It’s the Republicans’ turn in the prime-time spotlight this week, and the party led by a former reality TV star is planning to rely on him throughout its weeklong convention as the “talent in chief.”
President Trump is set to speak every night of the Republican National Convention — an unusually active role for an incumbent president. He will be responding each night to the Democratic program, which pinned the blame for the ongoing spread of the coronavirus on his failure of leadership, officials involved in the planning said.
But the full schedule for the convention has been a closely guarded secret, in part because Mr. Trump wants an element of surprise, and in part because the program has been coming together in real time.
Speakers are expected to include Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the Missouri couple who pointed weapons at Black protesters in June, and Nicholas Sandmann, the Kentucky teenager who sued news outlets over coverage of his encounter last year with a Native American protester in Washington. There is likely going to be a video that addresses what Mr. Trump has branded the “Russia hoax.”
A “Democrats for Trump” segment also is planned, though the participants remain a closely guarded secret. Current and former officials with speaking slots include Senator Tim Scott, the sole Black Republican in the Senate, and two people seen as likely presidential contenders in 2024: Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador, and Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
White House officials including Dan Scavino, Mr. Trump’s former golf caddie who is now deputy chief of staff for communications; Larry Kudlow, the national economic adviser; and Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, are also scheduled to speak.
The Republicans’ celebration is being led by longtime Trump loyalists such as the White House advisers Ms. Conway and Hope Hicks; Justin Clark, the president’s deputy campaign manager; and Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law. Tony Sayegh, a former Treasury Department official who was brought on as a consultant for the convention, is overseeing plans along with Max Miller, the former White House official who was put in charge of campaign events after Mr. Trump’s sparsely attended rally in Tulsa, Okla., earlier this summer.
Privately, Republican aides admit it was a mistake to lower expectations for Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s address to the Democrats’ virtual convention last week, and that Mr. Trump’s rival had benefited as a result.
But, the aides said, they were happy about one thing: expectations for their convention this week are low, as well.
Ahead of the Washington-based speeches, Republican delegates gathered over the weekend in Charlotte, N.C., for the only in-person component of either party’s convention week, a public display that Mr. Trump had sought and that the Republican National Committee had deemed important, at least symbolically.
The delegates were set to participate in a roll call inside the Charlotte Convention Center on Monday. Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are expected to attend.
President Trump’s re-election campaign on Sunday released a partial list of speakers for this week’s Republican National Convention.
The list includes all four of Mr. Trump’s adult children and many members of Congress, as well as several Republicans who are seen as likely to run for president in 2024. Mr. Trump himself will speak all four nights.
Also on the docket are Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who pointed guns at peaceful protesters in St. Louis; Nicholas Sandmann, a teenager who was involved in a confrontation with a Native American protester last year; and Mary Ann Mendoza, a consultant to We Build the Wall, the group whose activities led to Stephen K. Bannon’s indictment on fraud charges. (Ms. Mendoza, whose son was killed in a car crash with an undocumented immigrant, also spoke at the 2016 Republican convention.)
Here are some of the most prominent speakers each night:
Monday, Aug. 24
- Former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, a former ambassador to the United Nations
- Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina
- Representatives Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Matt Gaetz of Florida and Jim Jordan of Ohio
- Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee
- Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest son
Tuesday, Aug. 25
- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
- Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky
- Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa
- Melania Trump, the first lady
- Eric Trump and Tiffany Trump, two of the president’s children
Wednesday, Aug. 26
- Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence
- Senators Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Joni Ernst of Iowa
- Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota
- Representatives Dan Crenshaw of Texas, Elise Stefanik of New York and Lee Zeldin of New York
- Kellyanne Conway, a top adviser to Mr. Trump
- Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law
Thursday, Aug. 27
- Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader
- Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader
- Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas
- Representative Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey
- Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer
- Ivanka Trump, Mr. Trump’s daughter
The Trump campaign said on Sunday that President Trump would be delivering remarks at an airport hangar in Manchester, N.H., on Friday, a month after officials decided to postpone a rally in the state. The promotion of this event differed from past campaign announcements: Officials did not bill the event as a full-fledged rally, and attendees will be required to wear masks.
The state’s governor, Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, issued an emergency order on Aug. 11 requiring people attending gatherings of over 100 to wear face coverings. Mr. Trump’s original rally had been scheduled for late July in Portsmouth, N.H., and was postponed, officials said, because of bad weather.
