Takeaways From Day 2 of the R.N.C.: The Republican Unity Show (2025)

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Catch up on what happened at the Republican National Convention.

“The Americans who wear the red hats and wait for hours under a blazing sun” are “not hateful or extreme,” Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said as he closed the night on Tuesday. “What they want are good jobs and lower prices. They want borders that are secure, and for those who come here to do so legally. They want to be safe from criminals and from terrorists, and they want for our leaders to care more about our problems here at home than about the problems of other countries far away.”

The message was clear: What could be more unifying than that?

Here are five takeaways from Night 2.

The watchword: unity. The visual: fealty.

One after another, Mr. Trump’s vanquished foes took to the stage Tuesday night to bend the knee to the man who had beaten them: Vivek Ramaswamy, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, and Mr. Rubio, all pledging fealty to a man they once suggested should never grace the Oval Office.

Gone were the tensions of the 2016 convention, when Mr. Cruz gave a speech that failed to include an endorsement of the nominee, Mr. Trump. “Let me start by giving thanks to God Almighty for protecting President Trump,” Mr. Cruz said this time, as the former president smiled.

The imagery was more like the Roman Colosseum, with an emperor looking down from his box in judgment as those audacious enough to cross him tried to find their way back into his favor.

“My fellow Republicans, let’s send Joe Biden back to his basement, and let’s send Donald Trump back to the White House,” Mr. DeSantis, the subject of months of belittling at the hands of Mr. Trump and his campaign, bellowed to an appreciative crowd.

In past conventions, invitations to former opponents have been olive branches and gestures of humility in hope of harmony. George H.W. Bush invited Patrick Buchanan to speak in 1992 not as an act of retribution or humiliation but as one of contrition: He needed Mr. Buchanan’s voters.

In Milwaukee, the party is united, with or without those opponents. The speeches Tuesday night were loyalty tests — and by and large, the speakers passed.

Nikki Haley gave a diplomatic endorsement.

The most anticipated moment of the night came with the introduction of Ms. Haley, Mr. Trump’s first ambassador to the United Nations and his most dogged competitor for the 2024 Republican nomination. A few boos greeted her as she strode to the podium, but Ms. Haley did what was expected of her when she said, “Donald Trump has my strong endorsement. Period.”

She didn’t go overboard. She made it clear she still had her doubts and differences, and so did many of her supporters. “There are some Americans who don’t agree with Donald Trump 100 percent of the time,” she said. “I happen to know some of them.”

But in saying people did not have to agree with Mr. Trump all the time to vote for him in November, she was diplomatic enough not to delineate the serious areas of disagreement that separated Ms. Haley from Mr. Trump on the campaign trail: Support for NATO and Ukraine, determined opposition to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and deep concern for a federal budget deficit that soared under the Trump presidency.

She left it simply with, “We agree more often than we disagree.”

The bereft testified to Democratic failures on crime and drugs.

The theme was “Make America Safe Again,” and the stars of the night were not onstage. They were the deceased loved ones of one emotional speaker after another: women, children and police officers, the victims of illegal immigrants, vicious criminals and fentanyl dealers.

Anne Fundner, a mother of four from California, spoke tearfully of the death of her teenage son after a fentanyl “poisoning” that she laid directly at the feet of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Michael Morin told of his sister Rachel, “raped and murdered by a suspected illegal immigrant.” Mr. Biden never called, he said. Madeline Brame, the mother of a New York Army veteran stabbed on the city’s streets, passionately decried being “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” all to cheers.

The accuracy of some of the statistics was questionable, especially those asserting that drugs and crime had reached their peak under the Biden presidency. After rising every year since 2018, when Mr. Trump was president, fentanyl overdoses actually declined slightly last year. Violent crime surged in the Covid year of 2020, but in 2023, crime rates — especially murder rates — declined remarkably.

But statistics were beside the point. The anecdotes were powerful, and often prompted a strong response from a crowd that chatted and milled about during some of the other speakers.

The talk of law and order had one noticeable omission.

