Making of the President 2016

CHAPTER 7

The Vice Presidential Picks and the National Nominating Conventions

I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves. Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.

Donald J. Trump, Acceptance Speech, Republican National Convention, Cleveland, Ohio, July 21, 2016

By the time he wrapped up the nomination, Trump had pretty much narrowed the vice presidential field to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Paul Manafort and Kellyanne Conway added former congressman, now governor, Mike Pence to that list.

In retrospect, had Trump selected Christie, the most recent revelations regarding his knowledge of the George Washington Bridge lane closing would have doomed the Trump ticket. Candidly, Gingrich was much too 1980s.

Despite Pence having endorsed Cruz in the Indiana primary, Trump decided he would make an excellent running mate. Clearly, Pence had hedged his bets by giving Cruz an endorsement that also included kind words for Trump. By choosing Pence, Trump reached out to Evangelical conservatives.

Pence had a distinguished record in Congress. In 2016, he was planning to run for reelection as governor of Indiana. In that contest, Pence was expected to have a tough race against Democrat John R. Gregg, the former speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives. The election was a rematch of the 2012 Indiana gubernatorial election that Pence won, gaining 49.6 percent of the vote, to Gregg’s 46.4 percent.

On Friday, July 15, 2016, three days before the start of the Republican convention, Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he had selected Indiana Governor Mike Pence to be his running mate.1 Pence, who faced a deadline that Friday to withdraw from the ballot, immediately withdrew his gubernatorial candidacy, given that Indiana law would not permit Pence to run for reelection as governor and for vice president at the same time. Hillary Clinton’s campaign immediately attacked Pence, calling him “the most extreme pick in a generation.” By choosing Pence, a highly respected Christian conservative in GOP circles, Trump sent a message to the core conservative base of the Republican party that he was one with them on key policy issues. “By picking Mike Pence as his running mate, Donald Trump has doubled down on some of his most disturbing beliefs by choosing an incredibly divisive and unpopular running mate known for supporting discriminatory politics and failed economic policies that favor millionaires and corporations over working families,” Democratic campaign head John Podesta said in a statement.

The next day, at a press conference held in the New York Hilton in midtown Manhattan, Trump made clear that while his strength in the presidential election was to run as an outsider, Pence gave him balance, in that Pence was a popular choice among the GOP leadership elite as well as with the conservative base. “Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is my first choice. I also admire the fact that he fights for the people and he also is going to fight for you. He is a solid, solid person,” Trump said, in what CNN characterized as a rambling speech in which Trump “diverted repeatedly from his speech introducing Pence to hail his own achievements in winning the Republican nomination.” Trump summed up his decision to choose Pence as follows: “I think if you look at one of the big reasons that I chose Mike—and one of the reasons is party unity, I have to be honest. So many people have said party unity. Because I’m an outsider. I want to be an outsider. I think it’s one of the reasons I won in landslides.”

CNN also noted that Trump took the unusual step of reminding the audience that Pence had endorsed Cruz in Indiana’s Republican primary. As noted earlier, Pence’s endorsement of Cruz was qualified in that Pence, in his endorsement statement, had also spoken enthusiastically about Trump. “It was the greatest non-endorsement I have had in my life,” Trump commented.2 Trump beat Cruz decisively in the May 3 Indiana primary, with Trump getting 53 percent of the Indiana GOP primary vote, compared to Cruz at 37 percent. During the primaries, Cruz had expressed policy differences with Trump, supporting free-trade agreements, for instance, while Trump opposed passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. When Trump had called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” Cruz had called it “offensive and unconstitutional.” Yet Trump recognized the importance of the Midwest, in particular winning Indiana and Ohio, to his presidential chances. In the press conference introducing Pence as his vice presidential pick, Trump also mentioned basketball great Bobby Knight, a strong Trump supporter and a living legend in Indiana.