The state is considered an electoral prize for Mr. Trump because his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, narrowly won it in 2016. A poll conducted by Saint Anselm college this week shows Mr. Trump trailing his Democratic challenger, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., by eight percentage points.
But concerns over how many supporters the rally would draw were also a factor. The postponement came after an earlier rally held in Tulsa, Okla., failed to draw enough people to ensure a full crowd, angering Mr. Trump and contributing to the departure of Brad Parscale as his campaign manager. Mr. Parscale had boasted of nearly one million ticket requests, but just over 6,000 people attended the June 20 event.
Campaign officials in the post-Parscale era appear to be hedging their bets this time, but on Sunday did not immediately answer questions about the promotion of the event.
Could President Trump’s recent calls for his supporters to boycott Goodyear tires backfire on him in two battleground states?
That’s the political calculus of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign, which released a new television ad on Sunday in Ohio and in North Carolina in which the Democratic presidential nominee rallied around the company and its employees.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company came under fire last Wednesday from Mr. Trump after a television station in Topeka, Kan., reported that employees at the company’s local plant had been barred from wearing political attire.
The policy specifically mentioned that “Make America Great Again” Trump campaign merchandise was not acceptable but that clothing promoting “Black Lives Matter” and L.G.B.T. pride was permissible.
“A company with a 122-year history in Akron, Ohio, thousands of American workers and competitors all over the world, and a sitting president who is spinning out of control will risk American jobs to try to save his own,” the ad’s narrator said.
The ad is targeting voters in Akron, where Goodyear is based, and in Fayetteville, N.C., where the company runs a plant, according to the Biden campaign, which said that it was part of $26 million in paid advertising planned across the country for the coming week. It will run on television and on YouTube.
A photo seen on social media appears to show a slide projected on a screen listing “Black Lives Matter” and L.G.B.T. pride as “acceptable,” while listing “Blue Lives Matter,” “All Lives Matter,” “MAGA Attire” and “Political Affiliated Slogans or Material” as “unacceptable.” An employee told WIBW-TV that the photo was taken during a recent diversity training presentation that included guidance on acceptable clothing.
Goodyear said in a statement that the slide “was not created or distributed by Goodyear corporate, nor was it part of a diversity training class,” but the company did not give further details on where the slide came from.
The statement said that in order to keep the workplace free of “harassment or discrimination,” Goodyear asks “that associates refrain” from expression “in support of political campaigning for any candidate or political party, as well as similar forms of advocacy that fall outside the scope of racial justice and equity issues.”
Soon after Mr. Trump tweeted that his supporters should boycott Goodyear, the company’s stock tumbled, a fact that is highlighted in Mr. Biden’s latest ad. The commercial ends by showing Mr. Biden behind the wheel of a yellow Corvette Stingray when he was vice president.
A photo of Mr. Trump riding in a presidential limousine with Goodyear tires also started circulating on Twitter shortly after the president criticized the company.
James B. Comey, the former director of the F.B.I., said that he will speak this week at a political convention that includes Republicans who oppose President Trump because “evenhanded law enforcement has disappeared from the Justice Department,” and that Attorney General William P. Barr and Mr. Trump have undermined the rule of law.
“The truth is under attack, both by the attorney general and the president,” Mr. Comey said in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday morning. “That’s why I’m speaking for the first time ever at a political convention.” Mr. Comey will speak at the Convention on Founding Principles, a four-day event that will air at the same time as the Republican National Convention, where Mr. Trump will accept his party’s nomination for president.
The alternate convention has been described by the organizers as an event created to “defend our founding principles” where “principled Americans will gather to pledge allegiance to our founding principles” instead of to Mr. Trump.
But Mr. Comey has been criticized by Democrats for acting in ways that disadvantaged Hillary Clinton and favored Mr. Trump ahead of the 2016 election by keeping the F.B.I.’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Trump out of public view, but publicly discussing the F.B.I.’s investigation into Ms. Clinton’s handling of classified information.
Mr. Comey said that he had handled the Clinton investigation correctly. “I think we made the right decisions, choosing between terrible options,” he said. “I regret only being involved in the 2016 election.”
