Day 3 At GOP Convention Another Disaster

Just when you thought things might just be getting under control at the GOP convention, all hell breaks loose.  The day started with the Melania speech plagiarism story still dominating the relatively subdued (for this convention) Tuesday night session. And later in the day, a Trump Organization staffer and ghost-writer for Donald Trump came forward to admit that it was her mistake that the plagiarized passages from Michelle Obama ended up in Melania’s speech. That was good enough for the gullible media and the story died down, setting the stage for Wednesday night’s session which had the all-star GOP lineup – Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and VP selection Mike Pence.

But before we get to last night’s drama, let’s take a further look at the plagiarism story. The first question that any good reporter should ask (and apparently no one is) is why it took nearly a day and half for the speechwriter to come forward with her admission and why the campaign was denying any plagiarism took place at all during that day and a half period. As soon as the issue came up late on Monday night, it would have been very easy for the Trump campaign to determine that this woman helped with the speech and find out if she was responsible. After all, she does work for the Trump Organization – she was readily available. Secondly, since the woman claims Melania read these passages to her and then she inadvertently included them, why didn’t Melania recognize that these passages were cribbed when she read the speech. Finally, the admission of this political gaffe actually was released on Trump Organization letterhead which indicates a violation of FEC rules against mixing corporate and political activity and will probably trigger another useless FEC complaint. Yes, all of these issues are relatively trivial matters but do you honestly believe that if this had happened in the Hillary Clinton campaign that the press would just accept the explanation at face value and none of these questions would be being asked. Neither do I.

On to Wednesday night’s festivities which were supposed to end up with Mike Pence’s introduction to the country. But first, the three amigos of Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz had the opportunity to start their campaign for the 2020 GOP nomination.  Scott Walker showed why he was forced to drop out early this year with a pretty flat presentation that basically repeated what will be his 2020 campaign theme, “America Deserves Better”. Marco Rubio, as he has done with his job in the US Senate, simply mailed it in, not even bothering to show up in person but instead appeared via video. Last up before Pence was Ted Cruz and apparently the Trump campaign already knew that Cruz would not specifically endorse Trump based on the speech he had submitted for the campaign to review. Because of that, the Trump campaign responded that they would get their delegates to boo Cruz during his speech and Trump himself decided to show up on the convention floor before Cruz even finished his speech in further retaliation. But Cruz had one last middle finger for Trump, apparently going off script and urging his fellow Republicans to “vote their conscience”, infuriating delegates, RNC officials, and Republican operatives. Cruz’s wife had to be escorted out of the hall by security and some RNC officials had to be physically restrained from attacking Cruz after the speech. Cruz, being who he is, apparently even stuck around to revel in the chaos he created. Apparently Trump, the greatest deal-make ever, could not even get Cruz to guarantee his endorsement in return for giving him the prime time slot at the convention. So much for party unity.

And that just set the table for Mike Pence who gave a pretty standard speech that just looked boring compared to fireworks Cruz had produced. Unfortunately for Pence, the convention hadn’t stayed on schedule so the remainder of his speech came after the 11pm hour and the end of prime time and by that time large numbers of delegates had actually left the convention hall. But it wouldn’t have mattered what Pence did, the news was going to be all about the Cruz-Trump showdown.

In the same way that Cruz’s speech has taken the spotlight away from Melania’s plagiarism, it may have also helped Trump in that it overshadows a frightening interview he did with the New York Times where he not only expressed his desire to renegotiate the NAFTA agreement and his willingness to scrap it if he could not reach more favorable terms but also that he would not honor the automatic security agreement in NATO that states that an attack on one member is an attack on all members requiring those members to come to the aid of the country attacked. Trump said he would only come to a country’s aid if he determined that the country had fulfilled its obligations to us, whatever that means. He questioned the wisdom of forward deployment of US forces in Europe and Asia. And he praised Turkish President Erdogan, who has just declared a state of emergency and rounded up  over 50,000 political adversaries, refusing to call for Erdogan to obey the rule of law and saying, “I give great credit to him for being able to turn that [the coup] around…When the world sees how bad the United States is and we start talking about civil liberties, I don’t think we are a very good messenger”. The incredible irony of these statements lies in the fact that speaker after speaker at the convention have blasted Hillary Clinton and President Obama for hollowing out the military, making America less safe, and reducing our standing in the world. At the very same time, Trump seems from these comments to essentially want to unilaterally disarm and withdraw from the world and makes Hillary and Obama look like the greatest defenders of American power and global reputation in comparison. Needless to say, I’m sure Trump supporters will find some way to overcome this cognitive dissonance as they have done so often before. But I’m not sure our allies will be breathing any easier today after reading this.

Now it’s on to day four and I’m sure lots of people will be tuning in to see just what kind of disaster befalls the convention tonight. With Trump, it is impossible to predict.