Trump Issues Dangerous Call to Arms During RNC

Republicans appear to have completely forgone the “unity convention” theme this week in favor of a much more divisive brand: a total call to arms.

In a prerecorded message to the convention Tuesday night, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump insisted that Democrats are “destroying our country,” and once again claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from him, urging supporters not to let “what happened” that year happen again.

“We must use every appropriate tool to beat the Democrats,” Trump said. “These people want to cheat, and they do cheat, and frankly it’s the only thing they do well.”

In a post on Truth Social, Trump twisted an old lie into something new, trying to convince his base that Democrats are “attempting to interfere” in the 2024 presidential election.

But Trump wasn’t the only Republican stoking the flames. In his own speech, Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise nodded toward a white supremacist, alt-right conspiracy known as the “great replacement theory” while baselessly advancing the idea that “Biden and Harris want illegals to vote.” House Speaker Mike Johnson shared a similar idea, telling the conference that Republicans “cannot allow the many millions of illegal aliens [the Democrats] allowed to cross our borders, to harm our citizens, raid our resources, or disrupt our elections.”

Of course, undocumented immigrants (and any other noncitizens) cannot vote in U.S. elections. But that didn’t stop Texas Senator Ted Cruz—whose state overwhelmingly identifies as Hispanic—from mindlessly hopping on the bandwagon.

“[Illegal immigration] happened because Democrats cynically decided they wanted votes from illegals more than they wanted to protect our children,” Cruz said Tuesday.

Senate candidate Kari Lake, who’s running to represent 2.3 million Latino voters in Arizona, also advanced the bold-faced lie that Democrats “voted to let the millions of people who poured into our country illegally cast a ballot in this upcoming election.”

But few summed up the aggressive mood of the convention better than West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, who told conference-goers on Tuesday that the “bottom line” for Republicans is this: “We become totally unhinged if Donald Trump is not elected in November.”

Donald Trump has one of the most powerful business leaders in his corner—and might make him treasury secretary if elected.

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, is in the running for the Cabinet position after Trump held a meeting with him and more than 70 other top U.S. executives last month that the former president and convicted felon described as a “lovefest.”

“That was a lovefest, and I will tell you when I’m not loved because I feel that better than anybody,” he said.

Trump may have felt loved in that meeting because he promised to lower the corporate tax rate to 20 percent if reelected. As president, Trump was responsible for lowering the rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, a move that was praised by business leaders at the time, including Dimon. The former president told Bloomberg that he would ultimately want to lower it to 15 percent “because that would put us in the absolute lowest in terms of incentive.”

Dimon has inclined himself toward Trump this year after Nikki Haley, whom he previously endorsed, dropped out of the race for president. Dimon has asked Democrats to dial back their criticism of the former president, saying that Trump was in many ways right about the economy. And Trump seems to have reversed his criticism of Dimon as well, after calling the banking CEO a “highly overrated globalist” thanks to his Haley endorsement.

Despite, or perhaps because of his stature in the business world, Dimon’s credibility may be inflated. He has touted disgraced WeWork founder Adam Neumann, his firm paid $290 million to settle a lawsuit over his bank’s funding of Jeffrey Epstein, and JP Morgan Chase has had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission during his watch. But as long as he heads a powerful Wall Street firm, he will retain credibility in financial markets, and that is why Trump will want to curry favor with him. Through Dimon, Trump may enjoy support from other CEOs, and will enjoy their financial contributions to his businesses and his campaign. The only question is whether Dimon would want the job.

President Joe Biden no longer appears to have the favor of his own party—let alone the American people.

Nearly two-thirds of registered Democrats—approximately 65 percent—want Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election, according to a survey released Wednesday by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The poll also found that just 27 percent of Democrats felt “extremely” or “very confident” in the 81-year-old president’s mental acuity and his ability to serve effectively as president.

Nearly two dozen lawmakers have already formally called on the president to exit the race, but many more have quietly signaled similar messaging, including top Democrats such as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Still, others are reportedly “not budging” until Biden makes another egregious mistake—though the level of mistake required is aboundingly unclear.

The DNC, meanwhile, has already announced its plans to nominate Biden via a “virtual roll call” vote weeks before the Democratic National Convention in August. The effort was initially pitched as a workaround to an Ohio law that requires party candidates to be nominated 90 days out from Election Day, but the Ohio state legislature passed a law resolving the issue.

House Democrats came out against the preemptive vote, but withdrew a letter of opposition after party leaders changed the nomination date from July to August 1, promising that no voting would happen before then—though it would still take place two weeks prior to the convention.

In the original letter, House Democrats argued that “there is no legal justification” to move the nomination away from the conference date, and slammed the virtual nomination as an opportunity to “[stifle] debate” by “prematurely shutting down any possible change in the Democratic ticket.”

Former Trump lawyer Peter Navarro was released from federal prison Wednesday morning. His first stop? The Republican National Convention.

After serving four months for contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House January 6 committee, Navarro will be taking a flight from Miami to Milwaukee where he will take the mic on the RNC stage. Navarro is set to speak at 6 p.m. Central time, a person familiar with the schedule told the Associated Press.

During his time in federal prison, Navarro worked as a clerk in the prison law library and lived in the “elder dorm,” according to ABC News. Navarro’s prison consultant, Sam Mangel, told ABC that Navarro was “well respected” in prison and got through his four-month sentence with “surprising grace and fortitude.”

But perhaps four months was not enough time for him to learn his lesson if he’s headed back into the thick of it.

Navarro was the first senior member of Trump’s administration to report to prison for the January 6 insurrection after being sentenced in January. When he reported to prison in March, he called his arrest a “partisan weaponization of the judicial system.”

This line is echoed by Trump and his allies as they face their own legal battles, calling cases against them politically motivated “witch hunts.” In reality, like Trump’s hush-money trial, Navarro was not convicted by the political system or Biden himself but by a jury of his own peers.

Donald Trump is apparently hoping to cash in on his own assassination attempt by once again selling tacky, limited-edition sneakers.

The new, white high-top sneakers feature a decal of Trump with his fist in the air and blood splattered across his face, and the phrase “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT,” the words the former president shouted as he was pulled off stage by Secret Service agents during his rally in Pennsylvania Saturday.

For only $299, plus shipping costs, Trump’s fans can preorder a way to “honor his unwavering determination and bravery” on their feet.

Within less than a week, Trump’s assassination attempt has brought about a tidal wave of merchandise on demand, rather than a resigned movement for political unity as Trump promised.

The shoe launch also comes in the midst of the Republican National Convention, and the site welcomes visitors from the event in a banner on its home page, warning them that they will only be able to purchase three pairs of shoes each.

Despite the fact that the website explicitly states that its products “are not designed, manufactured, distributed or sold by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals,” Trump reported owning the company, CIC Ventures LLC, on a 2023 financial disclosure, according to ABC News. The company’s address listed by the Florida Division of Corporations is the same as the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Axios reports.

Over the course of his campaign, Trump has repeatedly boosted the website’s products. The former president made a campaign stop at Philadelphia’s Sneaker Con in February to unveil his golden “Never Surrender” high tops, only one day after he and the Trump Organization were ordered to pay $355 million in legal penalties. He’s also offered his gaudy golden kicks as a gift to any donors who shell out at least $2.5 million.

It appears that Trump is in on the assassination merch venture as well, as the site promises that 10 of its limited stock of 5,000 pairs will be signed by the Republican nominee himself.