But he said that it was “fair” for the Senate Intelligence Committee to say that the F.B.I. should have done more to alert the D.N.C. about concerns that Russia had gained access to its computer servers ahead of the 2016 election. He said that the F.B.I. hadn’t understood that the D.N.C. hack had been part of an active campaign, rather than normal intelligence gathering, “because it never happened before.”
“I sure think it was a miss, a mistake,” Mr. Comey said. “It didn’t occur to us that the Russians were doing something they had never done, which is to weaponize and fire stolen material at our democratic process. Looking back in hindsight, it seems obvious. I don’t know the answer why nobody in the intelligence community, none of the analysts, saw this coming.”
Mr. Comey said that the 2020 election season would be vulnerable to Russian influence, because it had worked for Moscow in the last election. “The only way we’re going to keep Putin out of our elections is to elect Joe Biden as president,” Mr. Comey said.
Mr. Comey said that he has not been contacted about the investigation into the roots of the F.B.I.’s decision to investigate the Trump campaign for its ties to Russia. He said that he has had “no contact” with John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut who is leading the inquiry, and that he “can’t imagine” that he himself is a target of it. Mr. Comey also said that it was likely that Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former top strategist, could face jail time for financial crimes associated with an online fund-raising effort to build a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico.
“The indictment lays it out in such detail, including excerpts from texts. If you’re Stephen Bannon and his lawyers, you’re reading this saying, ‘I’m going down here,’” Mr. Comey said. “It’s another reminder of the kind of people this president surrounds himself with. At this point they could almost start their own crime family.”
Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said on CBS News on Sunday morning that another national shutdown to control the coronavirus was an “elite” idea, and brushed off a new poll showing that a majority of Republicans consider the death toll from the virus “acceptable.”
Asked how Republicans intended to keep attendees safe at their convention event in Charlotte, N.C., this week, Ms. McDaniel said, “I think it’s really important to understand that the Democrats and Joe Biden just said we’re going to shut this country down again, and that is a really elite view of America right now.”
She appeared to be responding to an ABC News interview in which Mr. Biden said he would shut down the country if scientists said it was necessary. But Ms. McDaniel did not mention the caveat.
“I would be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives, because we cannot get the country moving until we control the virus,” Mr. Biden said in that interview. “That is the fundamental flaw in this administration’s thinking to begin with. In order to keep the country running and moving and the economy growing and people employed, you have to fix the virus.”
Ms. McDaniel said that all convention attendees were being tested for the coronavirus.
“We are doing the things that are allowing people to live their lives, have a convention and do it in a healthy and safe way, which most Americans are doing as they’re going back to work, as they’re going to the grocery store, as they’re going to hospitals,” she said. “The Democrats are saying ‘shut it all down.’ Well, that’s easy for Hollywood celebrities and privileged politicians, but that’s not good for average Americans.”
The host, Margaret Brennan, brought up a new CBS News/YouGov poll in which 57 percent of registered Republicans said the number of deaths from the coronavirus in the United States — more than 175,000 — was “acceptable.” That was much higher than the 10 percent of Democrats and 33 percent of independents who said the same.
“I think that is a really unfair poll,” Ms. McDaniel said. “Of course there’s nobody in this country — there is nobody, starting with the president of the United States — who wants to see people pass away from this global pandemic that came here from China not being honest, from the W.H.O. failing in their one duty, their one duty to identify a pandemic, and they failed the global community.”
Ms. Brennan then asked if Ms. McDaniel considered the number of deaths acceptable.
“No, of course not, Margaret,” she said.
Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, said on ABC News on Sunday morning that President Trump was politicizing the response to the coronavirus pandemic, after Mr. Trump tweeted baselessly that the Food and Drug Administration was hindering research on vaccines and treatments.
Mr. Trump wrote in a tweet early Saturday that “the deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics,” and claimed that the F.D.A. was hoping to delay any vaccine progress until after the election.
“This is consistent with the way the president has approached this crisis from the beginning,” Ms. Bedingfield said. “He has made the response to an almost unprecedented public health crisis in this country political. He has used every opportunity to undermine faith in the public health officials who should be driving his response to this crisis.”
She added that Mr. Trump and his administration had not demonstrated an ability to handle the logistics of distributing a vaccine if one became available.
