Political observers have taken away a few key messages from the Republican National Convention this week.
- Republicans want to appeal to their base, while showing enthusiasm for their candidate, President Trump.
- Republicans tried to sell Trump as a life savior amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Republicans say a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for socialism — or have at least painted Biden as a puppet for progressives.
The field of speakers at the RNC relaying those messages are a mixed crowd: First Lady Melania Trump; Nicholas Sandmann, the Kentucky high school student who reached settlements with CNN and The Washington Post after coverage of a 2019 confrontation with a Native American activist at the Lincoln Memorial; Tim Scott, the only Black GOP Senator; Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who pointed guns at protesters in June; Michael McHale, president of the National Association of Police Organizations; among others.
"At the White House, my family and I sat with the President in the Oval Office and told him about Meadow. I told him what we knew. I told him that his administration needed to take a closer look at what went wrong and why. And I got to see who President Trump really is,” said Andrew Pollack, a Long Island native whose daughter died in the 2018 Parkland school shooting. He spoke this week at the RNC.
“He's a good man and a great listener. And he cuts through the B.S.,” Pollack continued. “Then the President did what he said he would do. He took action.”
Bill Buchner, WSHU: Joining us now is New York state Republican Party chairman Nick Langworthy. Thank you for joining, All Things Considered.
Nick Langworthy: Oh, thank you very much for having me.
BB: Andrew Pollack credits President Trump on his approach to taking action on school security and emergency response. How do you think this reflects on Trump’s overall decision making?
NL: You can't take away the fact that Donald Trump is a man of action. And I don't believe that anyone at that Democrat Convention or on that ticket thought that there would be a school shooting survivor that would, you know, come forward and talk about how Donald Trump was a good listener. Someone that emphasized with their family and actually went to work to get things done, to hopefully prevent any of those future tragedies. And, you know, I believe that the President's tenure has shown he's a man of action. He's someone that he doesn't want to talk, he wants to actually get things accomplished.
BB: Over the last four years, we’ve seen a high turnover in the Trump administration and within his personal inner circle.
NL: I really don't think that the voters focus on people coming and going out of administration. It's a pretty common, pretty common effect. There's a bit of a revolving door process to work in a presidential administration requires a tremendous amount of stress, sacrifice from your family, your personal life. You know, most people cannot, you know, do that for the long haul. And I think some of the turnovers are natural and you know, there are people that just don't work out and the president, you know, makes changes. So, you know, someone that's a hard nosed CEO like our president is he's going to have people come and go from his orbit.
BB: Congressional Democrats have criticised Trump for his use of executive order — kind of like New York Governor Andrew Cuomo during the pandemic.
NL: Well, you have to function, you know, with a legislature that's willing to work. I mean, we've seen our governor who's taken executive orders and executive privilege to the extreme. I mean, we're begging the state legislature to take some of their power back. Meanwhile, in Washington, there are no great emergency powers granted to the president he has to work with Congress, and you have a congress that won't act. And the President went to find avenues to get relief to people that needed it. And he used his privilege through executive orders to do that. I think it's, you know, when the legislature won't act, using the executive orders sometimes becomes necessary.
The gridlock in Washington has got to stop. There's the problem. I believe that you know, the American people are coming in the conclusion that there's just there's there's too much brinkmanship on every single issue even when it comes time to get relief for the American people during a pandemic where we have extraordinary economic stress in people have job uncertainty, you have people not willing to work across the aisle because they don't want to give a political victory to the man in the White House.
BB: On Monday, New York’s 94 GOP delegates were pledged to Trump. Yet, Governor Cuomo criticised the president at last week's Democratic National Convention for the president’s pandemic response. How can there be such a differing view of COVID-19 in New York — a state with 430,000 positive cases and 25,000 deaths since March.
NL :Well, frankly, I cast those votes on Monday and in my speech, I didn't talk about, you know, the Great Lakes or the beaches of Long Island I talked about COVID-19 in the response.
The President gave the people who stayed in New York, as I cited in my speech, the sight of the USS comfort, you know, sailing into our harbor and gave hope in a bright beacon of light to New Yorkers in one of our darkest hours.
Even Governor Cuomo, you could go back and watch the video, thanking President Trump for his COVID response and what the federal government did for New York during that time, whether it was increased testing capacity, in terms of PPE brought to our state ventilators. And of course, hospital beds in the Army Corps of Engineers building hospitals, to the tune of millions and millions of dollars in man hours spent in our state to try to help the people of the state of New York in our crisis.
Then the governor had the audacity to go to his party's convention to criticize the government, the President's leadership. I thought that was despicable and I took my two minutes at the microphone to call that out.
BB: U.S. Representatives Elise Stefanik and Lee Zeldin of New York are scheduled to speak tonight at the RNC. What do you expect they’ll say?
NL: Well, I think that you're going to want I'm very excited as party chairman for the Republican Party in the state of New York to have two of our bright young shining stars in the party, Elise Stefanik, in Lee Zeldin on a national stage.
My understanding is he is going to give his speech from one island, which is a great way for our state to be highlighted. His background is, as a veteran, is a true leader on international issues in the Congress, you know, resulting in someone that I think the sky's the limit, his potential is very great. So to have people all over the country in the world, getting to see Lee Zelden, you know, speaking on behalf of President Trump I think is outstanding.
And Elise Stefanik goes, she's been on an upward trajectory from the moment she became the first the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Back when she first went in, you know, she became a national figure during the impeachment debacle where she called Adam Schiff to the carpet on really, you know, the theatrical that was going on in Washington at that time. So she is a very sought after commodity. I know, as the Chairman, I interact with my colleagues around the country and many of them asked me if I could get her to speak to their groups in it, truly these two, you know, young members of Congress, the sky's the limit for their potential.
BB: You are heading down to the White House to witness Trump formally accept the GOP nomination. What message do you want to hear from the president?
NL: Well, I think that the best way for him to address the American people and accept this nomination is to talk about this great American comeback. And he's leaning in to talk about where you're going to go in the next four years first defeating COVID. But then, you know, once again, creating the strongest economy that our country's ever seen. I think the President wants us to know he can do it again. But that inspiration and hope and optimism is, is I believe what Americans need and I think that's what he will deliver.
Nick Langworthy chairs the Republican Party in New York.
