Trump Receives Republican Nomination at Fawning Convention

Happy Friday! There’s rich, and then there’s “paying $45 million for a literal stegosaurus” rich.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• President Joe Biden seems increasingly likely to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, multiple outlets reported Thursday. Former President Barack Obama reportedly told allies that, as Biden’s path to reelection continues to narrow, Biden should reconsider his decision to remain in the presidential race, the Washington Post reported Thursday. Democratic Sen. John Tester of Montana, running a tight race for reelection, on Thursday became the second sitting Democratic senator to call for Biden to withdraw from the race, joining Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont. Other top Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have all reportedly told Biden privately he cannot beat former President Donald Trump in November. CBS News’ Robert Costa reported late last night, however, that the crop of stories yesterday about Biden dropping out are part of Democrats’ ongoing “pressure campaign,” and that the Biden team is “furious” about the leaks as the president is recovering from COVID-19 at his home in Delaware. A CBS News poll out Thursday showed Trump with his largest lead yet over Biden, with 52 percent of respondents saying they’d vote for him, compared to 47 percent for Biden.
• Trump spoke for more than 90 minutes on Thursday night, formally accepting the Republican nomination for president as the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee drew to a close. At the top of the speech, Trump recalled the events of Saturday, when a gunman fired on him and his supporters at a rally, shooting Trump in the ear. The former president also honored Corey Comperatore, the supporter who was killed by a stray bullet at the rally on Saturday and laid to rest on Thursday. The second half of Trump’s address, however, was a fairly conventional rally-style speech, during which he proposed few new policies and returned to criticizing his Democratic opponents.
• White House doctor and official physician for President Joe Biden, Kevin O’Connor, offered an update on Thursday following the president’s COVID-19 diagnosis the day prior. “The President is still experiencing mild upper respiratory symptoms associated with his recent COVID-19 infection,” O’Connor said in a memo addressed to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “He does not have a fever and his vital signs remain normal. He will continue to conduct the business of the American people.” 
• One person died in an apparent drone attack in Tel Aviv, Israel, around 3 a.m. local time on Friday morning, with at least 10 people being treated for injuries. Yemen’s Houthis—backed by Iran–seemed to claim responsibility for the attack, which took place just one block from the U.S. embassy branch office in Tel Aviv, though a U.S. official told Axios that no Americans were injured in the explosion. It’s not yet clear how the attack evaded Israel’s air defenses.
• Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser on Trump’s 2024 campaign, suggested on Thursday the campaign may try to adjudicate the election after Election Day if Trump loses. “It’s not over on Election Day. It’s over on Inauguration Day,” LaCivita told Politico’s Jonathan Martin. “There is a well-documented report that talks about all of the efforts that the Democrats had in place in 2020 … about ways to prevent if Donald Trump had quote-un-quote ‘won,’” he explained further. “We plan for every worst-case scenario. That way we are ready for it.” LaCivita also pushed back against efforts to replace President Joe Biden as the Democratic Party nominee this fall. “It’s deposing the president of the United States,” LaCivita said in the interview. “You can’t step down as a candidate for president because you’re cognitively impaired while still being president.”
• Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission and former German government official, was re-elected to her second five-year term as head of the European Union’s executive branch on Thursday. Von der Leyen easily won the secret vote among members of European Parliament, garnering the support of a bit more than 55 percent of the 720-seat legislature. “Our first priority will be prosperity and competitiveness,” Von der Leyen, member of European People’s Party (EPP), tweeted Thursday before the vote was held. “This starts with making business easier and faster. Less bureaucracy, more trust.”
• A Moscow court on Thursday completed its review of the so-called evidence in Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich trial for espionage. Gershkovich has been “wrongly” detained, according to the determination of the U.S. government, in Russia on trumped up charges for the last 15 months and the trial, originally set for August, was moved up at Gershkovich’s request. Prosecution and defense teams in Gershkovich’s trial will present oral arguments on Friday, and, shortly after, the court will announce its verdict, a Russian court spokeswoman said. Early Friday morning, the prosecution formally requested Gershkovich serve an 18-year prison sentence. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov all but declared Gershkovich’s guilt on Wednesday at the United Nations, saying, “We have got irrefutable evidence corroborating that Gershkovich was involved in some espionage activities.” A verdict in the case could potentially pave the way for a prisoner exchange.
• Ben Sasse, the president of the University of Florida and former Republican senator, announced yesterday that he was stepping down from leading the university to care for his wife, Melissa, who has been diagnosed with epilepsy. “Gator Nation needs a president who can keep charging hard, Melissa deserves a husband who can pull his weight, and my kids need a dad who can be home many more nights,” Sasse wrote in a statement Thursday night. His resignation will be effective by the end of the month.
• President Biden announced his latest student debt redistribution effort Thursday, ordering $1.2 billion in debt “cancellation” for 35,000 government and not-for-profit organization employees. Biden authorized the move through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Act—signed into law in 2007 by President George W. Bush. Borrowers eligible for the latest debt relief include workers enrolled in the government’s PSLF loan forgiveness program, which requires at least ten years of monthly repayments while working for an eligible employer.
• Delta, United, and American airlines announced a total ground stop on all flights early Friday morning, citing issues with their communications system. Flights already in the air would be allowed to continue. The stoppage follows a halt from Frontier Airlines on Thursday owing to a Microsoft systems glitch. It’s unclear if the issues are connected. 
• Business news anchor and conservative political pundit Lou Dobbs passed away on Thursday at the age of 78. The cause of death was not public. Dobbs helped launch CNN in 1980 and spent more than 20 years with the network before joining Fox Business Network.
• Comedian Bob Newhart passed away on Thursday at the age of 94. Newhart began his career in stand-up comedy but was propelled to stardom after releasing a series of comedy albums and became the first comic to have a chart-topping record. He later brought his comedic skill to television, starring in sitcoms The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart for a combined 14 years, winning three Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe. “Comedy is a way to bring logic to an illogical situation, of which there are many in everyday life,” Newhart wrote in his 2006 memoir I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This. “I’ve always likened what I do to the man who is convinced that he is the last sane man on Earth.”

