Opening night of convention focuses on ‘make America safe again’ theme, with speeches from fiery Rudy Giuliani and chants to ‘lock Hillary up’

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Donald Trump sought to assert control over a fractured Republican convention on Monday with a slate of speakers who emphasised his unabashed appeal to the fears of Americans.



Appearing on stage for the first time, the once improbable candidate who will now be confirmed as the party’s nominee after quashing an earlier rebellion, simply declared: “We are going to win so big.”

He spoke briefly to introduce his wife Melania as “the next first lady of the United States” and watched as she painted a picture of the values they would bring to the White House, some of which were later revealed to have been plagiarised from a previous speech by Michelle Obama.

But it was the fiery performances of earlier speakers that helped set the tone for a staunchly nationalist campaign message in the coming days.

“The vast majority of Americans don’t feel safe,” claimed former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who said there had been five major Islamist terrorist attacks on the US and its allies in the past seven months.

“You know who you are. And we’re coming to get you,” he warned terrorists, drawing the biggest cheers of the night. “If they have committed themselves to war against us then we must commit us to unconditional victory against them.”

“The world outside our border is a scary place,” added former Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell in an emotional address. “America is the light,” he added.

House homeland security chair Mike McCaul claimed America was “in the crosshairs”.

“Our own city streets have become the battleground,” he said. “Let’s cut through the suffocating political correctness and call the threat what it really is: the enemy is radical Islam.”

Speakers were repeatedly interrupted by chants of “USA, USA” from the crowd as they described military raids abroad or the deaths of Americans.

“I let loose with a 10 round volley and he dropped,” boastedBenghazi veteran John Tiegen to wild applause before describing how attackers on an embassy compound in 2012 fell “like a sack of potatoes”. “We unleashed some hell on them,” added his marine colleague Mark Geist.

But it was not just external threats that were paraded before the convention; there were also a series of speakers who told of deaths caused by undocumented immigrants living inside the US.

“It’s time that we had an administration that cared more about Americans than illegals,” said Mary Mendoza, the mother of police officer killed by an undocumented immigrant driving over the legal speed limit.

Jamiel Shaw prompted loud boos when he said his son had been killed by an “illegal alien gangbanger from Mexico”.

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“God bless America, God bless Donald Trump,” added two relatives of a murdered border control agent.

Delegates were also encouraged to fear Hillary Clinton. There were repeated calls from the podium for the imprisonment of Trump’s election opponent. “Lock her up, lock her up,” chanted the crowd, to the encouragement of speakers on the podium.

Pat Smith, the mother of one of the four Americans killed in the Benghazi attack in 2012, a now-infamous rightwing touchstone, even said she “blamed her personally for the loss of my son”.

“That night we lost four brave Americans and the American people lost the truth,” Smith said. “She lied to me and then called me a liar. Hillary for prison. She deserves to be in stripes.”

The Clinton campaign issued a statement to journalists responding to the repeated attacks.

“In their continued quest to politically damage Hillary Clinton, Republicans have falsely claimed that Clinton told former secretary of defence Leon Panetta and US military personnel to ‘stand down’ in the wake of the Benghazi attacks,” it said. “This unfounded allegation has been widely debunked.”

But Democrats reserved their strongest criticism to respond to the RNC’s attempt to shut down a mini-rebellion earlier in the day, when anti-Trump delegates sought to force a vote on rules that could have given them one last chance to block his expected nomination on Tuesday.

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“Donald Trump lost control of his own convention before it even started,” Clinton said.

Nonetheless, the evening session appeared far more unified than the earlier votes had been, with only two small protesters disrupting proceedings. A long list of speakers meant some such as Iowa senator Joni Ernst were forced to address an emptying hall as the evening wore on.

Delegates gave a warm welcome to the heavily-accented keynote address from Slovenian-born Melania Trump, who regaled them with a homily about her husband’s character values.

“If you want someone to fight for you and your country, I can assure you, he’s the guy. He will never ever give up, and most importantly, he will never let you down,” she said.

“He’s tough when he has to be but he’s also kind and fair and caring. This kindness is not always noted ... that is one reason I fell in love with him to begin with.”

Mrs Trump also claimed: “Donald intends to represent all of the people, not some of the people,” including Muslims and Hispanics, she said.

Outside the convention centre, protests throughout the city of Cleveland remained peaceful on Monday as authorities reported only one arrest by the late afternoon.



A spokesman for the city of Cleveland said police had arrested only one individual by late Monday afternoon. The individual, a white woman, was arrested in the city’s public square on an outstanding warrant. Police made one arrest on Sunday after, they said, a protester at another march, reached for an officer’s gas mask.



Additional reporting by Oliver Laughland in Cleveland