Governor Pence was gracious once again in accepting Trump’s decision. “I accept your invitation to run and serve as vice president of the United States of America,” Pence said. “Donald Trump is a good man and he will make a great president of the United States of America.” Pence, a professional politician, understood his role as second on the ticket was to support Trump’s policy positions, even if it meant suppressing his own personal policy preferences. Pence’s history had certain liabilities for Trump in the general election. Pence, an Evangelical Christian who regularly describes himself as “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order,” signed into law in 2015 a controversial Indiana religious freedom bill. That legislation extended protections to Indiana business owners who refuse to participate in same-sex weddings, citing religious concerns. This prompted the LGBT community to argue that by signing the legislation, Pence had sanctioned discrimination. The law prompted derision from President Obama, who quipped at the 2015 White House correspondents’ dinner that he and Vice President Biden were so close that “in some places in Indiana, they won’t serve us pizza anymore.”3

By picking Pence, Trump selected a running mate certain to be embraced by the elite GOP establishment leaders who were still unwilling to endorse openly his presidential campaign. After two failed attempts to win a seat at the House of Representatives, Pence won Indiana’s 6th congressional seat in 2000 and served in the House for a dozen years. He rose through the ranks to become chairman of the House Republican Conference. During his last year in the House, the American Conservative Union gave him a 100 percent rating. The National Rifle Association honored Pence’s conservative credentials as well, giving him an A rating, while the pro-choice group NARAL gave Pence a 0 percent rating, acknowledging Pence’s strong anti-abortion stance. “It’s no secret I’m a big fan of Mike Pence,” House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters on learning that Trump had chosen Pence as his running mate. “I’ve hoped that he’d pick a good movement conservative, and clearly Mike is one of those.”4

As the GOP convention gaveled open in Cleveland on Monday, July 18, 2016, major GOP leaders were conspicuously absent. The remaining former GOP presidents, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, were not in attendance, in part in deference to Jeb Bush, who also stayed away. Among the other GOP presidential candidates who did not attend the Cleveland convention, the most difficult to understand was John Kasich, who as Ohio governor should have hosted the GOP in Cleveland. To make even worse the intended affront to Trump, Kasich was planning to be in Cleveland during the convention, attending breakfasts for several state delegations and speaking to the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Mitt Romney and Senator John McCain, the GOP presidential nominees in 2012 and 2008 respectively, did not plan to be in Cleveland for the convention. The only living GOP presidential nominee who planned to attend was ninety-two-year-old former Senenator Bob Dole, although Dole was not listed as a speaker.

More than twenty senators and several members of the House, along with a half-dozen Republican governors were not expected to attend. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was also the 2012 GOP vice presidential nominee, was scheduled to speak on Tuesday night, as was House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. But GOP Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the highest-ranking Republican woman in the House, announced she would not be there. “Never before in recent history have so many prominent party officials boycotted the event or found convenient other reasons not to attend because they either didn’t approve of or were uncomfortable with their party’s presumptive nominee,” reported Jessica Taylor, writing for National Public Radio.5

Altogether, Politico characterized the RNC’s opening as a “Disastrous Day One” for Trump. Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, began the day by making the rounds appearing on MSNBC and other morning shows, saying Ohio Governor Kasich was “embarrassing his state” by not attending. Trump’s motorcade got into an accident en route to the Quicken Arena in downtown Cleveland. One of the evening’s most moving speakers, Patricia Smith, the mother of one of four Americans killed in Benghazi, was scheduled to speak to ensure the taping would be picked up by network television. Politico noted that as Patricia Smith spoke, holding back tears, the attention in the arena was rapt, and the audience roiled with anger. “I blame Hillary Clinton, I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son,” Smith said.6

Then, as the highlight of Monday evening, Trump’s wife, Melania, gave a speech that appeared to have been plagiarized from Michelle Obama’s 2008 address to the Democratic convention in Denver. Here is what Melania said in 2016, with the bold text showing the suspect language:

“From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise; that you treat people with respect. They taught and showed me values and morals in their daily life. That is a lesson that I continue to pass along to our son, and we need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.”

Here’s what Michelle Obama said, eight years earlier, again with the language suspected of being copied in bold:

“Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them, and even if you don’t agree with them. And Barack and I set out to build lives guided by these values, and pass them on to the next generation. Because we want our children—and all children in this nation—to know that the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.”