Americans “need to feel confident that the president is going to be able to, and that this administration is going to be able to, get a vaccine equitably and quickly to people all across the country,” she said. “That is a massive logistical undertaking. It requires planning, it requires organization, it requires execution, and I don’t think anybody has seen any evidence from this president or this government that they’re going to be able to handle that kind of operation.”
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former F.D.A. commissioner under President Trump, on Sunday pushed back against the president’s claims that the agency was dragging its heels because of political motivations.
“It’s a foundational truth that what guides that agency is science and a deeply seated sense of public health mission that permeates that agency,” Dr. Gottlieb said during an appearance on the CBS show “Face the Nation.” “It’s a part of an esprit de corps of the staff of that agency. I know that they know the urgency of the moment.”
Dr. Gottlieb said that vaccine trials were moving forward at a historic pace. He also addressed the delays in the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma therapy, in which antibodies in the plasma of patients who have recovered from the virus are used to try to help treat others who are infected. He said that regulators wanted to see more rigorous data on its efficacy.
“So I firmly reject the idea that they would slow walk anything or accelerate anything for that matter based on any kind of political consideration and any consideration other than what’s best for the public health and a real sense of mission to patients,” Dr. Gottlieb said.
As of Sunday morning, more than 5.6 million people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 176,200 have died, according to a New York Times database.
Ms. Bedingfield also said that Mr. Biden had not been tested for Covid-19, but that his campaign was enforcing “the strictest protocols” to avoid infection — including requiring everyone who comes into contact with him to be tested. That included people who entered the site of his convention speech in Wilmington, Del., last week.
Maryanne Trump Barry, President Trump’s older sister and a former federal judge, described him as a liar who has “no principles” in a series of audio recordings made by her niece, Mary L. Trump, in 2018 and 2019.
The recordings were provided to The Washington Post, which published them online Saturday night. In them, Ms. Barry can be heard disparaging her brother’s performance as president.
“His goddamned tweet and the lying, oh my God,” she says in one of the recordings. “I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying.”
According to The Post, Ms. Trump secretly recorded 15 hours of face-to-face conversations with Ms. Barry about the president and his upbringing while working on her recently released book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.”
The recordings she shared include some material that was in the book — like an allegation that Mr. Trump cheated to get into college by having someone else take the SAT for him — as well as material, like Ms. Barry’s criticism, that was not in the book.
“Every day it’s something else,” Mr. Trump said in a statement released by the White House on Saturday. “Who cares?”
The recordings quickly became a subject of discussion on the Sunday morning talk shows.
“It’s heartbreaking to think that a family member of the president of the United States would have that view of him,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on CNN. “This is just further evidence of his authenticity and his lack of integrity.”
The White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, dismissed the story.
“Obviously, he’s been public with his response,” Mr. Meadows said on ABC. “Just another day and another attack.”
Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s approval rating edged up after the Democratic National Convention, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll.
Forty percent of Americans said they viewed him favorably before the convention, and 45 percent said they viewed him favorably after. By comparison, only 32 percent said they viewed President Trump favorably.
The margin of error was plus or minus four percentage points.
The poll also found that, among people who watched at least some of the convention, 72 percent approved of “what the Democrats said and did.” That included 94 percent of Democrats who watched, 66 percent of independents who watched and 24 percent of Republicans who watched.
But only 30 percent of Americans said they watched the convention, and approval was lower among people who said they had heard about but had not watched the proceedings.
Among all Americans, both those who watched and those who did not, 53 percent approved of what the Democrats said and did at the convention.
A new Postal Service task force set up to oversee election-related mail will submit a status report to Congress in the coming weeks and has committed to updating Senate Democrats weekly on its work, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York said on Sunday.
Mr. Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, said he had secured the commitment from Donald L. Moak, a Democratic member of the agency’s board of governors tapped this week to lead a special subcommittee focused on ensuring that the Postal Service safely and securely facilitates the largest vote-by-mail program in American history this fall.
“Congress will use that report to ensure that the Postal Service has every resource it needs to protect and deliver election mail and hold DeJoy and the board accountable,” Mr. Schumer said, before invoking the new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy. “The bottom line here is that with the Postal Service still enveloped in crisis and oversight will be key to repairing the damage DeJoy has already done.”
