Milwaukee:

Five days after narrowly escaping assassination, Donald Trump will accept his presidential nomination on Thursday before an adoring crowd of supporters, the final act in his transformation of the Republican Party into the party of Trump.

His brush with death has fueled the growing quasi-religious fervor among the party faithful, elevating him from political leader to a man they believe is protected by God.

“Trump, Trump, Trump,” attendees roared at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee when he appeared each night this week, his right ear bandaged, to listen to speaker after speaker intone reverentially about him and reference God’s hand in his survival from a would-be assassin’s bullet.

Republicans are uniting behind him this week. With most dissent quelled and his grip on the party never tighter, Trump will be in a much stronger position than in his 2017-2021 term to follow through on his agenda if he wins the Nov. 5 election.

Untrammeled by the internal divisions that sometimes stymied him in his first term, Trump would be freer to pursue hard-edged policies that include mass deportations as part of a crackdown on illegal migration, aggressive trade policies, and dismissing government officials seen as insufficiently loyal.

Even if Trump retakes the White House, Republicans take control of both houses of Congress, and conservatives go on holding a Supreme Court super majority, there would still be institutional checks on a second Trump term.

 

He could be kept in check by Congress, the courts, and a public that elects a new Congress every two years and a president every four years, constitutional experts say.

Nevertheless, many Trump supporters want to see a powerful president.

“You need a strong leader at the top,” said Bill Dowd, a 79-year-old lumber business owner who was a guest of the Colorado delegation in Milwaukee.

“I’m a very, very big Ronald Reagan fan. Ronald Reagan pulled the party together also,” Dowd said.

Dowd acknowledged that some of his Republican friends feared that Trump might try to abuse his power. He said while he did not share that fear he believed that dissent should not be stifled in any party.

For Trump’s critics and political opponents, this is a dark and disturbing moment: they see the modern Republican Party as a cult of personality, a base from which Trump could pursue extreme policies and create America’s first truly imperial presidency, threatening the future of its democratic norms.

“Donald Trump has called for the ‘termination’ of the Constitution, promised to be a ‘dictator’ ‘on day one,’ and now his Supreme Court justices say he can rule without any checks on his power,” said Ammar Moussa, campaign spokesman for incumbent President Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic rival.

“Trump is a liar, but we believe him when he says he will rule as a dictator,” Moussa said.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said Democratic assertions that Trump threatens American democracy and could become an autocrat if reelected were “fear-mongering” and a “blatant effort to deceive the American people.”

An Unrestricted Trump

In Milwaukee, nearly all of the 30 delegates, guests, and elected Republicans interviewed by Reuters for this story acknowledged that their party had become the party of Trump but dismissed any suggestion that it had become cult-like.

“I believe that President Trump is a transformational figure, a man of destiny who God providentially saved from death on Saturday,” Louisiana delegate Ed Tarpley said. “He’s been given a special mission in our country. God’s providential hand has elevated Donald Trump to a different status.”

Those interviewed said they wanted a President Trump who was not constrained by bureaucracy or Congress to execute his agenda. They were in favor of a more expansive use of executive action – decisions made by a president that do not need congressional approval.

They want nothing to stand in the way of his plans to deport millions of people in the country illegally and to reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy. In his first term Trump often complained of “deep state” bureaucrats he said were seeking to thwart him.

“The president… must be allowed to implement his policies free of a bureaucracy resistant to them and unelected officials who do not agree with them,” Tarpley said.

There are constitutional limits to what Trump can do through the power of his office, however, and any policies could still face lawsuits.

“I think the fears of critics are overblown, in the sense that they’re more worried about the substance of his likely policies than the possibility that they’ll be adopted through unilateral executive action,” Stewart Baker, a former general counsel for the U.S. National Security Agency, said.

If Trump goes too far, his opponents say, they may still be able to count on federal courts to check him.

“We are mindful of the fact that we have a very conservative Supreme Court. But what we have found is that even Trump-appointed judges have ruled against his policies and found them illegal,” said Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center.

Half of Republican respondents to a Reuters/Ipsos poll this week said they agreed with the statement that “the country is in a crisis and needs a strong president who should be allowed to rule without too much interference from the courts and Congress.”

That was substantially higher than the 35% of Democrats and 33% of independents who agreed with the sentiment.

Only one convention attendee interviewed by Reuters, a senior Republican from a southern state, said he was worried about a second Trump administration. He said he feared Trump would become an autocrat, fill government agencies with yes men, and seek revenge on his political enemies.

Referring to Trump’s pledge to supporters that he will be their “retribution,” the Republican, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “That effort will be horrendous.”

Trump was widely criticized for saying during the campaign that should he win, he will be a “dictator” – if only for a day, a comment he later said was a joke.

Democrats have rebuked him for promising to pardon his supporters imprisoned for the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that was triggered by his refusal to accept his 2020 election loss.

Trump, who was convicted of making hush money payments to a former porn star and faces charges related to his efforts to overturn Biden’s victory, has threatened to use the Justice Department to pursue opponents, including Biden. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Former Republican presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson said he was concerned about the lack of constraints on Trump in a second term.

