A lot has happened at Donald Trump’s Republican National Convention. Day 3 was no exception. Here are some of the things that happened in Cleveland on Wednesday.
- After more than a day of denying it, the campaign acknowledged that the candidate’s wife had plagiarized a convention speech by the current first lady.
- A longtime ghostwriter for the candidate took the blame for his wife’s plagiarism, which resulted in a conspiracy theory that the campaign invented said ghostwriter.
- This merchandise was sold.
- Once again, the crowd broke into numerous chants of “Lock her up!” in reference to the other political party’s candidate for president.
- A state attorney general who declined to investigate the candidate’s alleged scam university after soliciting and receiving a donation from him said, “Lock her up, I love that,” during one of these chants.
- The candidate’s son denied a report he had offered a former rival the vice presidency along with all the powers of the presidency, saying, “What am I, a meathead?”
- This policeman filmed these demonstrators.
- A multilevel marketer who hocks nutraceutical products that claim to combat cancer gave an often incoherent speech about being a small-business owner.
- A former speaker of the House said that no one cares about Melania Trump’s plagiarism because “she’s stunningly attractive.”
- During his speech, that same former speaker of the House “mentioned eight specific previous terror attacks and one hypothetical future attack in which 300,000 people die in a nuclear explosion.”
- A retired NASA astronaut and the first women to command a space shuttle skipped over a line in her prepared speech endorsing the candidate.
- A popular conservative radio host ended her speech with a gesture that looked like a Nazi salute in the direction of a photo of the candidate—whose campaign has reinvigorated the white supremacist movement—giving a similar gesture.
- The candidate’s chief rival took the stage in a prime-time speaking slot and suggested Americans “vote your conscience” rather than endorsing the candidate, resulting in a hail of lusty boos and chants of “endorse Trump!”
- The candidate’s team reportedly whipped up the boos.
- The candidate dramatically entered the arena as his rival was speaking.
- The wife of the candidate’s chief rival was reportedly berated and nearly physically assaulted as she was escorted out by security.
- One of the candidate’s chief surrogates ripped the rival as a man without integrity who had given an “awful, selfish,” and “cute” speech.
- The candidate said he knew in advance there would be no endorsement and let him speak anyway because it was “No big deal!”
- The candidate, a relative moderate on LGBTQ issues within his party, pantomimed an air kiss on the cheek at his running mate, an active opponent of LGBTQ rights.