Trump’s Big Night 

MILWAUKEE—As musician Lee Greenwood sang his hit song, “God Bless the U.S.A,” former President Donald Trump took the stage at the Republican National Convention, his right ear covered with a bandage, for his first public speech since surviving an assassination attempt on Saturday.

Trump began on a somber note, taking the crowd through a first-person account of the attempt on his life, noting that he would never recount the story a second time because it was “too painful to tell.” The crowd sat in rapt attention as Trump expressed his belief that divine providence was at play in preserving him. “I’ll tell you, I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God,” he said. “And watching the reports over the last few days, many people say it was a providential moment, probably was.”

As Trump took the stage, two uniformed men also solemnly wheeled out a mannequin draped in the firefighting uniform and helmet of Corey Comperatore, the 50-year-old Pennsylvania rally-goer who was fatally shot during the attack on Saturday afternoon that saw two others critically wounded and Trump hit in the ear. 

Trump honored Comperatore, the father of two for whom a visitation was held on Thursday, who was shot as he shielded his family. “He was incredible, he was a highly respected former fire chief,” Trump said. “He lost his life selflessly acting as a human shield to protect them from flying bullets. He went right over the top of them and was hit. What a fine man he was.” Trump walked across the stage and kissed Comperatore’s helmet before the crowd held a moment of silence for the slain rally-goer. 

It was then that Trump struck the tone of national unity that he had teased in interviews leading up to the convention, promising to be a president for all Americans. “I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America,” he said. “I’m here tonight to lay out a vision for the whole nation, to every citizen. Whether you’re young or old, man or woman, Democrat, Republican, or independent, black or white, Asian or Hispanic—I extend to you a hand of loyalty and of friendship. Together, we will lead America to new heights of greatness like the world has never seen before.”

That unified tone last for about … a full 60 seconds. No, Trump went on to spend most of the more than 90-minute speech—the longest nomination acceptance speech in modern history—riffing on old motifs like, as Drucker put it on Dispatch Live late last night, the Grateful Dead at a jam: Same song, different flavor. Far from revealing a changed man, reformed by a near-death experience, Trump’s speech showed a man unchained and more-or-less as he’s ever been. 