In pledging a return to law and order, in leading chants of “back the blue,” and lamenting chaos and lawlessness, speakers Tuesday night neglected to note one particular violator of the law, the Republican nominee.

Mr. Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies for falsifying business records to hide hush-money payments to a porn star. He has been indicted on charges of seeking to overturn the 2020 election and charges that he illegally held onto classified national security materials after leaving office, then obstructed government efforts to retrieve them.

If anything, his legal travails were framed as part of Mr. Trump’s political fight to reclaim the country for his supporters. As Mr. DeSantis put it, “Donald Trump has been demonized, he’s been sued and he’s been prosecuted, and he nearly lost his life.”

But Mr. Trump’s brushes with the law were not the only ones overlooked on a night dedicated to making America safe again. The chants of “back the blue” did not take into account the police officers injured on Jan. 6, 2021, by rioters whom Mr. Trump has promised to pardon. Peter Navarro, a former economic adviser to Mr. Trump, will address the convention on Wednesday, fresh from prison after serving a sentence for defying Congress.

And a reality television star, Savannah Chrisley, spoke Tuesday of her family as victims “persecuted by rogue prosecutors.” There were details left out: Her parents were convicted in 2022 on federal fraud and tax evasion charges for bilking community banks out of more than $30 million.

Senate candidates yoked their opponents to Biden.

Confident that they will recapture the White House, Republicans on Night 2 turned an eye to the Senate and House, determined to give Mr. Trump total control of Washington.

A parade of Senate candidates came to the podium to make their case for capturing Democratic seats in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, and House Republican leaders asked for help to expand their slim four-seat majority in that chamber.

Each worked to tie his or her opponent to Mr. Biden and to saddle them both with blame for the litany of America’s ills being cataloged all night long.

But the star of the show — or at least the cameo of the night — accompanied the Republican Senate candidate most assured of capturing a Democratic seat. Gov. Jim Justice of West Virginia, who is gliding into the seat of retiring Senator Joe Manchin III, brought in his bulldog Babydog, who sat patiently in an armchair as he described her political appeal: “She makes us smile, and she loves everybody. And how could the message be any simpler than that?”

A mother whose son died of fentanyl poisoning brings some delegates to tears.

Ms. Fundner said that even her best efforts to protect her son, Weston, and to tell him about the dangers of peer pressure had not saved him.

“And fentanyl still found my son,” Ms. Fundner said, overcome by tears. “I hold Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, the border czar — what a joke — and Gavin Newsom and every Democrat who supports open borders responsible for the death of my son.”

The delegates inside the convention hall gave Ms. Fundner a standing ovation and chanted, “Joe must go.”

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The campaign used its hour to maximum effect with its final two speakers, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Lara Trump. “Anyone who is offended about putting America First has forgotten what America is and what America means — America isn’t the color of our skin or our ethnicity; Americans are people as diverse as humanity itself, but out of many, we are one,” Rubio said.

Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, warned viewers at home against believing all the harsh things that they may hear about him in the media, to not see him as the “Donald Trump you see splashed on TV every day.” She said, “All Donald Trump wants to do or has ever wanted to do, is make this country great again — for all of us.”

Nikki Haley endorses Trump and urges Republicans to unite.

Ms. Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and a United Nations ambassador under Mr. Trump, was initially not invited to speak at the event. But that changed after Mr. Trump was injured over the weekend in an assassination attempt.

“My fellow Republicans, President Trump asked me to speak to this convention in the name of unity,” she said. “It was a gracious invitation, and I was happy to accept.”

On Tuesday, she used the moment to speak about immigration and foreign policy, denouncing the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and stirring fears about the rise in migration at the southern border. The issues were pillars of her presidential run, and ones she often employed on the campaign trail to highlight her differences with Mr. Trump and many members of her party.

But instead of using her familiar talking points to underscore the divides, Ms. Haley drew contrasts between Mr. Trump and President Biden. She called her former boss someone who “is clear about who is our friend and who is our enemy.”

She described Mr. Biden in stark terms, saying he had “failed this nation.”

