Republican National Convention 2020: Day 1

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott and Donald Trump Jr.

Republicans kicked off night one of the Republican National Convention tonight with a theme focused around the “Land of Promise” after formally nominating President Donald Trump earlier in the day in Charlotte, North Carolina.

A slew of Trump surrogates and supporters delivered speeches from the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, DC.

Republicans tried to cast Trump as a caring, empathetic leader who worked to halt the spread of the coronavirus and created an inclusive economy, while being the only thing standing between the US and a devious Democratic Party.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott delivered the closing speech on the first night of the party’s convention, and — invoking the names of Black people who had been shot by police, including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor — he touched on his own roots as the son of mother who “worked 16 hours a day to keep food on the table” and a “roof over our heads” as they shared a two-bedroom house with his grandparents.

Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley attempted to burnish Trump’s image on the world stage even as America’s standing has fallen across the globe during his presidency. She argued that unlike former President Barack Obama and Biden, Trump has projected strength around the world while Biden would be “good for Iran and ISIS” and “great for Communist China.”

“He’s a godsend to everyone who wants America to apologize, abstain and abandon our values,” said Haley, the former governor of South Carolina. “Donald Trump takes a different approach. He’s tough on China, and he took on ISIS and won, and he tells the world what it needs to hear.”

Haley made that argument despite the fact that Trump is viewed unfavorably around the world. Earlier this year, the Pew Research Center found that across 32 countries, a median of 64% said they do not have confidence in Trump to do the right thing in world affairs, while only 29% expressed confidence in the President.

Trump made his first “surprise” appearance in tonight’s Republican National Convention alongside  frontline workers in the East Room of the White House. In his second appearance of the night, the President was featured in a video from the White House with American hostages freed by foreign countries during his administration. “We got you back,” Trump told Sam Goodwin, who was held in Syria in 2019.

The other featured Americans were held abroad in countries that included in Turkey, Iran and Venezuela.

Catch up on more moments of the night here.

Donald Trump Jr. referenced a report from the US intelligence community in claiming that China preferred Biden for the presidency because he would weaken the US economy, “Beijing Biden is so weak on China that the intelligence community recently assessed that the Chinese Communist Party favors Biden. They know he’ll weaken us both economically and on a world stage.”

Facts First: While Trump Jr. might be asserting his opinion here, his characterization of a recent assessment from the US intelligence community is misleading. The US intelligence community did not determine that China preferred Biden because he would economically or otherwise weaken the US. Rather, it outlined that China preferred that President Donald Trump lose the election because he was “unpredictable” and because of the many actions he has taken against China.

William R. Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, in a statement on Aug 7 updating the election threat landscape heading into the election noted that “China prefers that President Trump – whom Beijing sees as unpredictable – does not win reelection.” 

The statement went on to note that China has been critical of Trump’s “COVID-19 response, closure of China’s Houston Consulate” and “actions on Hong Kong, TikTok, the legal status of the South China Sea, and China’s efforts to dominate the 5G market.”Evanina’s report makes no mention of China preferring Biden because he would weaken the US economy. 

In praising his father Monday night, Donald Trump Jr. pushed the idea that the middle class has benefitted from President Donald Trump’s economic policies. “After eight years of Obama and Biden’s slow growth, Trump’s policies have been like rocket fuel to the economy and especially the middle class,” he said at the Republican National Convention. 

Facts first: Actually, middle class income grew in the final years of the Obama administration but has stagnated under Trump. Median household income stayed essentially flat in 2018, at $63,200, breaking a three-year streak of increases, according to the most recent Census Bureau data. 

Median income ticked up only 1.8% in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, and then plateaued despite a strong job market and very low unemployment, according to the latest Census data, which predates the pandemic and this year’s recession.  

In the last two years of former President Barack Obama’s administration, median income rose more sharply – increasing 5.2% in 2015 and 3.2% in 2016. However, the middle class has not advanced much, if at all, over the past decade. Median income in 2018 was not statistically different than in 2007 or 1999, which was the high point.