(We haven’t been able to independently confirm, but we believe Trump was the first presidential nominee to utter the phrase “How about the Hulkster? How good was he?” during a convention speech. Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White were among those who opened for the former president.)

“We had that horrible, horrible result that we’ll never let happen again,” he said of the 2020 election. “The election result, we’re never going to let that happen again. They used COVID to cheat.” He also claimed Democrats are “destroying our country.”

Trump had promised before the speech that he would not mention President Joe Biden’s name. He did so only once (well, twice), when he claimed that Biden has done a worse job than the worst presidents in American history. “I say it often: If you took the 10 worst presidents in the history of the United States—think of it, the 10 worst—added them up, they will not have done the damage that Biden has done,” he said. “I’m only gonna use the term once, Biden. I’m not gonna use the name any more, just one time.”

But that didn’t stop Trump from winking and nodding at his successor and naming his successor’s party, including calling for the end of his criminal prosecutions in the name of unity. “The Democrat Party should immediately stop weaponizing the justice system and labeling their political opponent as an enemy of democracy, especially since that is not true,” Trump said. “In fact, I am the one saving democracy for the people of our country.” He also praised the “highly respected” federal judge, Aileen Cannon, for tossing the charges against him in the classified documents case earlier this week—yes, that was this week. 

But Trump also devoted some time to his own platform, leaning into his hits—including immigration—and often going off-script to do so. But far from forward-looking, the speech was a promise of a snap-back to January 19, 2021, should he win in November.

At one point, he referenced the chart that saved his life at the rally in Butler on Saturday, which appeared behind him Thursday night on more than half-a-dozen screens. “Last time I put up that chart, I never really got to look at it,” he said to laughter in the audience. 

The image detailed levels of illegal immigration over the last several administrations—which, incidentally, showed illegal crossings increasing precipitously during Trump’s term before falling during the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated Title 42 border regulations. “We stopped the invasion,” he said of the influx of illegal immigrants to the border. “But the invasion that we stopped was peanuts by comparison to what happened after I left.” 

Likewise, his story about how a Nevada waitress gave him the idea for the “no tax on tips” peg of his GOP platform when she complained about the government taking in too much of her earnings seemed to be ad-libbed. “I said to her, ‘Let me just ask you a question, would you be happy if you had no tax on tips?’ She said, ‘What a great idea,’” he told the crowd. “I got my information from a very smart waitress.”

As his speech finally drew to a close, Trump went mostly back on-script and made one last overture for unity in the county. “Just like our ancestors, we must now come together, rise above past differences—any disagreements have to be put aside—and go forward united as one people, one nation, pledging allegiance to one great, beautiful—I think it’s so beautiful—American flag,” he said. “Tonight, I ask for your partnership, for your support, and I am humbly asking for your vote.”

As his family and running mate joined Trump on stage, legions of red, white, and blue balloons fell on the crowd. But by far the largest balloons that fell from the ceiling in Milwaukee on Thursday night were gold. 

Picking a Fight Over a Rusty Old Ship 

It was June 18 the last time the Filipino military was able to resupply the marine garrison aboard a rusted-out, intentionally beached World War II ship on the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. The ship was scuttled by the Filipino military 25 years ago in an effort to bolster the island nation’s claim to the submerged reef that China has long contended is part of its self-proclaimed expansive territory in the South China Sea. 

The last time the Philippines attempted to resupply the Filipino marines aboard the Sierra Madre, the Chinese Coast Guard intercepted the ships, and a melee ensued. The Chinese vessels seized two Filipino inflatable boats and used machetes and axes to puncture the two Filipino navy boats. One Filipino sailor lost a thumb in the scrum. “This is the first time that we saw the Chinese coast guard carry bolos [a sword], spears, and knives. Our troops had none of those,” said Romeo Brawner, chief of staff of the armed forces of the Philippines, after the attack. “We fought back with our bare hands.” 

The submerged reef is closer to the size of the National Mall than an island, per se, but it’s nevertheless become the center of a brewing conflict in what could potentially deteriorate into a hot war between China and the Philippines—which could implicate the United States, with which the Philippines has a mutual defense agreement. 

