“Night of hope”: In his speech, Vance said Trump would “put America first” and described Wednesday as a “night of hope” after the former president survived an assassination attempt last week. Both men will kick off the campaign with their first rally Saturday in the battleground state of Michigan.
Covid diagnosis: President Joe Biden has cut short a campaign trip to Nevada after he tested positive for Covid-19. The White House said he has mild symptoms.
From CNN's Eric Bradner, Daniel Strauss, Gregory Krieg and Arit John
US Sen. JD Vance speaks at the 2024 Republican National Convention hosted at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 17.
Will Lanzoni/CNN
Two days after being tapped as Donald Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance introduced himself to voters in a speech that highlighted the populist direction the two aim to take the Republican Party — and the nation.
Vance’s Republican National Convention speech capped a night Republicans spent prosecuting what they see as President Joe Biden’s biggest foreign policy failures and their consequences.
Republicans, including the former president’s granddaughter, 17-year-old Kai Trump, also spent much of their time attempting to show Trump’s human side.
Here are five takeaways:
Vance introduces himself and slams Biden: Vancespoke of beingraised in rural Ohio, joining the Marines and attending Yale Law School, where he met his wife, Usha. He also used his political leanings — populist and isolationist — to target Biden’s career as a politician.
A softer edge: Though parts of Vance’s speech were Trumpian, Vance used his speech to paint himself as an everyman and appealed to poor and middle-class voters across the political spectrum.
Usha Vance takes the stage: JD Vance’s wife, Usha, laid out her husband’s biography and compared it to her middle-class upbringing in suburban San Diego with Indian immigrant parents. In a humanizing moment, she noted that JD adapted to their differences.
Gold Star families lambast Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal: The audience heard sharp criticism of Biden from the families of some of the 13 service members who were killed in a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul during the United States’ 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
GOP senators confront Secret Service director: Republican senators confronted Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and chased her through Fiserv Forum, demanding answers to questions about Saturday’s assassination attempt.
Analysis: What a Trump-Vance win might mean for America's relationship with China – and Taiwan
From CNN's Simone McCarthy
The official launch of the Republican presidential campaign ticket of Donald Trump and JD Vance this week has been closely scrutinized by governments around the globe looking for clues to what a return of an “America First” foreign policy might look like – including in the world’s second-largest economy.
Vance, a junior senator from Ohio, wove several mentions of China – and what he painted as its negative impact on the American economy – into the introduction of his own life and views to the Republican National Convention on Wednesday when he accepted the nomination to be Trump’s vice-presidential candidate.
Much like his running mate, Vance claimed that policies in past decades supported by President Joe Biden and “out-of-touch politicians” in Washington meant the US “was flooded with cheap Chinese goods, with cheap foreign labor, and in the decades to come, deadly Chinese fentanyl.”
The comments, which were among the few direct references to foreign nations throughout the nearly 40-minute speech, come in a week where Vance and Trump have shown signals of how their administration would shape US policy and relations with China – and US partners in Asia.
That’s drawn attention from the region, where countries’ ties with the US could change if power changes hands in the November elections.
Analysis: Trump triumphant as Biden descends into a deepening crisis
From CNN's Stephen Collinson
Donald Trump at the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 17.
Bernadette Tuazon/CNN
Donald Trump will pull off his greatest feat yet as Joe Biden confronts his darkest hour.
The ex-president, 78, will accept the Republican nomination Thursday, advancing one of the most stunning comebacks in political history after his bid to steal the 2020 election, an unprecedented criminal conviction and an assassination attempt.
Biden, 81, is meanwhile being rocked by a Democratic rebellion. Concerns about whether he can again defeat his 2020 opponent have boiled back up amid lawmakers’ concerns about his health and cognitive state and despair over his chances of blocking the extreme possibilities of a second Trump term.
Sources told CNN Wednesday that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently told the president that polls show he can’t beat Trump and could crush Democratic hopes of winning the House if he stays in the race.
