Tonight’s RNC Lineup Is a Band of Former Rivals, Including Nikki Haley

The theme of the Republican National Convention’s second night is “Make America Safe Once Again,” but it could as easily be “Make Republicans United Again.”President Trump’s two major rivals in the Republican presidential primary, Governor DeSantis and Ambassador Nikki Haley, will both speak Tuesday in prime-time slots as the party tries to project unity heading into the final months before the November election. The attempted assassination of Trump at Butler, Pennsylvania, two days before the start of the convention is also renewing calls from party leadership to tone down the rhetoric and come together.Mr. DeSantis’s speaking slot is no surprise, as he was included in a list of headliners the RNC released last week. The speaker lineup does keep changing, but other of Trump’s former rivals-turned-allies who are expected to take to the stage this evening are Vivek Ramaswamy and Governor Burgum as well as two 2020 rivals, Senators Rubio and Cruz.Ms. Haley had been conspicuously absent from last week’s headliner list. “She was not invited, and she’s fine with that,” a Haley spokeswoman, Chaney Denton, told the AP last week. Now, that has changed. It’s unclear whether the invitation to Ms. Haley was extended before or after Saturday’s attempted assassination of the former president. Ms. Denton did not immediately reply to the Sun’s request for comment.“It’s changed everything and it’s changed nothing,” a Republican strategist, Matthew Bartlett, tells the Sun of the assassination attempt. He says he expects Ms. Haley to “try to affirm her role in the Republican Party and show a united front against who she was ultimately running against, which was Joe Biden.”Despite a bruising primary in which Ms. Haley referred to Trump “unhinged” and called for candidates above the age of 75 to undergo “cognitive tests,” Ms. Haley has said she will be voting for Trump in November. Last week, she released to Trump all 97 delegates that she won across a dozen primaries and caucuses.Trump also hurled insults at the former South Carolina governor during the primary, giving her the moniker “Birdbrain.” Trump also reportedly sent a birdcage to Ms. Haley’s hotel room last fall.“Her flame may be extinguished as the torch is passed to J.D. Vance and more of the Maga new right wing,” Mr. Bartlett says. “This is kind of a goodbye to the old right, the old guard.”“The infighting has got to stop,” a New Jersey delegate and candidate for U.S. Congress, Carmen Bucco, tells the Sun. Mr. Bucco was making the rounds outside the Fiserv Forum on Tuesday afternoon. He’s a Trumper, but he says he wants Republican unity.Other delegates agree. “I think it’s a good thing for Nikki Haley to come here to speak. We need Republicans to unite and I think that sends a strong message,” a Florida delegate, Samantha Scott, tells the Sun. “I just hope that she calls in the spirit of unity for all Republicans to get behind President Trump. We have an election to win, a country to save, and it’s going to take all the Republicans to come together to do that.”Mr. Bartlett says he doesn’t expect the convention hall to erupt in boos as it did when Senator McConnel spoke from the floor Monday. A handful of attendees outside the convention center called Ms. Haley a RINO — Republican in name only — but they did not want to speak on the record.“I’m glad to hear that she’s coming because she has a different lane of voters, as opposed to J.D. Vance,” the chairman of Republicans Overseas UK, Greg Swenson, tells the Sun. “We want to be the big tent party so I think it’s great that she’s speaking and hopefully can appeal to her voters.”“Hopefully we can sort of merge that Reagan Republican, country club Republican with the new sort of populist wing of the party. And obviously the populist wing is here to stay – there’s no doubt about that,” Mr. Swenson says.

Tonight’s RNC Lineup Is a Band of Former Rivals, Including Nikki Haley

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