traditional norms. ABC News recently pointed out that no sitting Secretary of State had spoken at a party convention since at least 1976. So I did a little digging, and it turns out the last time a secretary of state spoke at a convention was in 1972, when William Pierce Rogers gave a tribute to Dwight Eisenhower, who had died in 1969.

The Trump administration had a fairly significant diplomatic victory earlier this month, when diplomatic relations were normalized between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, which Pompeo just touted.

Pompeo’s speech from Jerusalem is definitely an explicitly cue to paint the party as friendly to Jewish people. Polling from 2019 shows that a plurality of Jewish Americans identify as Democrats (47 percent) while about 18 percent identify as Republicans. Like some of the polling Perry referenced yesterday around the partisanship of Black voters, the cues primed by this speech seem to be aimed more toward the base than at convincing those outside the party.

Pompeo’s pre-taped speech from Jerusalem tonight is noteworthy for a lot of reasons, but especially the audience. You might think that giving a speech from Israel, the Jewish state, is designed to appeal to Jews, but it’s actually a very clear signal to many white evangelical Christians, who see the modern state of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. According to that prophecy, God promised the land of Israel to the Jews, and the Jews’ return to Israel is part of the prophecy surrounding the rapture and the second coming of Christ.

To give you a sense of how widespread these beliefs are, a poll conducted in December 2017 by Lifeway Research, a Baptist polling firm, found that 80 percent of evangelicals (note: the definition of “evangelical” they use is fairly specific and different from most other pollsters) believe the existence of the modern state of Israel fulfills prophecy about the second coming of Christ. During Trump’s presidency, decisions like moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem have also been touted by some evangelical supporters as fulfillments of that prophecy.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is now speaking from Jerusalem (the remarks were reportedly recorded a week ago or so). For many Americans this might be their first introduction to Pompeo, who reportedly has 2024 presidential ambitions.

According to political scientist Hakeem Jefferson’s work on the attitudes of Black people, respectability seems to be a big cleavage within the Black community. If I were to make a prediction based off his work, driving a wedge among Black voters around respectability, following the law, etc. will likely be a recurring message if the party tries to genuinely appeal to Black voters.

It’s always infrastructure week, Nathaniel.