A White House race that slumbered for months has suddenly erupted over a momentous three weeks bookended by Biden’s cataclysmic debate performance and the attempted assassination of Trump – a whiplash of events unseen in half a century.
The 45th president’s comeback will only be fully realized if he becomes the second one-term president to win a return to the White House in November. But his rebound to this point may be even more unlikely than his unexpected win in the 2016 election.
His return to the top of the GOP ticket means it is now clear that Trump was not simply an aberration, but is becoming a historic political force who has utterly transformed his party and could do the same for the nation, for better or worse, if he comes back to White House on January 20, 2025.
"With age comes wisdom": Biden again responds to calls for him to drop out of the race
From CNN's Jalen Beckford
President Joe Biden, alongside Maritza Rodriguez, a campaign advisor for the Biden Nevada state team, greets people as he arrives at a restaurant ahead of a radio interview in Las Vegas, Nevada, on July 17.
Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images
President Joe Biden has again responded to calls for him to drop out of the presidential race, telling media outlet Univision that “with age comes wisdom.”
The interview with host Luis Sandoval was taped Wednesday, shortly before the White House announced that Biden tested positive for Covid-19.
Asked about calls for him to exit the race, including from Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, Biden addressed the debate performance that sparked the concerns.
Biden also addressed concerns about his age, saying: “with age comes wisdom.”
When asked how confident he is that he’ll get the Latino vote, Biden responded “I feel good,” adding: “I’m indebted to the community.”
The full interview is set to air Thursday afternoon across all Univision-Uforia radio stations.
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In pictures: Day 3 of the Republican National Convention
Vance, 39, was announced as Trump’s running mate on Monday, and he has appeared with Trump at the convention the last two nights. Trump will give his nomination acceptance speech on Thursday, the final day of the convention.
Trump was still wearing a bandage on his right ear, which was injured in Saturday's assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Bernadette Tuazon/CNN
Stacey Goodman, a delegate from Arizona, wears a bandage on her ear in solidarity with Trump.
Will Lanzoni/CNN
Anti-Trump protester Nadine Seiler demonstrates outside the convention on Wednesday.
Will Lanzoni/CNN
Convention attendees watch Wednesday's events at the Fiserv Forum.
Bernadette Tuazon/CNN
Vance is greeted by his wife, Usha, after his speech.
Rebecca Wright/CNN
House Speaker Mike Johnson watches Vance's speech next to Vance's mother, Beverly. During his speech, Vance spoke of his mother’s struggle with addiction and acknowledged her where she sat in the VIP box.
Will Lanzoni/CNN
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Former Vance rival's advice to VP Kamala Harris: "You have to pin him down"
Former Democratic Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan speaks with CNN on July 18.
CNN
Former Democratic Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, who lost a 2022 Senate bid to JD Vance, offered some advice to Vice President Kamala Harris as she prepares to debate Vance.
“Kamala Harris is uniquely qualified against him because you have to pin him down. He tries to deny things that he said,” Ryan told CNN’s Laura Coates.
Ryan said Harris’s extensive experience as a prosecutor may come to her aid in a face-off with Vance.
Remember: The Biden administration had accepted two dates for a potential vice presidential debate on CBS News — July 23 and August 13 — and a campaign official told CNN earlier today that they have now accepted August 12 as a third possible date.
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Fact checking night 3 of the RNC
From CNN staff
People sing the National Anthem at the 2024 Republican National Convention hosted at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 17.
Rebecca Wright/CNN
Night three of the Republican National Convention spotlighted former President Donald Trump’s choice for vice president, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, and other speakers who made false and misleading claims.
Here are some of the claims — about the economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and more — that CNN’s Fact First team put under the microscope:
Biden acknowledges questions about his age and fitness are "legitimate" in BET interview
From CNN's Sam Fossum
President Joe Biden said in an interview with BET News taped on Tuesday that, while questions around his age and fitness are “legitimate,” he is in better physical shape than his rival Donald Trump and those concerns should be put aside if he can show his “ability to compete.”