The Philippines beached the Sierra Madre to create an outpost from which they could keep track of China’s three-decadeslong campaign to encroach on Philippine waters. By seizing the shoal—which falls within the Philippines exclusive economic zone—and adjoining atolls and islands controlled by the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations, China hopes to dominate the more than $3 trillion of trade that flows through the South China Sea, as well as to control the region’s bountiful fisheries and vast natural resources.

China has blockaded the ship for months, forcing the Philippines to conduct daring resupply missions in the face of Chinese vessels performing aggressive maneuvers to try to stymie their efforts to provide its soldiers with much needed aid. The Filipino military has also in the last month secretly reinforced the hull of the decaying vessel and medevaced one of its service members, thwarting alleged Chinese efforts to block the mission.“The symbolic value is great for both China and the Philippines,” Ray Powell, fellow at the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford, told TMD. “What [China is] now trying to do, apparently, is to force the Philippines to either abandon the ship or to recognize China’s sovereignty over Second Thomas Shoal by asking permission and subjecting itself to inspections when it tries to resupply the ship.” 

As evidenced by last month’s bloody dust-up—and an episode in late April that saw a Chinese Coast Guard vessel fire water cannons at a Filipino fishing boat, while two other Chinese coast guard ships rammed a second Filipino boat—the conflict over the shoal is primed to escalate, with potentially grave geopolitical consequences. 

Bound together by increased fears of Chinese aggression, the Philippines and Japan—its WWII-era invader—earlier this month signed a defense pact that would allow them to perform joint combat exercises in both countries, building on the trilateral agreements each country signed with the U.S. earlier this spring. Canada has also pitched in, giving the Filipino Coast Guard access to “dark vessel technology” that will allow the Philippines to track Chinese Coast Guard vessels encircling the Second Thomas Shoal. 

These escalating tensions threaten to place the U.S. in a pickle: The U.S. is bound to defend the Philippines nation under a 1951 mutual defense treaty, a commitment President Joe Biden has many times called “ironclad.” “If one of these events were to result in the sinking of a [Filipino] ship or the death of a [Filipino] sailor, that would certainly put us into a much different place.” Powell told TMD. 

In an effort to galvanize global support even further, the Philippines has also tried to shine a white-hot spotlight on China’s behavior, releasing videos and images of the skirmishes. That could potentially draw international media to the subject and encourage countries to reinforce their commitment to the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration decision that found China didn’t have a legitimate claim over the South China Sea—or the Second Thomas Shoal. Just this week, GOP Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Jim Risch of Idaho—the ranking members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, respectively—urged the president to provide “a full list of military, diplomatic, and economic options from the Department of Defense and Department of State to deter further Chinese aggression.”  

“Your administration has repeatedly stated that an attack on Philippine public vessels, aircraft, and armed forces—including its Coast Guard in the South China Sea—would invoke the U.S. mutual defense commitments under Article IV of the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty,” the pair wrote in a letter to President Joe Biden. “Limiting our response to verbal assurances of the applicability of Article IV undermines the credibility and value of these commitments. We must respond with visible and concrete demonstrations of our support. Anything short of this risks our appearing unwilling to honor our bilateral commitments.” 

Both China and the Philippines took a nominal step toward lowering the temperature this week,   agreeing to establish a hotline between the two nations, nominally to facilitate communication in the event of a crisis. But the development should be taken with a grain of salt. Similar hotlines between the two countries already exist, but Beijing has historically not answered Manila’s calls. 

Though the strategy of transparency has yielded some positive results for the Philippines, it has yet to accomplish its ultimate goal: a Chinese retreat. “It’s not visibly deterred China around Second Thomas Shoal, in fact it may have provoked China.” Powell told TMD. “It seems China does not want to continue to be publicly exposed as the bad guys, but there is a very energetic debate around the question of whether this version of China can be deterred.” 