“The Department of Justice is probably the perfect example of that. Clearly, a President Trump would have a close hand at directing the activities of the Justice Department,” Hutchinson, a former governor of Arkansas, told Reuters.

Making ‘Nixon Blush’

The implications of a second Trump term are profoundly disturbing for America and the world, said presidential historian Timothy Naftali, a former director at the presidential library of Richard Nixon, who resigned from office in disgrace in 1974 after the Watergate scandal.

Naftali said a recent Supreme Court decision granting sweeping immunity to a president for most acts while in office, combined with a pliant Republican Party, means there are limited constraints on Trump should he act maliciously and exploit the office for his own personal power and political retribution.

“He can gut the Justice Department and engage in a revenge tour that would make Nixon blush,” Naftali said.

To be sure, Trump would not be the first president to test the limits of executive power. Leaders including former Democratic presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama have taken an expansive view of their authority.

Even with the July 1 ruling by the high court on presidential immunity, Trump ostensibly would still be bound by the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers that reserves key functions to Congress and the judiciary.

Lara Trump, the Republican National Committee co-chair, and Trump’s daughter-in-law acknowledged this week that governance by executive action – which can be overturned in the courts or by a successor – was not ideal. That’s why it was crucial for Republicans to hold onto the House of Representatives in November and take the Senate from Democrats, she said, “so we don’t have to rely on executive actions and we can actually see some lasting change.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Watch: What is the Republican National Convention?

| Video Credit:
PTI

As United States of America prepares for its presidential election later this year, the 4-day Republican National Convention began at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee Wisconsin on July 15.

The convention is an event in which delegates of the United States Republican Party will select the party’s nominees for President and Vice-President in the country’s presidential election.

Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, is now one of Trump’s fiercest allies and defenders and among those short-listed to be Trump’s vice presidential pick.
| Photo Credit: AP

J.D. Vance appeared on the scene of American public life with his 2016 best-seller memoir, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. President Barack Obama cited it while explaining the cultural and economic reasons that made the disruptive politics championed by Donald Trump appealing to the white working class. Mr. Vance, then 32, was a strong critic of Mr. Trump, who he said was unfit to be the President of the U.S. Two weeks shy of 40, Mr. Vance — now a U.S. Senator from Ohio — will be among the star speakers at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and has become the running mate of Mr. Trump. Today, Mr. Vance has emerged as a frontrunner to inherit the former’s America First politics.

Mr. Vance’s book portrayed the crisis of the white working class from his personal vantage point, and in the years that followed, he presented himself as someone who overcame that crisis through faith and hard work. He was once an atheist but gradually moved towards faith and in 2019, he baptised and became a Catholic. He told an interviewer that he “spent a lot of his life buying into the lie that you had to be stupid to be a Christian.”

Also read | Trump rally shooting: Focus to shift on shooter and security lapses

Defining politics

Speaking at a conservative conference in Detroit, Michigan, on June 16, he called for defining politics in terms of what it stands for, not merely what it stands against. “We stand for an American nation built by American people, American workers,” he said. “We have to see the problem and find the solution. Make more of the stuff that we need in our own country. That is the solution. Twenty million people who have no business to be here, are here, because of Joe Biden. The solution is to deport each one of them.”

“America is not an idea as Democrats say. Seven generations of my family, from the Civil War to the 21st century are connected to this land. We are not just an idea, this is our home. That is the single principle at stake in this election.”

In an interview with Steve Bannon, a fellow traveller, during his Senate campaign in 2022, he said: ‘I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.’

As a strong votary of America First politics Mr. Vance is preferred by the nationalist base of the Republican Party. In a straw poll at the Turning Point convention in Detroit, 43% preferred him as Vice President on Mr. Trump’s ticket, which was three times the support for the next popular candidate.

From being a strong critic of Mr. Trump, Mr. Vance transformed himself into an ardent supporter and moved to the centre stage of U.S. politics as a highly visible and articulate lawmaker. “When Donald Trump was President, there was peace around the world. Now, there is a conflict in every corner of the world,” he told the Detroit gathering. Young, sharp and articulate, Mr. Vance presents himself as someone who is more structured, coherent and methodical than his leader.

Mr. Vance is married to Usha Chilukuri, his former Yale Law School classmate. “Like Mr. Obama, he is also a writer and a story teller,” a Democrat who served in the Obama administration said. “He’s a leader to watch.”

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) speaks during a campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump, at Trump’s golf resort in Doral, Florida, U.S., on July 9, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Former U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday revelled in the mounting turmoil surrounding President Joe Biden ’s campaign in the wake of their debate and teased the expected announcement of his Republican running mate with one of the top contenders, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, in attendance.

After days spent lying low, golfing and letting Democratic infighting play out in public, Mr. Trump used his return to the campaign trail in Florida to ratchet up his attacks on both Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Mr. Trump rallied his supporters at one of his Miami-area golf courses as the presumptive Republican nominee nears a deadline to announce his running mate. But he appears in no rush, as much of the political world’s attention is still centred on questions about Mr. Biden’s ability to govern for another four-year term.

