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In Speech Draft, Donald Trump Offers Himself as Champion of the ‘Forgotten’ Donald Trump Vows Action Against Threats
(about 2 hours later)
CLEVELAND — Donald J. Trump plans to use his prime time acceptance speech on Thursday night to denounce “15 years of wars in the Middle East” and attack politicians in both parties for failing to stand up for blue-collar Americans, according to a draft of his remarks. CLEVELAND — Donald John Trump was to accept the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday night with an unusually emphatic appeal to Americans who feel that their country is spiraling out of control and yearn for a fearless leader who will take aggressive, even extreme, actions to protect them.
In the prepared text, Mr. Trump casts his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, as an agent of international elites who has erred in her judgment on foreign and economic policy. He repeats a favorite description of himself, as a “law-and-order candidate,” and pays tribute to the families of crime victims hurt by illegal immigrants. Mr. Trump, 70, a New York real estate developer and reality television star who leveraged his fame and forceful persona to become the rare political outsider to lead the ticket of a major party, prepared a speech to the Republican convention here portraying himself chiefly as a truth-teller who would identify and retaliate against threats to the United States.
A spokesman for Mr. Trump confirmed that the text represented a draft of his speech, but would not confirm if it was the most current iteration of the address. After 6 p.m., the Trump campaign released excerpts from the address, in which Mr. Trump promises to cut taxes and regulation and redirect foreign policy to ensure that other countries “treat America with respect.” Facing a restive party on the final night of a convention that has been unusually turbulent and divided, Mr. Trump composed a last-ditch attempt to galvanize the audience by focusing sharply on their Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, and on multiple enemies to American stability.
In the sections released by the campaign, Mr. Trump levels pointed criticism at Mrs. Clinton’s “bad instincts” on policy. In the speech, parts of which the campaign released Thursday afternoon, he dwells particularly on illegal immigrants and lawless Americans, saying they are as dangerous for the nation’s security as the Islamic State and refugees.
But in the longer draft, Mr. Trump also directs his attacks more broadly, assailing policies that have been favored by both Democrats and Republicans — including his own running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana. “Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities,” according to the excerpts, referring to recent mass shootings and killings of police officers. “Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims. I have a message for all of you: The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end.”
He paints a dire picture of a country in flames and a world at war, and blames establishment leaders in Washington. “Beginning on January 20th, 2017, safety will be restored,” Mr. Trump was to say, referring to inauguration day for the next president.
Without naming George W. Bush as a perpetrator, Mr. Trump blames more than a decade of foreign adventurism for damaging American national security. While nomination speeches are traditionally optimistic and personal, full of hope and revelations that cast candidates in the best possible light for voters, Mr. Trump largely shaped his speech to resonate with a tense nation, and sought to reassure an electorate that remains skeptical about his temperament and abilities to be commander in chief.
“Iraq is in chaos,” Mr. Trump says, in the prepared text. “Iran is on the path to nuclear weapons. Syria is engulfed in a civil war and a refugee crisis that now threatens the West. After 15 years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before.” Rather than portray the United States as fundamentally strong, Mr. Trump’s remarks often sounded like those of a wartime president who was determined to be candid with voters about the existential risks that the nation faces.
He continues: “This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction and weakness.” He was blistering in the excerpts, too, about Mrs. Clinton, and her tenure as secretary of state, arguing that her diplomatic strategy in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and other countries had led to civil unrest and political chaos and rendered her unfit to be president.
In the version obtained from a person with access to the speech, Mr. Trump does not soften his tone or turn away from the hard-line policy underpinnings of his campaign. He speculated audaciously that President Obama regretted putting her in charge of the State Department.
On the contrary, he describes ordinary Americans as victimized by immigrants, international companies and feckless political leaders, and presents himself as the champion of the “forgotten men and women of our country.” “America is far less safe — and the world is far less stable — than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy,” Mr. Trump was to say.
Listing the names of people with family members slain by people who entered the country illegally, Mr. Trump asks, “Where was sanctuary for all the other Americans who have been so brutally murdered, and who have suffered so horribly?” In a bid to appeal to Democrats unhappy with their party’s embrace of Mrs. Clinton, he invoked the political message of her chief rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, and suggested that Mr. Sanders shared Republicans’ critique of her record.
“Her bad instincts and her bad judgment — something pointed out by Bernie Sanders — are what caused many of the disasters unfolding today,” Mr. Trump said in the speech excerpts. “But Hillary Clinton’s legacy does not have to be America’s legacy. The problems we face now — poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad — will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them.”
Championing his “America First” foreign policy theme, he played on the anxieties of some voters that the rest of the world no longer respects the United States. And he pledged to act quickly to make Americans feel better about their country and put foreign allies and adversaries on notice that the nation would focus exclusively and forcefully on protecting its own interests.
“My message is that things have to change — and they have to change right now,” Mr. Trump said in the excerpts.
Change has been an enduring theme of Mr. Trump’s campaign, which has defied political tradition and the usual rules for candidates: Mr. Trump rose in the polls last summer even as he made statements about women, Mexicans, and prisoners of war like Senator John McCain that would normally doom presidential contenders.
This week’s convention, which typically would have been choreographed carefully, was itself a departure from the norm. But if Mr. Trump injected drama and even spontaneity back into the formulaic gathering, he also tested the limits of improvisation over the last week.
The operatic quality of the first three days of the convention worried some Republicans. Presidential candidates have two major issues to deal with over the summer, their vice-presidential selection and their convention, and they felt he had bungled both. Mr. Trump chose his running mate haphazardly and then overshadowed the announcement of Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana by indulging in a rambling speech that revived questions about his seriousness.
As Mr. Trump prepared to close out the party gathering, Republicans had made little headway toward making Americans feel comfortable with the prospect of him in the White House, or revealing new dimensions to him.
Instead, the party staged a convention that reflected just how fractured they are. There were, to be sure, effective attacks on the character and record of Mrs. Clinton, whose unpopularity among modern presidential nominees is exceeded only by Mr. Trump’s. But some of the anti-Clinton language spilled into ugliness and catcalls. The party at times seemed unified only around a shared determination to imprison the former secretary of state.
But the speeches dedicated to promoting Mr. Trump and the party’s governing vision were hazy and at times collided with the candidate’s own beliefs.
Hours before Mr. Pence, a committed internationalist, assured delegates and millions of voters that America would defend its allies, Mr. Trump gave an interview in which he balked at defending NATO countries, a policy that has been the cornerstone of the alliance for 70 years.
Candidates who are trailing — as Mr. Trump is, according to national polling averages — must maximize the bump they typically enjoy in the polls after their conventions. Mr. Trump may see his standing improve after he leaves Cleveland Friday. But early evidence suggests he failed to fully seize the opportunity he was afforded in the weeks since Mrs. Clinton was upbraided by the F.B.I. director over her private email server. He will have precious few moments to do so again.
In many ways, the convention’s formality was an awkward fit for Mr. Trump, who soared in the primaries by energizing voters at freewheeling rallies with his off-the-cuff and frequently entertaining remarks.
Instead, for Thursday night, he planned to rely on a teleprompter and a speech heavy with familiar Republican themes like cutting taxes, creating jobs, and pushing for education reforms to give parents more choice in schools for their children. But in it he also promised to be the ultimate safeguard for the younger generations of Americas as well.
“To every parent who dreams for their child, and every child who dreams for their future, I say these words to you tonight: I’m with you, I will fight for you, and I will win for you,” Mr. Trump said.