MILWAUKEE — Fight and unify.
Those two seemingly contradictory messages, following an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, have become the pillars of a transformed Republican National Convention.
As Trump, a bright white bandage covering his bullet-damaged right ear, stood in a red box just off the convention floor on Monday, delegates in the Fiserv Forum here erupted into a chant of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” They had done the same throughout the day’s afternoon session, when they formally nominated Trump as their presidential nominee and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate.
But top Trump campaign officials are attempting to pull off something even some GOP lawmakers and delegates said will be tricky by also attempting to cast the assassination attempt as a moment for national unity after more than a decade of bitter partisanship.
“President Donald J. Trump and Senator J.D. Vance are the most unifying and competitive ticket in political history,” Trump campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement.
Yet, GOP members and delegates alike paused when asked on the arena floor and concourse how the seemingly contradictory calls to fight and unify could coexist in reality. And when asked whether the shooting by a 20-year-old man with a still-unknown motive should make Republican lawmakers more willing to compromise with Democrats, those interviewed by CQ Roll Call uttered some version of: Not so fast.
“You know, it was basically, ‘Don’t let the bad guys, the evil, get you down.’ And I think that was what he was suggesting in that moment,” said Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., referring to the GOP standard-bearer imploring the Butler, Pa., rally crowd to “fight” as his security detail moved him off the stage Saturday.
“And I do think that’s a consensus view among most Americans. Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, I think people want to see the country do well,” added Thune, who is running against Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Florida Sen. Rick Scott for GOP leader, meaning one of them would be tasked with dealing with Trump should he win in November. “And yes, we’ve got our challenges and our problems and issues that divide us, but I hope the message coming out this week … is that we need a unified front.”
Leon Benjamin, a delegate from Richmond, Va., who was sporting a “Blacks for Trump” cap on Monday, said after pondering a few seconds that he interpreted Trump’s bloodied message as “fighting for our country, and that means fighting the enemy for our faith and our fellow man.”
Asked whether the convention floor chants were a call to fight Democrats — either on the campaign trail, in the halls of Congress or otherwise — Benjamin defined the “enemy” as “Satan.” He was admittedly reluctant to endorse reaching out to Democrats to craft compromise legislation, going only so far as calling for “getting the leadership in place to make those really tough decisions.”
Proudly sporting white cowboy hats, as was most of the Texas delegation, David Barton insisted there was no contradiction in the Trump campaign’s message. “Fight means fight for our value system, not against people,” said Barton, who hails from Alito, Texas. “It’s not about labels, Republican or Democrat.”
Barton was not ready, however, to predict or even endorse a new era of bipartisanship — no matter whether Trump or President Joe Biden wins in November.
“It’ll take a while to get past all this,” he said. “I think it’s maybe a 10-year transition.”
Asked about the convention’s two messages before Monday’s prime-time session, North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer called it a “great question because the term fight is, especially nowadays, there are a lot of metaphors for fighting.”
“It could mean working hard or trying your best. … Metaphors and rhetoric are now taken so literally, and I don’t know that it’s actually projected literally, but people certainly receive it literally,” he added about the “fight” part of the new GOP message. Notably, Cramer never said whether he thought the contrasting calls could coexist.
With a tilt of his head, Montana GOP Chairman Don Kaltschmidt contended that the hurdle to unification, at least in Washington, was not House or Senate Republicans.
“It depends,” he said about Republicans reaching across the aisle. “It’s the Democrats who always say they’re for something the Republicans put up. But then they do the opposite and say they can’t really support it. I do think there are some good ideas on both sides, but …”
Thune said he expects that Trump, should he win a second term, would “hit the ground running, and hopefully, if we have a Republican majority in the Senate, we’ll work with him to get his team in place as quickly as possible.
“I think they will be in a much better position as a team [than during Trump’s first term], I think to get some things done for the country. And part of it is he’s going to come into it, he’s got experience now, and he knows who, you know, the people are and the folks he’s going to need to work with to get things across the finish line.”
Signs that delegates might need to turn down their hostility even to fellow Republicans could be seen when the man Thune is vying to succeed, outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who was booed here on Monday afternoon. Thune also never said anything about Trump — who earlier this year torpedoed a bipartisan Senate agreement on border security to prevent Biden from being able to show action on the issue — pushing “unified” legislation.
With a couple of exceptions, the opening RNC sessions did feature a softer tone from Republican speakers. And although delegates did echo Trump’s “fight” call in chants, they also danced in the aisles to a live band’s classic rock ballads as they were all smiles, predicting an easy Trump victory — despite polls that continue to suggest a close outcome. But one delegate spoke for what seemed like a majority inside the vast security perimeter.
Speaking with NBC News on the convention floor minutes after Trump made a dramatic Monday night appearance, Ellen Cox, a Pennsylvania delegate, said she was doing everything she could to help Trump win.
Still, she did highlight why the “fight” part of the messaging seemed so out of step with the unify aspect.
“I’m Bucks County. … We are a swing county in a swing state, and we’ve got to stop the rhetoric, the violent rhetoric, which has become the norm for Trump and Trump supporters,” Cox said. “It’s not right … people feel emboldened to do it.
“That’s not the way you want to win,” she added a few days before Trump must decide whether to deliver a nomination acceptance speech with a combative or unifying tone. “You want to win fair and square.”
Niels Lesniewski contributed to this report.
The post Republicans grapple with contrasting goals at national convention appeared first on Roll Call.
