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Republican Convention: A Party Comes Together, at Least for a Night
(about 2 hours later)
CLEVELAND — Day 2 of the Republican National Convention enters prime time, after the delegates formally nominated Donald J. Trump for president. The evening’s speakers — including the Republican leaders of the Congress — will focus on the economy. Here’s what else you should know (and some of Tuesday’s best photos):
The second night of the Republican National Convention was a whipsaw of conflicting themes and messages. The printed schedule suggested a focus on jobs and economic policy. The reality: A party learning to acclimate itself to Donald J. Trump, figure out if he can win a national election, and help him (if possible). Our takeaways:
Mr. Trump, the New York real estate mogul and reality TV star, formally took control of the Republican Party on Tuesday as delegates to the convention here officially chose him as their nominee, ending a tumultuous, yearlong political crusade.
They didn’t want him. They fought against him. Privately, they still resent him. But in the early minutes of the evening, as the party’s senior leadership executed a final quashing of lingering anti-Trump efforts on the convention floor, they presided over Mr. Trump’s installation as the duly chosen Republican Party presidential nominee. They did it because the rules obligated them to, but also because it was politically necessary. If Trump loses the White House, it is imperative to the party’s establishment that he do so convincingly, undeniably, without sabotage, so that they cannot be blamed for the defeat.
The State of New York cast its delegates for Mr. Trump just after 7 p.m. Tuesday, giving him the majority of delegates and crushing, once and for all, the panicked efforts of the “Never Trump” movement inside the Republican Party establishment.
Ten minutes of Paul D. Ryan made that clear. In many respects, Mr. Ryan, the House speaker, delivered the classic speech of a major party nominee: papering over the nastiness of the primary, providing a positive vision of governing, and giving the party’s disparate factions a narrative they could all get behind. It was not the most original or soaring speech in convention history. But it was utterly different from virtually any Trump speech, or from most of the speeches by Mr. Trump’s surrogates on the convention stage so far. Mr. Ryan’s speech was a reminder of how unconventional Mr. Trump is — the quality that got him this far, but may now limit him.
Mr. Trump dispatched with ease more than a dozen establishment candidates during one of the unlikeliest and nontraditional presidential campaigns in history. And on Tuesday, as he became their standard-bearer, the party’s congressional leaders prepared to fete him in from the convention’s podium later in the evening.
For all the controversy unfolding over the borrowed lines in Melania Trump’s remarks on Monday, two of Mr. Trump’s children gave the most effective and heartfelt speeches on Tuesday. Tiffany Trump, his 22-year-old daughter with his second wife, sprinkled her speech with anecdotes about him making notes on her report cards and being the first to call her after the death of a good friend — the kind of softening material unexpectedly missing from his wife’s speech. Donald Trump Jr., an executive at the family business, gave a longer biographical tale of his father, told with sincerity and affection, dusted with a sprinkle of a Trumpian economic policy. (But just a sprinkle.)
Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, the vice-presidential nominee, is scheduled to accept the party’s nod in a speech on Wednesday evening, and Mr. Trump will do the same on Thursday in a prime-time speech to the nation.
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is famously competitive, so it was no surprise that he was let down when Mr. Trump passed him over for the ticket. But Mr. Christie’s speech seemed designed to make the nominee wonder if he had made a mistake. In contrast to the mild-mannered Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, Mr. Christie, a former federal prosecutor, laid out a case against Hillary Clinton as though he were in a courtroom. It was hard not to remember that Mr. Trump once said he wanted an “attack dog” for his running mate, something that Mr. Pence, who has previously denounced negative campaigning, has not yet proved skilled at. Mr. Christie, in what may be the last major speech of his political career, reminded the hall — and maybe the nominee — that it is what he does best.
Donald J. Trump’s top advisers closed ranks around the candidate’s wife Tuesday morning, insisting that there had been no plagiarism and attempting — without much success — to shift the day’s political conversation back to their planned convention message.
Their efforts shifted throughout the course of the day, as aides sought to explain away stark, side-by-side evidence that several passages appeared to be almost identical to passages from Michelle Obama’s 2008 convention speech.
As the Times reported this morning, Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, called it “absurd” to think that Ms. Trump had copied anyone’s work, despite stark, side-by-side evidence that several passages appeared to be almost identical to passages from Michelle Obama’s 2008 convention speech.
The response from the campaign this morning appears to have intensified the story, which dominated the cable television shows and was the talk of the convention hall. And some of that talk included former Trump campaign aides, who demanded accountability.
On Tuesday, the party’s star-crossed efforts to project harmony will fall to some of its best-known leaders in Washington, including Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker from Wisconsin, whose embrace of Mr. Trump has been halting at best. Though he said as recently as Monday that Mr. Trump was not “my kind of conservative,” Mr. Ryan will take the stage to make the case that the alternative, a second Clinton administration, would be far worse.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, is also expected to lend a dutiful hand, keeping Republicans’ near-universal disdain for Mrs. Clinton front and center.
The stated theme of Tuesday’s slate is “Make America Work Again” — a potential challenge of tone for speakers eager to sully Mrs. Clinton on a topic as sober as job creation, a night after blistering attacks on her foreign policy.
And as Mr. Trump seeks to present himself as a fiscal wizard of the highest order, he has assembled an eclectic cast of validating voices to attest to his business savvy. Voters will hear from Dana White, the swaggering president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and Natalie Gulbis, a professional golfer who once appeared on Mr. Trump’s reality show “Celebrity Apprentice.”
Donald Trump Jr., and his half sister, Tiffany Trump, would seem capable of carrying off a difficult task: bringing some texture to a man whose public persona can border on caricature.
It is not clear, of course, that Mr. Trump wants this.
Often in their public remarks, family members of Mr. Trump have relayed less-than-personal anecdotes, eagerly hailing his deal-making and foresight, but dwelling little on any fatherly flourishes.
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey wanted to be president. O.K., fine, vice president?
He’s getting a Tuesday speaking slot alongside two Arkansas officials and Ben Carson.
Now, a few days after being bypassed for a spot on Mr. Trump’s ticket — and four years after addressing the convention for Mitt Romney, in a speech that critics broadly panned as self-serving — Mr. Christie has an opportunity for at least a measure of redemption.
In an interview with CNN on Monday night, he was asked what people could expect from him on Tuesday.
“I hope to be charming,” he said, before raising an eyebrow playfully. “Charming and absolutely disarming.”
Take a look at the people who have spoken most frequently at Republican conventions since 1992, compared to whether they are scheduled to speak this year, according to the C-SPAN transcripts and the convention schedules released so far.
