Back with his comically large gavel, Joe Gruters – the Republican National Committee chair – kicked off the second night of the GOP midterm convention.
Gruters noted that today is the one year anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s death – the conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder who was shot and killed while speaking at a campus event in Utah.
“He [Kirk] believed in America, in freedom, in young people’s courage to stand up and fight for the country they love. He didn’t just join a movement; he built one,” Gruters said. “Let’s honor Charlie and let’s be more like Charlie Kirk.”
Later today, we’ll also hear from vice-president JD Vance, who’ll deliver the keynote address. Donald Trump will also speak again, but assured last night’s audience in Dallas that he doesn’t plan to speak for that long.
“I’m going to be just sort of getting up here and saying, good luck. We love you all,” he said at the end of his nearly two-hour speech on Wednesday.
As part of his breakneck midterm race tour, Donald Trump will travel to North Carolina next to help campaign on behalf of Michael Whatley, the Republican nominee in the state’s race for US Senate.
The president will deliver remarks in Gastonia, Whatley’s hometown, on Wednesday.
Kennedy hurled one of many attacks against transgender people of the night during his speech.
Robert F Kennedy Jr also spoke about his uncle, Ted Kennedy, who served as a senator for Massachusetts and fought for several amendments to Title IX – which prohibits sex-based discrimination in any educational program that receives federal funding.
“He [Ted Kennedy] wanted to make sure that women, real women, were able to have a safe and guaranteed spot in college sports,” the health secretary said.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the health secretary, is now addressing the crowd in Dallas. He’s outlining his shift from a staunch Democrat to an independent, and eventually working for a Republican administration.
“The irony of my presence here is inescapable,” Kennedy said, acknowledging that he hails from a political dynasty that includes his father (and namesake), who served as the US attorney general and a Democratic senator.
“The Democrats of that era stood with labor and working people and the American middle class. Nearly every cop and firefighter was a Democrat,” Kennedy added. “I mourn the fact that neither my father nor my uncle would recognize the Democratic Party of today.”
As we noted earlier, dozens of protesters have gathered outside the arena where the GOP midterm convention is taking place. Dallas police said that two people were taken into custody after an alleged assault involving a counter-protester and for blocking a roadway.
Vice-president JD Vance will talk about fatherhood and his populist vision in his midterm convention speech, a source familiar with the address told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Vance will also reflect on the death of Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who was assassinated exactly a year ago, the source told AFP.
My colleague J Oliver Conroy spoke to Turning Point insiders, historians and sociologists of the right, as well as leftwing critics for this deep dive into what happened to Kirk’s organization in the year since he died.
Ross Ulbricht, the convicted cybercriminal and founder of the illegal online drug marketplace the Silk Road, who Donald Trump pardoned when he returned to the White House, spent his speech heaping praise on the president.
“I learned that the machinery we built to protect ourselves from criminals can be turned around and pointed at people who have harmed no one,” Ulbricht told the audience.
A man in the crowd quickly shouted back: “like J6ers!” – referring to the rioters who attacked the Capitol on 6 January 2021 and were also pardoned by Trump.
Susan Collins, the five-term GOP senator from Maine who is facing a tough re-election race in November, has raised doubts about Donald Trump’s $5,000 incentive if Republicans win the midterms.
Collins said in a statement that “from the few details we have” the pledge “would not have an income cap and would be extraordinarily costly”.
She added: “Tax and spending decisions should be made based on the needs of the American people and the state of the economy, they should not appear to be tied to election results.”
Mike Lawler, the vulnerable Republican congressman running for re-election in New York, is now speaking at the American Airlines center in Dallas.
“Speaking to a room full of Republicans is not something I do every day. You see, my district is located just north of New York City, and home to 80,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans. Two of my constituents are Bill and Hillary Clinton,” Lawler said. “So while I’m honored to be in this arena with so many fellow Republicans tonight, my message is really aimed at commonsense Democrats and independents across the country tuning in and still undecided about their vote in November.”
Lawler represents New York’s 17th district, which Kamala Harris won, narrowly, in 2024, and the Cook report rates the race as a “toss up” between Lawler and Cait Conley, his Democratic opponent. “Radical socialists are winning Democratic primaries, and they claim to be well-meaning, but there is nothing kind-hearted about protecting criminals at the expense of American families,” the congressman said.
On Wednesday, Lawler defended his decision to attend the GOP midterm convention, despite several Republicans in swing districts and states opting to sit out the event.
On stage, Lawler noted that he has, at times, a contentious relationship with Donald Trump: “The truth is that the president and I don’t always agree, and that’s OK. After all, we’re both New Yorkers. We argue. We tell each other what we think.”
On stage, Greg Abbott, the Texas governor who is seeking a fourth term in office, ran through what he sees as many of his accomplishments as he fends off a challenge from Gina Hinojosa, a Democratic state lawmaker.
“The Democrats running on the ticket in Texas. They’re gaslighting the public about affordability,” Abbott said.
Mike Rogers, the former congressman and the Republican nominee for the US Senate race in Michigan, is now speaking in Dallas.
He opened he speech by acknowledging the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, but quickly segued to targeting his midterm opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, who is Muslim.
Rogers said, falsely, that Hasan Piker, whom I mentioned earlier, is El-Sayed’s running mate. The Republican nominee also falsely claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist organization, has provided funding for El-Sayed’s campaign. However, there is no evidence to support this link.
Rogers also blasted El-Sayed for comments he made, and later apologized for, about an attack on a Michigan synagogue earlier this year.
“To anyone who feels like my comments might have been hurtful, I’m really sorry. That was not my intention,” the Democratic nominee said in August.
The man charged with the attack, Ayman Mohammad Ghazali, had lost four relatives in an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon the week prior.
In a video response at the time, El-Sayed condemned the attack and added that “hurt people hurt people” a reference to what happened to Ghazali’s family. Critics accused El-Sayed of justifying Ghazali’s actions.
On the one year anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s killing at Utah Valley University, Lucas Miles, the vice-president of Turning Point USA – the organization Kirk founded – took to the stage.
“There is something wonderfully defiant about the fact that his [Kirk’s] voice has not grown quieter; it has multiplied today,” Miles said. “They could take the man; they could not take the mission, because Charlie spent his life sowing the seeds of that mission in others.”
In his remarks to the audience in Dallas, Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, said that while big names like Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed are known entities, he focused on “Democrats in the swing seats who say one thing, and then join forces and vote with the socialists that they’re afraid of”.
Johnson added: “They’re the ones who have let the barbarians inside the gate, and next year the communists will be in Congress. That’s what’s so frightening.”
Cruz hit on many of the Republican party’s obsessions when it comes to the left wing.
“We are witnessing a new and dangerous red-green alliance: communists and Islamists coming together and sweeping over the Democrat party,” Cruz said, while invoking New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for the US Senate in Michigan.
Ted Cruz, the Texas senator, has walked on stage in Dallas to rapturous applause.
“We are just 54 days out from the most consequential midterms of our lifetime,” he said, while acknowledging the killing of Charlie Kirk a year ago and the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
While Cruz is using his time to heap praise on Donald Trump, this is a far cry from the same lawmaker who called the now-president a “serial philanderer”, an “amoral pathological liar” and a “braggadocious, arrogant buffoon” on the 2016 presidential campaign trail, when Cruz ran for the Republican nomination that Trump eventually won.
