Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, once Donald Trump’s biggest rivals in the Republican party, both gave full-throated endorsements to Trump’s presidential candidacy on Tuesday, a call for unity that served to underscore the former president’s control of the Republican party.
On the second night of the Republican national convention, Haley and DeSantis, who both unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination earlier this year, spoke back to back in the 8pm hour of the convention as Trump grinned and applauded from his box elevated above the floor of the Fiserv Forum, where the convention is taking place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period,” Haley said. She said her speech was aimed at those “who don’t agree with Donald Trump 100% of the time”.
“You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him. Take it from me. I haven’t always agreed with President Trump. But we agree more often than we disagree,” she said.
Haley, who served as the governor of South Carolina and Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, rattled off what she saw as Trump’s foreign policy accomplishments.
“When Donald Trump was president, Putin did nothing. No invasions. No wars. That was no accident. Putin didn’t attack Ukraine because he knew Donald Trump was tough. A strong president doesn’t start wars. A strong president prevents wars,” she said, receiving loud applause.
DeSantis also immediately made it clear that he was backing Trump.
“Let’s send Joe Biden back to his basement and let’s send Donald Trump back to the White House,” he said.
Neither Haley nor DeSantis initially had speaking slots at the convention, but they were added after the attempt on Trump’s life on Saturday as Republicans sought to project unity.
“President Trump asked me to speak to this convention in the name of unity. It was a gracious invitation and I was happy to accept,” Haley said.
Trump could be seen on the Jumbotron grinning widely as both gave their speeches. And he had reason to do so: just months ago, Haley and DeSantis were the most prominent Republicans critical of Trump.
“He’s made it chaotic. He’s made it self-absorbed. He’s made people dislike and judge each other. He’s left that a president should have moral clarity, and know the difference between right or wrong, and he’s just toxic,” Haley said of Trump during an interview on The Breakfast Club in January.
Haley, who has also called Trump “thin-skinned and easily distracted”, did not say she was voting for Trump until May.
Austin Weatherford, the Biden campaign’s national director for Republican engagement, highlighted Haley’s words in a statement after her speech Tuesday.
“Ambassador Haley said it best herself: someone who doesn’t respect our military, doesn’t know right from wrong, and ‘surrounds himself in chaos’ can’t be president,” he said.
“That’s why millions of Republicans cast their votes in protest of Donald Trump and his attacks on our institutions, our nation’s allies, and civility.”
DeSantis endorsed Trump shortly after dropping out of the presidential race in January, but reportedly continued to privately criticize him. He needled him on the campaign trail, saying America didn’t need a president who had “lost the zip on their fastball”.
DeSantis and Haley took slightly different tacks in their speeches on Tuesday, emphasizing their different approaches to campaigning.
Haley spoke about the need to expand the Republican party in comments that were met with tepid applause from the delegates on the convention floor – many of whom represent some of the party’s most loyal base.
“We must not only be a unified party, we must also expand our party,” she said. “We are so much better when we are bigger. We are stronger when we welcome people into our party who have different backgrounds and experiences.”
DeSantis, by contrast, leaned into attacking Biden. “America cannot afford four more years of a Weekend at Bernie’s presidency,” he said. He touted the success that Republicans have had in recent years, saying “the woke mind virus is dead and Florida is a solid Republican state”.
DeSantis went on to detail a rightwing policy wishlist, including severe restrictions on immigration and the destruction of the “administrative state”.
Even though DeSantis’s Trump-like appeal was not enough to win him the Republican nomination, his hard-right talking points triggered a much more boisterous response from the delegates than Haley’s talk of unity and party outreach.
