July 16, 2024, 11:50 p.m.
MILWAUKEE—Unity has been a major theme of this year’s Republican convention, especially after the attempted assassination of former President Trump in Pennsylvania on Saturday, and this effort faced its toughest stress test of the convention so far Tuesday night, as former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed the crowd at the Fiserv Forum.
The party passed it with flying colors.
“President Trump has my strong endorsement,” Haley said at the start of her speech, after the convention crowd welcomed her with open arms. If there were some boos, they were not audible from stage right.
“Let’s send Joe Biden back to his basement and Donald Trump back to the White House,” said DeSantis, who walked on the stage to louder applause than Haley.
The warm receptions weren’t necessarily a foregone conclusion. Convention attendees booed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as he declared that Kentucky’s delegates would vote for Trump during Monday’s roll call.
“I would not doubt one iota that there may be some people who boo her,” Florida delegate Tom Gaitens told National Journal prior to her speech. Gaitens, who initially backed DeSantis in the GOP primary race, added: “It’s incumbent on Nikki to extend the olive branch.”
That she did, praising Trump’s foreign policy and bowing in his direction—the former president was in attendance—at the conclusion of her speech.
“Take it from me. I haven’t always agreed with President Trump, but we agree more often than we disagree,” she said. “We agree on keeping America strong. We agree on keeping America safe, and we agree that Democrats have moved so far to the left that they’re putting our freedoms in danger.”
DeSantis’ speech was more focused on domestic issues like DEI programs, vaccine mandates, and parental rights.
“The Left is in retreat. Freedom reigns supreme. The woke mind virus is dead, and Florida is a solid Republican state,” said DeSantis, in a typically pugnacious address.
Haley and DeSantis both tangled with Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, one that quickly turned ugly. The former president hurled a litany of insults at his rivals: He called his fellow Florida man “DeSanctimonious” and “DeSanctus,” and labeled his former ambassador “birdbrain.” Trump even warned that he would not work with any GOP operatives who worked on the DeSantis campaign, and that anyone who donated to Haley would be “barred permanently” from his camp.
“It was amazing,” New York delegate Nate Verone said of Haley’s speech. “It shows that we can have a unified Republican Party in 2024.”
Just last week, it didn’t appear that either of Trump’s main 2024 primary rivals would speak at the convention. DeSantis confirmed his appearance just six days ago, and the Trump campaign didn’t invite Haley to speak until Sunday, one day after the assassination attempt on the former president in Butler County, Pennsylvania.
“You’ve got 2,400 people with 2,400 opinions and 2,400 emotions,” said Montana delegate Art Wittich. “[But] I do think that unity has become a bigger deal in the past few days.”
The fawning speeches that Haley and DeSantis delivered were a sharp contrast from Sen. Ted Cruz’s address to the 2016 Republican National Convention, when he refused to endorse Trump after their bitter primary battle and instead instructed the attendees to “vote your conscience.”
“He was an asshole when he did that,” New Hampshire delegate Matt Mayberry, who was initially assigned to Haley this year, told National Journal. “Nikki Haley was the exact opposite. She was unifying. She was gracious in defeat.”
Cruz himself spoke just before Haley and DeSantis—and the friendly crowd lapped up his words.
“Today, as a result of Joe Biden’s presidency, your family is less safe. Your children are less safe. The country is less safe,” Cruz said. “But here’s the good news: We can fix it, and when Donald Trump is president, we will fix it.” It was a full-circle moment for the senator after his political future looked doomed eight years ago.
There is still some debate over whether someone like Haley, with her hawkish views on foreign policy and her criticism of Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, still has a place in the Republican Party, especially after the former president selected populist Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate.
But Rep. Mike Lawler of New York said he firmly believes the former South Carolina governor has a future in the party.
“She offers a great perspective and vision for the country and the party, and has had a great voice in Republican politics for well over a decade,” Lawler said. “I think she’ll continue to have that.”