Rubio to be running mate?

Mr. Trump repeatedly played into the speculation that he might elevate Mr. Rubio to his ticket.

Mr. Rubio, a Miami native and one of the contenders for the vice presidential post, was among the Florida politicians who spoke at the event.

At one point, Mr. Trump marveled at the number of reporters in attendance and said, “I think they probably think I’m going to be announcing that Marco is going to be vice president.”

Later, when he talked about his pledge to make tips tax-free, he remarked that Mr. Rubio “may or may not be there to vote for it.”

Hispanic American vote

Mr. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, is seen as a potential running mate who could help Mr. Trump as he tries to secure support from Hispanic Americans, a point the senator emphasised in his remarks as he switched several times in his remarks to Spanish.

The senator did not openly acknowledge any of the speculation about him joining Mr. Trump as a running mate. He instead skewered not only Mr. Biden, whom he called “the figurehead of a left-wing government, shadow government,” but Ms. Harris, whom he would need to debate head-on if he’s chosen for Mr. Trump’s ticket.

He notably seemed to insert himself into Mr. Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” slogan by saying: “Together, we’re not just going to make it great again. We elect this man as president, we will make together America greater than it has ever been.”

Barron Trump makes first appearance at a rally

Mr. Trump’s youngest child who recently turned 18, Barron, also made his first-ever appearance at one of his father’s rallies. Mr. Trump implored his son to stand, with the young man pumping his fist a few times as Mr. Trump said, “Welcome to the scene, Barron.”

U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, talks to reporters as he announces he is ending his campaign to be the next House speaker after a Republican meeting at the Capitol in Washington, on October 12, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Representative Steve Scalise, who Republicans nominated to be the next speaker of the House of Representatives, dropped out of the race on Thursday as the party failed to resolve its divisions, prolonging the leadership crisis in the chamber.

Mr. Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, had secured his party’s nomination to replace ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy but was still short of the 217 votes needed to be elected on the House floor, as several of his fellow Republicans said they would not support him.

EDITORIAL | Fractured collective: On Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as U.S. House Speaker

Republicans could afford no more than four defections as they control the House by a narrow 221-212 margin if they wanted to end the House’s leaderless bout that has already lasted nine days.

“I just shared with my colleagues that I was withdrawing my name as a candidate for our speaker designee,” Mr. Scalise told reporters.

“If you look at over the last few weeks, if you look at where our conference is, there is still work to be done… There are still some people that have their own agendas.”

The Republican infighting has left the chamber unable to act to support Israel’s war against Palestinian militants of Hamas and pass government spending bills before funding runs out on November 17.

Republicans had been hoping to avoid a repeat of the embarrassing spectacle that occurred in January, when hardline conservatives forced Mr. McCarthy to endure 15 floor votes over four days before winning the gavel.

‘At a standstill’

Several Republicans earlier said they would stick with Scalise’s rival Jim Jordan, who lost out in a secret-ballot vote on Wednesday. Mr. Jordan has encouraged his supporters to vote for Mr. Scalise, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

While Mr. McCarthy was the first speaker to be removed in a formal vote, the last two Republicans to hold the job wound up leaving under pressure from party hardliners.

Mr. Scalise, 58, gained near legendary status within Republican circles by surviving a severe gunshot wound after a gunman opened fire during practice for a charity baseball game in 2017.

He also commands widespread respect as a veteran legislator, who has spent years in party leadership positions.

But Mr. Scalise also faces new health concerns as he undergoes treatment for multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, which some Mr. Jordan supporters cited as a reason not to vote for him.

Mr. Jordan was endorsed by former President Donald Trump and appeared to be the favorite of populist minded hardliners.

Mr. Trump in an interview with Fox News Radio earlier on Thursday said he did not object to Mr. Scalise as speaker.

“Steve is a man that is in serious trouble from the standpoint of his cancer. I mean, he’s got to get better for himself,” he said in an interview with Fox News Radio.

Washington:

President Joe Biden on Saturday blamed “a small group of extreme Republicans” for a budget impasse that has placed the US government a week away from a shutdown, urging the lawmakers to resolve the issue.

Speaking at a Congressional Black Caucus awards dinner, Biden said he and top House Republican Kevin McCarthy had previously agreed on government spending levels.

“Now a small group of extreme Republicans don’t want to live up to the deal so now everyone in America could be forced to pay the price,” he said.

US lawmakers have until midnight on September 30 to reach an agreement on a spending bill, before funding for government services is due to dry up.

“Funding the government is one of the most basic responsibilities of Congress. It’s time for Republicans to start doing the job America elected them to do. Let’s get this done,” Biden added.

A government shutdown would put the finances of hundreds of thousands of workers at federal parks, museums, and other sites at risk, but it could also carry significant political costs for Biden, who is running for re-election.

The White House wants any budget bill passed by lawmakers to include $24 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Kyiv.

While such a plan is supported by Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, it is radically opposed by some members of the House.

The budget vote in Congress regularly turns into a standoff between the two parties, with each camp using the prospect of a shutdown to obtain concessions from the other — until a solution is found at the last minute.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)