Following a debacle of a debut on Monday that featured a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, a rules fight instigated by the Never Trump movement, and plagiarism, it seemed the Republican National Convention had nowhere left to go but up. Here’s everything that happened on Day 2 of the Cleveland confab, themed “Make America Work Again.”
As he did Monday, Toronto Star journalist Daniel Dale tweeted out this summary of the day’s events, proclaiming Day 2 decidedly “more normal” than its predecessor.
It says something when a My Little Pony reference, Islamophobia, and baffling remarks about Hillary Clinton and Lucifer constitute a normal day at a political convention, but Dale’s list is a good start. Here are a few other notable things that went down:
- In addition to RNC communications director and chief strategist Sean Spicer citing My Little Pony to defend Melania Trump’s plagiarism, as Dale mentioned, Trump campaign czar Paul Manafort tried to make the whole scandal about—surprise!—Hillary Clinton.
- Chris Christie reprised his bygone role as a criminal prosecutor and presided over a main-stage mock trial of Hillary Clinton as the audience chanted “Lock her up!”
- Demonstrators protested police violence outside the Quicken Loans Arena, where the convention is being held.
- Members of the Westboro Baptist Church and an anti-immigrant, white supremacist group called the Soldiers of Odin made appearances outside the convention center.
- A strange roster of speakers orated, including the Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White, ’90s soap opera actress Kimberlin Brown, and golfer Natalie Gulbis.
- Donald Trump Jr., a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton School, claimed to have been educated by average-joe construction workers.
- Tiffany Trump gave a vague paean to her father that included suitably limp lines like “in person my father is so friendly, so considerate, so funny, and so real.”
- A deflated senator talked for an hour about Pokémon Go instead of watching the roll call as state delegations formally cast their delegates for candidates.
- States (and territories, and the District of Columbia!) enthusiastically bragged during the roll-call voting.
- And, oh yeah, it finally happened: Donald Trump officially became the Republican Party’s nominee for president of the United States, much to the chagrin of establishment conservative pundits nationwide.
Top that, Day 3.