Mr. Schumer told reporters in New York that the report would most likely arrive in two weeks and outline the Postal Service’s plans for ensuring its work helping assure the election runs smoothly.
Mr. Trump continued to try to sow seeds of distrust about mail-in voting on Sunday, saying in a tweet that ballot drop boxes were not being sanitized to prevent the coronavirus and could be used for fraud. Five hours later, Twitter hid Mr. Trump’s tweet behind a notice warning users that the message violated company rules against dissuading people from voting.
It was the latest rebuke of Mr. Trump by Twitter, which said that Mr. Trump’s post had “violated the Twitter Rules about civic and election integrity.” Twitter also restricted other users from sharing, liking or replying to the tweet, a move intended to prevent the message from spreading.
The Postal Service’s special election committee, which is made up of members of its board of governors, was announced last week. The announcement came amid growing bipartisan fears that delays in mail delivery — caused by operational changes initiated by Mr. DeJoy, President Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting and the expected uptick in mail in ballots because of the pandemic — might swamp the system.
Mr. DeJoy, a prominent Republican donor who began the Postal Service job this summer, told Congress on Friday that he was “extremely highly confident” the agency was up to the task of handling mail-in ballots. He called suggestions that he might intentionally slow ballot delivery to help Mr. Trump “outrageous.”
But Democrats remain mistrustful of Mr. DeJoy. On Saturday, the House passed bipartisan legislation sending the agency $25 billion and blocking Mr. DeJoy from making any operational changes that could delay delivery. That bill, as written, appeared unlikely to be approved by the Senate. But Mr. Schumer said he hoped Mr. Moak’s group would serve as another means of holding Mr. DeJoy to his word.
Mr. Schumer recommended the appointment of Mr. Moak, a Democrat who was a former pilot for Delta Air Lines and a former head of the Air Line Pilots Association, to the board of governors earlier this year.
The Republican convention that is unfolding as delegates gather in Charlotte this weekend is nothing like anyone envisioned more than two years ago, when the city was selected to host a raucous gathering to renominate President Trump. There were going to be parties and after-parties, and the city expected $200 million of economic impact.
But despite the pandemic’s upending the carefully laid plans of both parties, there is, against all odds, still a convention in town. It is modest, and contained to a coronavirus-tested bubble inside the Westin hotel and the Charlotte Convention Center down the street. It is not what Americans will see next week, when the Republicans stage a prime-time program on television. Mr. Trump will deliver his renomination speech from the White House.
But keeping in place at least a piece of an in-person convention, in the original host city, has been a priority for the Republican National Committee, both symbolically and procedurally. An in-person roll call on Monday, which will formally renominate Mr. Trump from inside the convention center, was seen as a statement of where the party stands on lockdowns. The president and Vice President Mike Pence are expected to attend.
Even the scaled-back event has been tricky to pull off. The delegates participating were required to take at-home tests before arriving, and they were to be tested daily once they were in town. They are required to wear masks at all times, even outdoors. The R.N.C. has spent half a million dollars on tests and safety measures, according to officials, and has drafted a 42-page health plan, but it still had to get an exemption from the state to host a large indoor gathering of out-of-towners.
On to Charlotte!
OK, not really. But with the Democrats’ virtual convention behind us, and drawing generally strong reviews, attention is turning to what the Republicans might do with their time in the spotlight, which starts on Monday.
In some ways, having the Democrats go first was good for President Trump’s party. Democrats got to take the virtual car out on a test ride and, presumably, the Republican National Committee got some good ideas for their own convention. And it’s always better to go second and have the last word. On the other hand, the bar has been set fairly high by the Democrats.
Here’s a list of things we’ll be looking for when the Republican convention is gaveled to order:
- Democrats sketched a rich and sympathetic portrait of their candidate, walking viewers through the formative tragedies of his life. Next week should provide a test of whether that dissuades Mr. Trump from going after Mr. Biden. And if Mr. Biden gets a bit of a pass, will Senator Kamala Harris, Mr. Biden’s running mate, become the lightning rod?
- How much attention will be paid to the pandemic? Mr. Trump’s campaign has already dismissed the Democratic convention as grim and gloomy, with its focus on the devastation being wrought by the coronavirus. Will Republicans offer a more optimistic vision of how the nation is managing the virus, or push the issue into a corner?