Journalist Jarrett Hill, perhaps the first to catch the similarity, tweeted immediately that Melania had stolen a whole paragraph from Michelle’s speech.7 One of the ironies was the thought that a Republican could share an idea in common with Michelle Obama after Republicans had “gone ballistic” in 20088 when, in February, Michelle told an audience that: “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”9

After attempting to deny or minimize the plagiarized language, Trump Organization in-house staff writer Meredith McIver, a longtime friend of the Trump family, apologized and offered to resign. McIver’s explanation was that in working with Melania Trump on the speech, Melania read some passages from Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech that she admired. McIver wrote the phrases down and included some of the phrasing in a draft that ultimately became the speech. McIver admitted she had not checked against Michelle Obama’s original language. “This was my mistake, and I feel terrible for the chaos I have caused Melania and the Trumps, as well as to Mrs. Obama,” McIver wrote in a letter explaining what happened. “No harm was meant.” Trump rejected her resignation.10

On Wednesday, July 20, 2016, the third day of the RNC in Cleveland, Senator Ted Cruz addressed the convention. Cruz took the podium to prolonged, enthusiastic, and appreciative applause. Still, the question that hung in the air as Cruz began speaking was whether or not he would endorse Trump. The speech began well, with Cruz congratulating Trump on winning the nomination on the first ballot the previous night. But then, Cruz added, addressing the convention hall, “And, like each of you, I want to see the principles of our party prevail in November.”11 Listening to that, many in the audience wondered exactly where Cruz was headed with this.

“America is more than just a land mass between two oceans. Amer-ica is an idea, a simple yet powerful idea: freedom matters,” Cruz said, his speech drawing applause. “For much of human history, government power has been the unavoidable constant in life—government decrees, and the people obey. Not here. We have no king or queen. We have no dictator. We the People constrain government. Our nation is exceptional because it was built on the five most beautiful and powerful words in the English language: I want to be free. Never has that message been more needed than today.”

Cruz attacked the policies of President Obama and Hillary Clinton. “Of course, Obama and Clinton will also tell you that they also care about our children’s future,” he said. “And I want to believe them. But there is a profound difference in our two parties’ visions for the future. Theirs is the party that thinks ISIS is a ‘JV team,’ that responds to the death of Americans at Benghazi by asking, ‘What difference does it make?’ And that thinks it’s possible to make a deal with Iran, which celebrates as holidays ‘Death to America Day’ and ‘Death to Israel Day.’”

While Cruz was speaking, the television cameras showed Trump entering the convention hall. Anticipation built as Cruz neared his close.

“We deserve leaders who stand for principle. Who unite us all behind shared values.” he said, triggering no concern in the audience. “Who cast aside anger for love. That is the standard we should expect, from everybody,” he continued, now raising some concern. “And to those listening, please, don’t stay home in November. If you love our country, and love your children as much as I know that you do, stand, and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution,” he said, triggering the first audience reaction of displeasure that he might not endorse Trump after all. “The case we have to make to the American people, the case each person in this room has to make to the American people is to commit to each of them that we will defend freedom and be faithful to the Constitution,” he went on, beginning to draw some booing.

“We will unite the party, we will unite the country by standing together for shared values, by standing for liberty,” Cruz commented. And then, abruptly, Cruz ended the speech, saying only this: “God bless each and every one of you. And may God bless the United States of America.” The crowd began booing loudly. The reaction was immed-iate and angry. Shock fell over the audience in the convention hall and those watching on television across the nation. Cruz had been given the podium at the RNC by the Trump team organizing the convention, only to use the extension of that privilege to insult the party’s nominee.

“In the most electric moment of the convention, boos and jeers broke out as it became clear that Mr. Cruz—in a prime-time address from center stage—was not going to endorse Mr. Trump. It was a pointed snub on the eve of Mr. Trump’s formal acceptance speech,” veteran reporters Patrick Healy and Jonathan Martin wrote in the New York Times. “As hundreds of delegates chanted ‘Vote for Trump!’ and ‘Say it!’ Mr. Cruz tried to dismiss the outburst as ‘enthusiasm of the New York delegation’—only to have Mr. Trump himself suddenly appear in the back of the convention hall. Virtually every head in the room seemed to turn from Mr. Cruz to Mr. Trump, who was stone-faced and clearly angry as he egged on delegates by pumping his fist.” Whatever Cruz had calculated, the stunt was turning rapidly into a disaster. “Mr. Cruz was all but drowned out as he asked for God’s blessing on the country and left the stage, while security personnel escorted his wife, Heidi, out of the hall,” the New York Times report continued. A short while later, Cruz faced insults, Healy and Martin commented, when he made his way down a corridor and a woman yelled “Traitor!” Then, when Cruz tried to enter the convention suite of Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson—an important GOP donor to Republican political campaigns—Cruz was turned away, denied admission.