Gordon then pressed Biden on whether he would be willing to be a more temporary transitional candidate and, if he wins in November, to look at his health and capabilities from year to year in a second term.
Biden was also asked about Trump’s vice president pick, JD Vance. Biden complimented him as a hardworking senator but said that he believes him to be a “really, really conservative MAGA Republican.”
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What to know about the 3rd day of the Republican National Convention
From CNN staff
Sen. JD Vance speaks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Wednesday, July 17.
Will Lanzoni/CNN
Ohio Sen. JD Vance introduced himself to America and officially accepted the nomination to be Donald Trump’s running mate at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday. He talked about his upbringing and said that Trump — and his policies — are the best option for the United States.
It was the first time Vance spoke at a convention, and also his first time attending one. He was introduced by his wife, Usha Vance, a trial lawyer and former judicial clerk.
Sen. JD Vance started his speech by saying that it was a “night of hope” after the assassination attempt. He attacked President Joe Biden’s policies that he said hurt small-town and rural communities — like where he grew up in Ohio. Vance also looked to appeal to White working-class voters in a callout to battleground states. He addressed factory and energy workers and said that Trump is the person who will put American workers first. In speaking about his upbringing and his background, Vance talked about his mother’s struggle with addiction.
Usha Chilukuri Vance,JD Vance’s wife, underscored the different backgrounds the couple come from, calling him “the most interesting person I knew. She said they met in law school at Yale. “That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry is a testament to this great country,” she said.
Donald Trump Jr. used the start of his speech to remember the life of the man who died Saturday during the attack on the former president and praised Vance. His daughter, Kai Madison Trump, also took the stage to talk about her grandfather. She also said she was shocked to hear about the attempt on his life.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum,who was on Trump’s VP shortlist, focused much of his speech on energy. He accused Biden of “acting like a dictator” with his energy policy “using mandates to shut down reliable baseload electricity.” He said Trump would make the US “more energy dominant.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tried to contrast the former president’s — and his own — immigration and border policies with those of Biden. He vowed to continue busing migrants to other cities “until we finally secure our border” and highlighted efforts he is making in his state.
Peter Navarro, former director of the US Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, who was released from prison today, was greeted by a cheering crowd. He told the convention that Republicans needed to win the election and take control of all branches of the government with the upcoming election.
Pressure on Biden: Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi privately told Biden that polling shows he cannot defeat Trump and that he could destroy Democrats’ chances of winning the House if he continues seeking a second term, according to four sources briefed on the call. Earlier in the day, Rep. Adam Schiff called on Biden to drop out of the race. Separately, Biden told BET, that the only thing that would push him to reconsider his reelection bid would be a medical condition.
Fact Check: RNC video makes outdated claim about US wages
From CNN's Tami Luhby
A video that played before vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance’s speech at the Republican National Convention hit President Joe Biden over his handling of the economy.
“Under Biden, wages are going down while prices skyrocket,” the video said.
Facts first:The claim in the video is outdated. While inflation outpaced wages during the first half of the Biden administration, that reversed in the middle of last year.
Inflation rose sharply during the early years of the Biden administration but has since slowed to an annual rate of 3% in June. In fact, prices fell in June for the first time since the start of the pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Meanwhile, real average hourly earnings – which take inflation into account – began increasing in mid-2023. They rose 0.8% on a seasonally adjusted basis, from June 2023 to June 2024, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
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Fact Check: Vance’s misleading claim about Trump and the invasion of Iraq
From CNN's Daniel Dale
Sen. JD Vance speaks on the third night of the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, July 17, in Milwaukee.
