The city of Cleveland is braced for the Republican national convention, which will begin on Monday amid intense levels of security. The chairman of the party’s national committee and the Trump campaign, meanwhile, find themselves fighting fires over the presumptive nominee’s vice-presidential pick.



Thousands of police officers, secret service agents and FBI swarmed the downtown area throughout the weekend. An expected 50,000 people will descend on the city, with large protests and rallies expected throughout the four days of events.

On Sunday, the leader of Cleveland’s main police union called on Ohio’s governor, John Kasich, to declare a state of emergency and suspend open carry during the convention.

“I don’t care what the legal precedent is, I feel strongly that leadership needs to stand up and defend these police officers,” union head Steve Loomis told Reuters.

A third of Cleveland’s 1,500 police officers alongside more than 2,000 officers from departments around the country will police planned protests, while secret service officials will secure a “hard perimeter” around the Quicken Loans Arena, the convention’s main venue, where Donald Trump will accept the party’s presidential nomination on Thursday evening.



At a press conference on Sunday morning, the Cleveland police chief, Calvin Williams, sought to assure residents that officers were fully prepared for the influx of protesters and any greater security threat, adding that the department had been planning for two years.

“It’s game time and we’re ready for it,” he said.

Police expect a large number of protesters to carry firearms, as is permitted under Ohio state law. Williams assured attendees their right to open carry would be protected, but warned: “People have a responsibility to handle those weapons, the law says, in a safe manner. And people have a responsibility not to menace people or threaten people with those weapons.”

Officers from outside Cleveland who will fall under Williams’s command had been fully briefed on the state’s firearms laws, the chief said. No firearms will be permitted within the perimeter around the arena where a no-fly zone will also be in effect from Monday.

On Monday, a rally in support of Trump, organised by a coalition of groups under the “Citizens for Trump” collective, is expected to draw thousands. A number of groups, including white nationalist organisations, extremist religious groups such as the Westboro Baptist church, and armed militias including the radical constitutionalist group the Oath Keepers, are also expected to have a presence in Cleveland.

A counter-rally under the “Dump Trump” banner is also scheduled for Monday at a separate location in the city. Small protests and marches that occurred throughout Cleveland over the weekend remained peaceful, as judges in the city’s municipal courts prepared to work overtime in the event of mass arrests.

The Republican National Committee chair, Reince Priebus, told Fox News Sunday security officials were “ready for anything” at the arena, which sits on the shores of Lake Erie, which he said was “a good place to lock in and secure”.

He also told CNN’s State of the Union the candidate had “wanted to keep people guessing” when this week he appeared to prevaricate over the naming of the Indiana governor, Mike Pence, as his right-hand man.

“He wanted to make it more suspenseful,” Priebus told State of the Union, perhaps pointing towards Trump’s need to promote a convention that will be missing a number of high-profile Republican speakers, its as yet unconfirmed roster featuring speakers from the worlds of media, sports and show business.

Trump unveiled Pence in New York City on Saturday, with a bizarre and rambling presentation that did not paint a convincing picture of unity on the Republican ticket, which Trump said was a key reason for his eventual pick. The choice of the prominent social conservative was leaked to media on Thursday, then subject to uncertainty, then confirmed on Friday but its official announcement delayed by the terror attack in Nice.

“Sources not really with knowledge can spin multiple, multiple places,” Priebus told CNN on Sunday, rejecting reports from the network and other outlets that Trump had sought to go back on the choice of Pence, up until the midnight Thursday deadline by which the governor had to commit or lose his eligibility for VP under Indiana state law.

“And that’s not just … where Trump was at. I spoke to him, I mean, multiple times that day. I know what he was thinking. He certainly didn’t want to make an announcement on the heels of the disaster in Nice. And so he decided to announce on Saturday. And no time in between that was he skeptical of the Pence pick.”



Trump’s campaign chair, Paul Manafort, spoke to Fox News Sunday.

“I’m the one who was talking to Donald Trump on Thursday,” he said. “He was doing events in California and then he got on a plane. There was never any doubt on Thursday. What we were talking about was the tragedy in the world and postponing the event for Friday.

“He made his decision, he called Governor Pence on Wednesday. Governor Pence was in New York – he wasn’t there to shop, he was there to be announced. The details were what we were talking about, not the decision.”

Both men were also pressed on Pence’s contrary stances to Trump on issues including Muslim immigration, the Iraq war and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Priebus told CNN: “Donald Trump is willing to be challenged. He’s not looking for yes people around him.”

Paul Manafort is surrounded by reporters on the floor of the Republican national convention in Cleveland. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

Manafort told CBS’s Face the Nation: “[Trump] wants the party to understand that he wants the party to be part of a team.”

On trade, Trump has said would the TPP would be part of “a rape of our country” while Pence has said it should be implemented for the country’s good.

Priebus said this indicated that trade was “a split issue in our party” – and one that Pence “was not as wildly crazy about … as you might think”.

Trump and Pence, meanwhile, recorded an interview for CBS’s 60 Minutes that was due to be broadcast on Sunday evening. Excerpts featured questions – and awkward answers – about the difference between their campaigning styles as well as their policy positions.

In his tour of the talkshows, Priebus seemed flustered under constant questioning about Pence, Republican unity and the RNC’s convention preparations.

At one point in his CNN interview, he seemed to forget that the 2016 pick was Pence and not Paul Ryan, the House speaker who ran with Mitt Romney in 2012. As his Fox News Sunday appearance drew to a close, he was interrupted by test broadcasts over the arena PA.

“Hey …” he said, turning towards the convention floor. “Guys?”

The interruptions continued.