The next day, after a private meeting with his advisors at the Ritz Carlton hotel adjoining the Quicken Arena in downtown Cleveland, Cruz was confronted by two top-dollar GOP donors who were finishing their breakfast in the hotel dining room. Both donors pleaded with Cruz to realize that not endorsing Trump was a mistake that could cost Cruz his political future in the Republican Party. Cruz pleaded that it was difficult for him to forgive the insults Trump had cast on his wife and father during the primary campaign. Cruz explained that his goal was to reach beyond the convention floor to speak with conservatives across America, in an attempt to position himself as the leader of what he perceives as a continuing and strong conservative movement within the GOP. The two donors, who had remained sitting throughout the conversation while Cruz stood at the side of their table, were largely unconvinced. The donors concluded by emphasizing the importance of beating Hillary Clinton as a unifying theme now, asking Cruz repeatedly what Trump had to do specifically to win his endorsement. Cruz declined to answer directly, responding only that in his speech he had made clear that he joined the GOP in the conclusion that Hillary Clinton must be defeated.

Cruz had taken an opportunity to introduce himself favorably to the GOP faithful in the convention hall and to the nation—the largest audience he had ever addressed in his life—and instead of being gra-cious, he allowed his pride and ego to get in the way. The next morning, Cruz insisted to the Texas delegation that the pledge he had signed as a candidate to support the party’s nominee “was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander my wife that I am going to come like a servile puppy dog.” For former Texas Governor Rick Perry, Cruz’s explanation was not enough. “If a convention’s goal is to unite your party behind one candidate, Senator Cruz didn’t get the memo,” Perry said on CNN, chastising Cruz. “We all made a pledge that we were going to support our nominee. If you don’t want to keep your word, don’t be signing pledges.”12

That afternoon, on the fourth day of the convention as the RNC was getting ready for Trump’s acceptance speech, reporter Jerome Corsi interviewed the Texas delegation on the convention floor. The consensus was that Cruz hurt himself, making it very hard for him, if it is at all possible, to get funding or political support for another run at the GOP nomination for president in 2020, or possibly even his effort to be re-elected to a second term in the US Senate in 2018.13

On the final night of the RNC, Thursday, July 21, 2016, the unlikely nominee, Donald Trump, had the opportunity to celebrate with his family the triumph of being the GOP presidential nominee. “It’s Donald Trump’s Party,” the New York Times headlined the article reporter Nicholas Confessore wrote, noting that Trump broke from his scripted speech only once, “when Mr. Trump, grimacing theatrically, mocked those who had said he could never win. The result was a Trump packaged for prime time.”14

As Fox News reported, Trump’s acceptance speech electrified the GOP convention crowd, who cheered Trump with chants of “USA” breaking out frequently as the nominee vowed to “put America first.” Trump amplified upon his campaign message, pledging to “Make America Great Again”—a theme Trump’s millions of supporters had reduced to #MAGA. “Every day I wake up determined to deliver for the people I have met all across this nation that have been ignored, neglected and abandoned…. These are people who work hard but no longer have a voice,” Trump said. “I am your voice.”15 Fox News noted Trump closed his speech by turning Hillary Clinton’s “I’m with her” campaign slogan on its head. “I chose to recite a different pledge,” Trump said. “My pledge reads, ‘I’m with you.’”