Rebecca Wright/CNN
Former President Donald Trump’s choice for vice president, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, insinuated in his speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday that Trump had opposed the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
Vance said, “When I was a senior in high school, that same Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq.” After mentioning other past Biden positions as well, Vance said, “Somehow, a real estate developer from New York City by the name of Donald J. Trump was right on all of these issues while Biden was wrong. President Trump knew, even then, that we needed leaders who would put America first.”
In his 2000 book, “The America We Deserve,” Trump argued a military strike on Iraq might be necessary. And Trump did not express a firm opinion about the looming war in a Fox interview in January 2003, saying that “either you attack or don’t attack” and that then-President George W. Bush “has either got to do something or not do something, perhaps.”
Trump began criticizing the war in 2003, after the invasion, and also said that year that American troops should not be withdrawn from Iraq. He emerged as an explicit opponent of the war in 2004, the year before Biden did.
But Vance suggested Trump had been right on the invasion itself while Biden got it wrong, and there’s no basis for the claim that they were on opposing sides of the issue.
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Vance celebrates his mother being "10 years clean and sober" after addiction struggles
From CNN's Elizabeth Wolfe
Beverly Vance, mother of Sen. J.D. Vance, reacts as her son speaks during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Wednesday, July 17.
Will Lanzoni/CNN
During his speech, JD Vance spoke of his mother’s struggle with addiction and acknowledged her where she sat in the VIP box.
Vance gestured to his mother in the audience, who stood to a standing ovation as the audience cheered “JD’s mom!”
His mother mouthed, “I love you, JD.”
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Sources: Biden defensive after Pelosi privately told him polls show he can't win and will take down the House
From CNN's MJ Lee, Jamie Gangel and Jeff Zeleny
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi privately told President Joe Biden in a recent conversation that polling shows that the president cannot defeat Donald Trump and that the president could destroy Democrats’ chances of winning the House in November if he continues seeking a second term, according to four sources briefed on the call.
More background: This phone call would mark the second known conversation between the California lawmaker and Biden since the president’s disastrous debate on June 27. While the exact date of the conversation was not clear, one source described it as being within the last week. Pelosi and Biden also spoke in early July.
None of the sources indicated whether Pelosi told Biden in this conversation that she believes the president should drop out of the 2024 race.
Pelosi has spent the weeks following Biden’s disastrous debate performance listening to concerns from her colleagues. Pelosi made waves when she said in an interview last week: “It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short.”
When asked for comment, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates did not respond to the details of CNN’s reporting on the recent Pelosi-Biden call. “President Biden is the nominee of the party. He plans to win and looks forward to working with congressional Democrats to pass his 100 days agenda to help working families,” Bates said.
A Pelosi spokesperson told CNN that the former House speaker has been in California since Friday and she has not spoken to Biden since.
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Vance shouts out battleground states in his RNC speech
From CNN's Jack Forrest
Republican Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s pick for vice president, leaned on his childhood growing up in rural Ohio as he looked to appeal to White working class voters in his callout to battleground states during his Republican National Convention speech.
“But my fellow Americans, this moment is not about me; it’s about all of us and who we’re fighting for,” Vance said, before going on to appeal to voters in states Trump will likely need to win over to return to the White House.
“It’s about the factory worker in Wisconsin, who makes things with their hands and is proud of American craftsmanship,” later telling the crowd that the Trump-Vance presidency would bring more manufacturing jobs to the US.
Vance ended his speech by again linking his upbringing in Middletown, Ohio, to battleground states, saying, “All the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and every corner of our Nation, I promise you this - I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.”
This post was updated with additional remarks from Vance.
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Vance says Biden's policies hurt communities like the one where he grew up
From CNN's Elise Hammond
Sen. JD Vance speaks on the third night of the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, July 17, in Milwaukee.
Wi
Vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance talked about his upbringing and attacked President Joe Biden’s policies. He argued that Biden hurt communities like the one where he grew up in Ohio.
Vance said the country needs leaders “who would put America first.”