- Will Republicans be as diligent about wearing masks and social distancing as Democrats were through the week? Or will they be deliberately and conspicuously more lax, making a political statement as well as a health one?
- Will Mr. Trump use this platform to lay out a second-term agenda? Democrats are betting he will not. “He’s not going to change,” said Rahm Emanuel, who was White House chief of staff when Mr. Biden was vice president. “He’s not going to offer an inclusionary, second-term agenda.”
- Will Mr. Trump (and, for that matter, Vice President Mike Pence) allow this convention to promote the next generation of potential presidential candidates? And will we see as many non-politicians — a.k.a. regular Americans — in prime spots as we saw at the Democratic convention?
- Will there be a lineup of Hollywood stars to give the convention more celebrity power? Will the Republicans have the kind of musical production numbers to counter the Democrats, who offered performances by, among others, John Legend and Jennifer Hudson? (Ronna McDaniel, the R.N.C. chairwoman, told us this week that the convention would shun Hollywood celebrities in favor of “real people.”)
- The speaking roster at the Democratic convention had a heavy representation every night of people of color and women. Will this be a priority for Republicans as well?
- Democrats put the virtual campaign to good use, turning to imaginative and highly produced videos to showcase voters and party leaders, and for such convention fixtures as the keynote and the roll call. Will Republican convention planners do the same, or stick with the old script?
When President Trump’s strategists mapped out their plans for the critical week leading to the Republican National Convention that would nominate him for a second term, the schedule somehow did not include a sensational arrest on a Chinese billionaire’s yacht.
The last thing the president wanted to see as he ramps up his 2020 campaign was the architect of his 2016 campaign hauled away in handcuffs on charges of bilking his own supporters in a build-the-wall fund-raising scam. Yet there was Stephen K. Bannon, the mastermind of Mr. Trump’s election four years ago, with his hair now long and scraggly and his face weathered, marched into court and called a crook.
That was only part of the president’s tough week. In recent days, the Senate released a damning bipartisan report on Russia’s efforts to help Mr. Trump win in 2016. A court rejected Mr. Trump’s effort to keep his tax returns secret. Unemployment claims ticked back up. And former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. smoothly pulled off his own convention without the gaffes Mr. Trump had predicted.
The coming week will be critical to Mr. Trump’s effort to put Mr. Bannon’s arrest and the rest behind him, rewrite the narrative and persuade enough Americans that he is the one best equipped to bring back the economy and jobs.
Scandal on the eve of a convention is not necessarily a political killer by itself. President Bill Clinton had to fire his chief strategist, Dick Morris, after revelations about the aide’s antics with a toe-sucking prostitute, a story that broke the morning of the president’s acceptance speech at the 1996 convention and did no lasting damage in the end.
The difference is that in Mr. Trump’s case the accumulation of such episodes can weigh on a presidency. Mr. Bannon joins a who’s who of onetime Trump team members to see the inside of a prison cell or criminal courtroom, including Michael T. Flynn, Roger J. Stone Jr., Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos and Michael Cohen.
“For someone who campaigned on a promise to ‘drain the swamp,’ Trump has seen a large number of close advisers charged with crimes,” said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney in Michigan. “The long list of associates charged with crimes speaks volumes about Trump’s judgment and lack of rigor in vetting.”
For an incumbent, conventions are challenging even in the best of times because a sitting president is so well known and voters’ views of him are usually pretty set. In Mr. Trump’s case, his approval rating, currently in the low 40s, has remained relatively stable over four years through all the arrests and controversies. It puts him significantly behind Mr. Biden, and since 1936 only one incumbent as far down as Mr. Trump at this stage in the race has come back to win: President Harry S. Truman in 1948.
But the president has upended expectations before, and with the pandemic and the disputes over mail-in voting, there are so many variables this time that defy ordinary prognostication. For the next four days, Mr. Trump will tell his story and, as he put it recently in another context, it is what it is.
Updated Aug. 23, 2020
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- President Trump plans to deliver a speech every night of the Republican National Convention this week. Follow our live updates.
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- President Trump set a low bar for Joe Biden, making it easier to clear. It’s not the first time the Trump campaign has botched the expectations game.
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Read the Original Article HERE
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