The immediate reaction of the Clinton-supporting mainstream media was that Trump had painted a “dark picture” of America in countless, exaggerated crises of leadership that Trump argued he was uniquely qualified to solve. “With dark imagery and an almost angry tone, Mr. Trump portrayed the United States as a diminished and even humiliated nation, and offered himself as an all-powerful savior who could resurrect the country’s standing in the eyes of both enemies and law-abiding Americans,” Patrick Healy and Jonathan Martin reported for the New York Times in an article published the day after Trump’s acceptance speech.16 Healy and Martin described Trump’s acceptance speech as if it were a neo-Nazi appeal delivered in an American-fascist context, as if the RNC was a replay of the German American Bund rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden that drew an estimated 22,000 American supporters of Hitler on February 20, 1939.17 The New York Times account of Trump’s acceptance speech continued painting this ominous narrative. “Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation,” an ominous-sounding Mr. Trump said, standing against a backdrop of American flags. “The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country.” In the New York Times account, we can almost see the RNC on the final night as Nazi rally reprised. “Mr. Trump nearly shouted the names of states where police officers had been killed recently, as the crowd erupted in applause, and returned repeatedly to the major theme of the speech: “Law and order,” he said four times, each time drawing out the syllables,” Healy and Martin continued.

As if this portrayal were not sufficient to paint a disturbing picture, the New York Times contrasted Trump against Reagan, arguing that Trump was stressing disorder and disarray in order to promote a far-right “law and order” fascist-like reality. “Evoking the tumult of the 1960s and the uncertainty that followed the September 11 terrorist attacks, Mr. Trump made a sharp departure from the optimistic talk about American possibility that has characterized Republican presidential candidates since Ronald Reagan redefined the party over 30 years ago,” the newspaper continued. “In promoting his hardline views on crime, immigration and hostile nations, Mr. Trump was wagering that voters would embrace his style of populism and his promises of safety if they feel even less secure by Election Day.”

What the New York Times portrayed was typical of the far-left characterization of Trump as a neo-Nazi. “In the America depicted by Donald Trump’s dystopian acceptance speech Thursday night, it is blackest midnight in the land of the once-free, unimaginably far from morning,” wrote national affairs correspondent Joan Walsh in the Nation. “The unlikely GOP presidential nominee rejected suggestions that he give a unifying speech that reached for the center. Instead, he described a country rocked by crime, riven by race, menaced by terrorists, and overrun by illegal immigrants. Trump out-Nixoned Richard Nixon, promising to be a ‘law and order’ president just like our 37th. He defined Hillary Clinton as just another criminal who will coddle the many other criminals who ‘threat-en our very way of life.’”18 Walsh converted Trump’s “I am your voice” statement into Trump being “a voice of fear and anger, a loud, screaming voice promising retribution for the crimes that have laid the nation low, including the ‘terrible, terrible crimes’ committed by Clinton.” As far as Walsh was concerned, Trump “shouted at the country, red-faced, for an endless 76 minutes.” She stressed “Trump hyped a crime wave that mostly doesn’t exist,” arguing Trump’s intent was to describe “an apocalyptic set of crises that he laid at the feet of Clinton and Obama.”

Perhaps predictably, the mainstream media jumped aboard the far-left’s meme. “On the final night of a convention filled with mishaps—of the plagiarism, non-endorsement varieties—Donald Trump painted a bleak picture of America, even as he officially accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency,” wrote Reena Flores for CBS News.19 Flores continued to note that while the “billionaire proceeded to lay out a dark vision of America,” he also “positioned himself as the country’s singular savior.”

What the Clinton-supporting mainstream media in its particularly partisan “reporting” on the RNC convention in Cleveland missed was that a large majority of Middle America cheered along with the audience listening to Trump that night in the Quicken Arena, when the chants went up “Lock her up!” and “Build the wall!” These ideas, hateful to a leftist press schooled on government manipulated statistics that showed job growth (even if mostly only in part-time employment) and reduced unemployment (achieved by increasing the number of workers considered no longer in the workforce, largely because the lack of meaningful jobs has discouraged them from continued job-hunting), as signs of prosperity under Obama. Uncritically, the leftist Clinton-supporting press minimized threats from illegal immigration, preferring to see “undoc-umented workers” as Democrat voters deserving the same rights and benefits as US citizens. What the leftist-press correctly sensed in Trump’s “America First” agenda was an end to the socialist open-borders globalism that rejected “American exceptionalism” in exchange for a politically correct view that saw no inherent national security dangers even in radical Islam. The Nation article ended by observing Hillary had countered Trump’s assertion “I am your voice” by tweeting “You are not our voice @realDonaldTrump.”