She also called on Republicans to accept her supporters, as well as others from different backgrounds and with different experiences. “We must not only be a unified party,” she said. “We must also expand our party.”

Ms. Haley had said in May that she would vote for Mr. Trump in November, but she stopped short of a full endorsement. Ahead of the convention last week, she announced she was releasing her 97 delegates and urging them to support Mr. Trump.

Ms. Haley has kept a relatively low profile since she left the race, a bruising contest during which her relationship with the former president increasingly soured. Even after Ms. Haley suspended her campaign, she continued to draw notable percentages of independents, Republicans and moderate Democrats in primary contests.

During her convention speech, the Biden campaign, which has been trying to court Haley voters eager for a Trump alternative, put out a statement that revived Ms. Haley’s criticisms of Mr. Trump during the primary.

“Ambassador Haley said it best herself: Someone who doesn’t respect our military, doesn’t know right from wrong and ‘surrounds himself in chaos’ can’t be president,” a campaign official said in a statement.

Ms. Haley took the stage to cheers and applause — along with a few boos — and spoke under the glow of pinkish and purplish lights. Her presence was a softer contrast to many of the night’s speakers who used their remarks to fuel conspiracy theories and paint a dystopian picture of the southern border and the people crossing it.

Though, in her usual fashion, her broadsides could be just as sharp in tone.

“We have no idea who they are, where they are or what they plan to do,” Ms. Haley said of migrants seeking entry into the country.

At times the audience cheered or broke into chants of “U.S.A.”

“You don’t have to agree with Trump 100 percent of the time to vote for him,” Ms. Haley said to resounding cheers. “Take it from me.”

Whether her pleadings will sway her supporters remains uncertain. Some of her delegates refused to attend the convention at all.

“Gas hit a low of $1.87 a gallon” under the Trump administration

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DeSantis celebrates Trump, who once viciously mocked him.

The Florida governor even earned a rare laugh from Mr. Trump — who was pointedly watching his former rival from on high in the audience — with a quip about President Biden.

“America cannot afford four more years of a ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ presidency,” he said to a delighted roar from the crowd.

It was the kind of insult that Mr. Trump might have directed at Mr. DeSantis not too long ago.

When Mr. DeSantis dared to challenge Mr. Trump for the Republican nomination last year, the former president responded to what he considered a betrayal with a brutal crusade of verbal harassment.

The Trump campaign called Mr. DeSantis a “desperate eunuch.” Much was made of whether he wore lifts in his boots and how he ate his pudding. Mr. DeSantis shied away from responding in kind, although he did accuse Mr. Trump of having failed to deliver on his campaign promises as president.

But time — and the fact that Republicans like Mr. DeSantis who want a future in their party must pay obeisance to Mr. Trump — heals all political wounds. On Tuesday, as the G.O.P. pushed a message of unity, the insults seemed forgiven, if perhaps not forgotten.

At points, Mr. DeSantis seemed to be dusting off his old campaign stump speech. He condemned “progressive prosecutors,” attacked “gender ideology” and accused diversity, equity and inclusion programs of fomenting “division, exclusion and indoctrination.”

“They mandated that you show proof of a Covid vaccine to go to a restaurant, but they oppose requiring proof of citizenship to cast a vote,” he said of Democrats. “They can’t even define what a woman is.”

The Florida governor’s presidential bid flamed out in January with a distant second-place finish in Iowa, the state he had banked his entire campaign on winning. He dropped out before the primary in New Hampshire, having spent more than $160 million of his donors’ money, and endorsed Mr. Trump.

Since then, the two men have been slowly rebuilding their relationship. They sat down for a meeting in April, and Mr. DeSantis has said he plans to raise funds for Mr. Trump’s bid to regain the White House.

Back in Tallahassee, the Florida capital, Mr. DeSantis has leaned into his reputation as a conservative culture warrior, eliminating climate change from state energy policy, fighting ballot amendments that would enshrine abortion rights and legalize marijuana for recreational use, and vetoing all arts grants from the state budget.