Vance was born in Middletown, Ohio, on August 2, 1984, and spent some of his childhood in Kentucky. He captured growing up in his best-selling book “Hillbilly Elegy.”
He went on to serve in the Marine Corps from 2003 to 2007 before attending Ohio State University and Yale Law School. Vance later worked as a venture capitalist before running for office.
He argued that the country needs a leader who “answers to the working man, union and non-union alike” and will fight to bring back factories. Trump is the person who would accomplish these things, he said.
This post has been updated with more remarks from Vance.
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Fact Check: Kimberly Guilfoyle claims that "Trump handed Biden a booming economy"
From CNN's Tami Luhby
Kimberly Guilfoyle speaks on stage during the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, July 17, in Milwaukee.
Will Lanzoni/CNN
Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancée and former Fox News host, slammed President Joe Biden for his handling of the economy in her speech on the third night of the Republican National Convention.
Facts First:Guilfoyle’s comments are misleading. While the economy did well during the first three years of the Trump administration, it was upended by the Covid-19 pandemic. While it had recovered somewhat by the end of 2020, there were still multiple weak points heading into 2021, when Biden took office.
The US economy grew at an annualized and seasonally adjusted rate of 4% in the fourth quarter of 2020. That would usually be a great rate, but it didn’t make up for a weak first quarter and terrible second quarter spurred by the pandemic. For all of 2020, the GDP fell 3.5% from the prior year, the worst decline since 1946.
Also, disposable incomes fell by 9.5% on an annualized basis in the fourth quarter of 2020, and the unemployment rate was 6.7% in December of that year. The US economy shed 140,000 jobs that month — a far worse outcome than economists predicted at the time. Covid-19 infections had increased that month, prompting some states to take additional containment measures.
Trump was the first president since Herbert Hoover to leave office with fewer jobs than when he entered, largely because of the pandemic.
Sen. JD Vance speaks on the third night of the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, July 17, in Milwaukee.
Will Lanzoni/CNN
Ohio GOP Sen. JD Vance has formally accepted the nomination to be Donald Trump’s running mate during his speech on Wednesday at the Republican National Convention.
Trump, who is watching the speech from inside the arena, stood up to clap.
In tapping a 39-year-old first-term senator from the country’s heartland over more experienced Republicans with deeper party ties, Trump is looking ahead to the future of his political movement.
Those close to Trump say he is looking to Vance to lead the party beyond his time in office, an expectation he never seriously harbored for his previous vice president, Mike Pence.
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Vance applauds Trump's calls for unity
From CNN's Jack Forrest
Sen. JD Vance speaks on the third night of the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, July 17, in Milwaukee.
Will Lanzoni/CNN
Republican Sen. JD Vance, repeating similar claims he made following the attempted assassination on Donald Trump, casting the former president’s opponents as leading to Saturday’s violence as he celebrated Trump’s subsequent calls for unity.
“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Vance wrote. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
In his speech, Vance added: “And then President Trump flew to Milwaukee and got back to work. Now that’s the man that I’ve gotten to know personally over the last few years. He’s tough — and he is — but he cares about people. He can stand defiant against an assassin one moment and call for national healing the next.”
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Trump's VP pick JD Vance starts speech by saying it "is a night of hope" following assassination attempt
From CNN's Elise Hammond
Sen. JD Vance speaks on the third night of the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, July 17, in Milwaukee.
Will Lanzoni/CNN
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance started his speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee saying it could have been a day of “heartache and mourning” after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
He also chanted “O-H-I-O” at his state’s delegation. He was introduced by his wife, Usha, with chants of “JD” from the crowd when he came on stage.
The onetime “Never Trump” Republican, Vance, 39, shot to fame over his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” and would eventually win over Trump ahead of his run for Senate. The former lawyer and venture capitalist has since become a loyal follower of Trump and heir-apparent to his particular brand of Republican populist politics.
Watch his speech in the video player above the page and follow instant analysis here.