On Saturday, July 23, 2016, in Miami, Florida, before an audience of Florida International University, FIU, students, just two days before the start of the DNC national nominating convention in Philadelphia, Hillary Clinton announced she had chosen Senator Tim Kaine as her vice presidential running mate, a choice CNN described as “turning to a steady and seasoned hand in government to fill out the Democratic ticket.”20 In making her announcement, Hillary subtly suggested that while Donald Trump’s vision for America was “dark,” her vision for America was much more positive. “Next week in Philadelphia, we will offer a very different vision for our country—one that is about building bridges, not walls—embracing the diversity that makes our country great—lifting each other up, standing together—because we know there is nothing we can’t accomplish once we make up our minds,” Hillary said. “And that’s why I am so happy to announce that my running mate is a man who not only shares those values, but also lives them.”

Kaine began his political career working as a Catholic missionary who had embraced Marxist liberation theology in his work with the Jesuits from 1980 to 1981 in Honduras. The version of liberation theology propagated when Kaine was in Honduras was “the hardcore, Cold War variety—an avowed Marxist ideology inimical to the institutional Catholic Church and to the United States.”21 Though Kaine claims today to be a practicing Catholic, he has embraced the far-left’s position on LGBT same-sex marriage since 2013. The Daily Beast noted that Kaine had not always supported same-sex marriage, pointing out that when a Massachusetts court decision made it the first state to let same-sex couples marry, in 2003, Kaine released a statement criticizing the ruling by saying marriage “between a man and a woman is the building block of the family and a keystone of our civil society.” The Daily Beast also noted that when Kaine ran for governor of Virginia in 2005, he aired radio ads describing himself as a “conservative on issues of personal responsibility” and saying that he opposed gay marriage. Kaine, who served as governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010, and as chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011, was elected to the Senate from Virginia in 2012. His position on abortion moved to the far-left after he became Clinton’s running mate, when he suggested he might support a repeal of the Hyde amendment to allow taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion procedures.22

Predictably, the Clinton-supporting, left-leaning mainstream media embraced Kaine as a “strong choice,” while quietly lamenting that Hillary had not made even more history by choosing a female running mate. “In every office he has held—from Richmond mayor, to Virginia governor, to U.S. Senator—he has shown a steady hand marked by mastery of policy details and policy,” the Washington Post’s editorial board raved.23 ABC News commented that when Clinton announced her vice president choice in Miami, Kaine started his speech by saying, “Hello Miami, Hello FIU,” after which he quickly switched to Spanish, a language he learned in Honduras. ABC noted that Clinton explained to the FIU audience, “I have to say Sen. Kaine is everything Trump and Pence are not. He is qualified to lead on day one. The most important qualification when you are trying to make this really big choice is, ‘Can this person step in to be president?’”24

The leftist organization Think Progress pointed out why the leftist mainstream media was so enthusiastic about Kaine. Evan Popp, an intern at Think Progress, described as a “journalist, writer, lover of presidential history, and maple syrup enthusiast,” in an article entitled “What You Need to Know About Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s Vice President Pick.” noted Kaine had “a solid record on many core Democratic issues” and supported what Think Progress considered virtually all the right ideological positions. “He supports President Obama’s Affordable Care Act and has long been opposed to the use of the death penalty,” Popp wrote. “Kaine is a strong supporter of comprehensive immigration reform, favoring a pathway to citizenship for immigrants. As governor he pushed to offer universal pre-kindergarten and also signed a bill to ban smoking in Virginia bars and restaurants.” Think Progress went on to point out Kaine endorsed the United Nations position on global climate change, that while running for US Senate he received an “F” from the National Rifle Association, and that as governor, he vetoed a bill that would have allowed the carrying of guns in vehicles. Despite being a Catholic, Kaine received a perfect score from Planned Parenthood for his pro-choice voting record. He supported the Trans Pacific Partnership and banned discrimination in state employment on the basis of sexual orientation on his first day in office as governor.25 Yet, while the New York Times admitted Kaine was a “social justice liberal” with working-class roots and a fluency in Spanish, reporters Amy Chozick, Alan Rappeport, and Jonathan Martin regretted Clinton had not chosen others on the list, such as Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez, “who would have been the first Hispanic on a major party ticket,” or Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, “who would have been the first African-American to seek the vice presidency.”26

Party discipline struggled to prevail at the Democratic national convention, held at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia the week following the Republican convention in Cleveland. The convention needed to repair the damage done to the party in the wake of Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s resignation as DNC head on July 24, the day the convention began, after documents released by WikiLeaks exposed the DNC bias against Bernie Sanders under her direction.

