NEW YORK, Aug 25 (APP): US President Donald Trump has warned his fellow Republicans their opponents — the Democrats — may “steal” November’s election, as his party anointed him as their presidential candidate.
“The only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election,’ he told delegates in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The four-day convention opened at a critical juncture for Trump, 74, who trails his Democratic challenger Joe Biden, 77, in national opinion polls during a pandemic that has killed here more than 176,000 Americans and erased millions of jobs.
The president has repeatedly said that mail-in ballots will lead to voting fraud and give a boost to his rival Democrat — Biden.
However, experts say the mail-in voting system, which Trump himself uses, is safe from tampering.
Democrats have been pushing for allowing vote by mail in November due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has raised concerns about voters congregating in polling places.
At the convention, President Trump and the Republican Party leaders sought to rebut the previous week’s Democratic convention, which cast the president as an empathetic leader and his party as diverse.
Monday night’s Republican convention featured a mix of ordinary Americans and celebrities, mainstream political figures and Trump loyalists, who took turns beating back against what they characterized as misconceptions about the president that they say have contributed to a dark picture of his administration.
Speakers repeatedly sought to humanize Trump, who made two appearance himself at the two-and-a-half hour televised event, once with front-line healthcare workers and once with hostages his administration had helped return to the United States.
The Republican convention’s first night featured a host of female speakers led by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. The night’s headliner was Senator, Tim Scott, an Afro-American Republican, who cast Trump as a champion of Black people and Democratic nominee Joe Biden as someone who sees Black voters as monolithic.
Polls show Trump trailing Biden badly with both Black voters and women, though the president is doing better than previous Republican nominees with Black voters.
Scott invoked two Black Americans whose deaths at the hands of police have sparked nationwide demonstrations, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and talked about working side-by-side with Trump on “opportunity zones” for low income communities. Like other speakers, he cast Biden as a politician enthralled with his party’s left wing, and warned his election should shift the country toward socialism.
Speakers also took aim at the Democratic drumbeat that Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic is enough to end his presidency at one term. The U.S. is approaching 180,000 deaths from COVID-19, and has more cases than any other country in the world.
At their convention last week, Democrats called the president a racist and blamed him for inflaming the racial tensions that have exploded across the country since Floyd’s death.
“Joe Biden believes we can’t think for ourselves – that the color of someone’s skin dictates their political views,” said Republican House candidate Kim Klacik, who is running for the seat once held by late Congressman Elijah Cummings, a Democrat. “We’re not buying the lies anymore – you and your party have ignored us for too long.”
Scott gave an unsparing critique of Biden’s own remarks about Black people and his record on racial justice.
“In 1994, Biden led the charge on a crime bill that put millions of black Americans behind bars,” Scott said. “President Trump’s criminal justice reform law fixed many of the disparities Biden created and made our system more fair and just for all Americans.”
Polls show Biden with about 90 percent support among Black voters. The Trump campaign is seeking to win over Black voters at the margins, believing that even cutting a little bit into Biden’s lead could pay off in metro areas in key battleground states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Nikki Haley, a Republican, who is viewed as potential 2024 presidential contender, shared her own story of overcoming discrimination and hardship as the daughter of Indian immigrants.
Born as Nimrata Randhawa to Sikh parents who migrated from Indian Punjab, Ms. Haley created history by becoming the first woman to occupy the governor’s mansion of South Carolina.
“In much of the Democratic Party, it’s now fashionable to say that America is racist,” Haley told delegates at the convention. “That is a lie. America is not a racist country, ” a remark that drew sharp criticism on social media.
Polls show a significant majority of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of the virus, which has emerged as the biggest obstacle to his reelection.
Meanwhile, a group of former Trump administration officials led by a former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official who has endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden are forming a group dedicated to defeating President Trump in November.
Politico reported Monday that Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff at DHS under Trump, as well as two other former DHS officials are behind the new group known as the Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform (REPAIR), which has launched a rudimentary website teasing more information in the days ahead.
“(REPAIR) is a group of former U.S. officials, advisors, and conservatives—organized by ex-Trump administration officials—calling for leadership change in the White House and seeking to repair the Republican Party. We believe America’s comeback starts this November—with a return to our founding principles,” the group’s website reads.
Taylor, who resigned from DHS in 2019, told Politico in a statement that his group was working to get as many as 40 Republican former officials signed on to the effort to boost Biden’s candidacy. His efforts appear similar to those of the Lincoln Project, a group of GOP strategists and activists working against the president’s reelection through televised and online ads.
“The President has demonstrated he’s unfit for office. And those of us who witnessed the chaos of his Administration firsthand from the inside are coming together to ensure that Trump is not re-elected,” Taylor said.
“More importantly, this organization will be planning for a post-Trump Republican Party and working with other groups to repair the GOP and repair our republic. In the coming weeks, we’ll be announcing a range of Republican talent that will be helping drive the effort, as well as new initiates to bring the GOP back to its roots, away from the corruption of Trumpism, and toward a more forward-looking agenda,” he added.
Trump fired back at Taylor in a tweet following his appearance in an ad for Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT) and op-ed in the Washington Post, calling him a “disgruntled employee.”