Mr. DeSantis, whose term ends in 2027, is still seen as a potential contender for the Republican nomination in 2028. He was well received at an event earlier on Tuesday in Milwaukee for the conservative group Moms for Liberty. Polls have shown that many Republicans still admire him, as evidenced by the enthusiastic response to the conclusion of his convention speech.

“Let’s elect Republicans up and down the ballot,” Mr. DeSantis said. “And let’s heed the call of our party’s nominee to ‘fight, fight, fight’ for these United States.”

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“I’m proud to be the first and only governor in the country to kick Communist China off our farmland and out of my state.”

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The last time a Latino political leader had been in serious contention for the vice-presidential slot was in 2016, when Hillary Clinton passed over Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio and U.S. housing secretary.

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“Joe Biden created an app to let illegals schedule their arrival.”

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A mother’s impassioned speech draws boos for Alvin Bragg at the R.N.C.

Pressing its case that the election of former President Donald J. Trump would make the United States safer, the Republican Party on Tuesday put a spotlight on victims of violent crimes by including Ms. Brame and several other grieving Americans in its speaker lineup.

Ms. Brame faults Mr. Bragg, a Democrat, for his handling of the murder case involving her 35-year-old son, Hason Correa, who was an Army veteran. She said that the sentences against defendants in the case were too light and had caused her to change her allegiance from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

Her mention of Mr. Bragg, who prosecuted Mr. Trump in the hush-money case in which he was convicted this year, spurred loud booing from the crowd in Milwaukee. Ms. Brame of Freeport, N.Y., asserted that Mr. Bragg regularly “dismisses and reduces” charges against dangerous criminals.

“We need justice for victims,” she declared. “And we need accountability for prosecutors who fail in their duty.”

The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment on Ms. Brame’s speech on Tuesday night.

All four of the defendants charged in Mr. Correa’s death were convicted of felony charges at trial or pleaded guilty to felony charges, according to Mr. Bragg’s office. Two of them were sentenced to serve 20 years to life in prison, the third defendant was sentenced to seven years and the fourth spent 14 months in prison, Mr. Bragg’s office said.

In her speech, Ms. Brame criticized the duration of the seven-year sentence and the one-year sentence, saying that the “injustice was devastating for me and my family.” The defendants who received the shorter sentences pleaded guilty to assault charges, according to the district attorney’s office.

Ms. Brame has emerged as an outspoken voice for tough-on-crime policies, sometimes appearing on conservative news outlets.

In an interview on Tuesday afternoon, Ms. Brame said she felt that New York Democrats had “completely shunned” her after the killing of her son. She said that the party was focused only on addressing gun violence, and not on curbing other forms of violence.

Ms. Brame, 61, has said her priorities in choosing a candidate for president are simple. “It could be the man from the moon who’s running for president, OK, as long as whoever’s in there stands for law and order,” she said at a congressional hearing last year.

Michael Gold contributed reporting.

The brother of Rachel Morin, a mother killed while jogging, spoke at the R.N.C.

“Open borders are often portrayed as compassionate and virtuous, but there is nothing compassionate about allowing violent criminals into our country and robbing children of their mother,” Mr. Morin said to the crowd in Milwaukee.

Erin Layman, Ms. Morin’s 49-year-old half sister, said Tuesday ahead of the convention appearance that the “Biden administration does not do anything to protect us Americans,” and that the federal government’s immigration policy is “not fair to immigrants who came to our country legally.”

Ms. Layman, of Abingdon, Md., said the family was attending the convention “to show the American people that we do have a crisis.”

Facing record levels of border crossings and under pressure from some in his own party on the matter, President Biden toughened America’s immigration policies in the last year.

A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, Alex Floyd, argued in a statement that “Donald Trump represents nothing more than empty words and broken promises when it comes to creating safer communities and securing our border.’

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Brame, who is Black, argued that Democrats, including Biden and Harris, have betrayed people of color, in large part because of their policies on crime. Her path to this view came after her son was murdered, and Bragg declined to pursue murder charges against two of his alleged killers.

“Kamala had one job — one job — and that was to fix the border.”

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