Worth Your Time

• For Reason magazine, J.D. Tuccille asked: Could more federalism cure what ails the body politic? “If conflict is found in elections that mutually loathing partisans think they can’t afford to lose, maybe the temperature can be turned down by making contests less important,” he wrote. “Vicious rhetoric by candidates may fan the flames of political hatred, recently fueling the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. … If the federal government had a smaller role in our lives, it wouldn’t matter so much who wins control of the White House and Congress. If power is transferred from D.C. to states and localities that are closer to their constituents and easier for dissenters to escape by loading moving trucks, maybe political battles don’t have to be so nasty. … Two and a half centuries on, power has been hoovered up by federal officials who increasingly impose one-size-fits-whoever-is-in-charge policies. That’s a recipe for the political conflict we see around us as people battle to impose their preferred policies and escape those of their enemies.” 
• In order to educate kids, you have to educate teachers—and ensuring teachers are sufficiently trained and prepared for the classroom continues to pose a problem, Daniel Buck warned in National Affairs. “No novice teacher is armed with the knowledge or skills to run a classroom; it’s simply assumed that they’ll fail early on,” he wrote. “In fact, making it through the blistering first year—the classroom chaos, the unforgiving workloads, the confusing curricula, the daily student insolence—is something of a rite of passage. … The reason for this reality is simple: Our nation’s teacher-preparation system is broken. Our educators enter the profession woefully unprepared for their jobs. … Fixing our broken pipeline of teachers is imperative. The quality of a teacher is the single most important school-related factor in a child’s education—more important than district policy, leadership, or facilities. Effective teachers are associated with quality-of-life indicators as disparate as lower rates of teenage pregnancy and higher savings for retirement. The difference between the best and worst teachers determines months’ worth of learning gains or losses for millions of students every year.”

Presented Without Comment

New York Times: After Biden Flub, Pentagon Spokeswoman Says [Defense Department Secretary Lloyd] Austin Has ‘Absolute Confidence’ in President

Often when a high-level government official faces sharp criticism over a major policy flub or error in judgment, the White House is asked if the president still supports that top aide.

On Thursday, those roles were reversed when a Pentagon spokeswoman, Sabrina Singh, was asked for comment after President Biden appeared to forget the name of his own Secretary of Defense on Wednesday, referring to Lloyd J. Austin III as the “Black man” in an interview with Black Entertainment Television.

Also Presented Without Comment

Politico: Biden Allies Retaliated Against A Dem Who Called For Him To Step Aside

Democrats in Michigan cut off a vulnerable House Democrat from a major part of campaign operations after she called last week for President Joe Biden to step down from the ticket. Officials reversed that decision Thursday, after facing questions from POLITICO.

Also Also Presented Without Comment

In the Zeitgeist

“The last sane man on earth,” comedian Bob Newhart, died on Thursday. The Dispatch Slack immediately filled with some of his greatest hits upon learning the news, so here’s just one: 

A TMD Farewell

As our interns rotate off their first assignment for the summer to work on other projects at The Dispatch, we’d like to thank Aayush for his great work on TMD these last several weeks. We promise, the news cycle isn’t always this chaotic—just most of the time. We’ll have another intern joining the team next week!

Toeing the Company Line

• On a special, (very) late-night edition of Dispatch Live (🔒), Sarah and Jonah were joined by Steve, Mike, Drucker, John, and Charles from the ground in Milwaukee to wrap up the Republican National Convention. Members who missed the conversation can catch a rerun—either video or audio-only—by clicking here.
• In the newsletters: The Dispatch Politics crew wrapped up day three of the Republican National Convention and J.D. Vance’s acceptance speech, Will reflected on the role of Tumblr in creating “woke” culture, Jonah predicted (🔒) that J.D. Vance will have to choose between Trump and his own ambition, and Nick argued (🔒) the social stigma associated with supporting Trump is weakening. 
• On the site: Drucker reports on a Republican Party that finally feels unified, Kevin argues that J.D. Vance’s own life story refutes the narrative he’s now pushing about class victimization, David Jordan explores how he, as a Gen Z voter, regards the “lesser of two evils” approach to voting, and Charles Horton explains how cognitive tests work.

Let Us Know

Did you watch Trump’s speech last night? What did you make of it?