In an attempt to unify the delegates and to kick the convention off on a positive note, the DNC put Michelle Obama center stage on Day 1. At the start of her speech, Michelle got applause for her negative portrayal of Donald Trump. “How we explain that when someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level. Our motto is, when they go low, we go high,” she insisted. Michelle emphasized her pride as First Lady by reflecting on America’s pre-Civil War history of slavery. “The story of generations of people who felt the lash of bondage, the shame of servitude, the sting of segregation, who kept on striving, and hoping, and doing what needed to be done,” she said. “So that today, I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. And I watch my daughters, two beautiful intelligent black young women, play with the dog on the White House lawn.” She stressed feminist themes in praising Hillary Clinton’s nomination. “And because of Hillary Clinton, my daughters and all of our sons and daughters now take for granted that a woman can be president of the United States,” she noted.

Without directly referencing the Democratic attack that Trump’s campaign slogan to make America great again was a “dog whistle” to segregationists and white supremacists who longed for a return to days where people of color faced slavery and racial discrimination in this country, she made her point. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you that this country is not great,” she insisted. “That somehow we need to make it great again. Because this right now is the greatest country on Earth.”27 To a conservative audience watching that night, if Michelle’s speech proved anything, it provided more evidence that themes recalling Saul Alinsky-inspired politics of racial divide were never far from the playbook of either Michelle or Barack Obama.

On Sunday, the day before the DNC convention began, thousands of Bernie Sanders demonstrators marched through the streets of Philadelphia, defying the oppressive summer heat to cheer, chant, and beat drums to show their disaffection with Hillary Clinton. Chanting “Hell no, DNC, we won’t vote for Hillary,” and “This is what democracy looks like,” the marchers headed down the city’s main north-south artery in a demonstration that began at City Hall and ended at the Wells Fargo convention center four miles away.28 With demonstrations planned all week, the DNC scheduled Sanders to follow Michelle Obama’s Day 1 speech. While Sanders endorsed Clinton, much of his speech was about what his campaign had accomplished. Sanders began by thanking the 13 million Americans who voted for his “political revolution,” yielding him 1,856 pledged delegates.”29

Sanders thanked the 2.5 million Americans who funded his campaign with an unprecedented 8 million individual campaign contributions. The average contribution was twenty-seven dollars. “I understand that many people here in this convention hall and around the country are disappointed about the final results of the nominating process,” Sanders said. “I think it’s fair to say that no one is more disappointed than I am.” He continued on this theme: “Together, together, my friends, we have begun a political revolution to transform America, and that revolution, our revolution, continues!” Sanders’ failure to embrace Clinton or her campaign themes left no doubt that his socialist roots were to the left of Hillary Clinton and he had no thought of changing. Saying the election was not about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Sanders insisted the election was about the struggle to reduce the power and wealth of the 1 percent. “And I look forward to being part of that struggle with you.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren, who preceded Sanders to the podium, also took heat from the large number of Sanders supporters in the convention hall. Warren’s speech attacking Trump was interrupted by attendees taunting her, calling out, “We trusted you!”—a reproach for supporting Clinton, instead of running herself or backing Sanders.30 What was clear at the end of Day 1 was that the core base of the Democratic Party was moving even farther to the left, such that Hillary Clinton, despite her Saul Alinsky roots, was not sufficiently radical to satisfy the largely youthful millennial voters who went all out for Sanders.

On the last day of the Democratic National Convention, before Hillary Clinton was scheduled to give her acceptance speech, the Democrats gave the podium to Khizr Khan, whose son, US Army Captain Humayun Khan, was killed in Iraq on June 8, 2004. Clinton campaign officials latched onto Khan after he was quoted in print characterizing Donald Trump’s remarks about Muslims as “un-American.”31

With his wife standing silently by his side, Khan, who became a US citizen after emigrating from Pakistan in 1980, took the podium, determined to rail against Trump. “First, our thoughts and prayers are with our veterans and those who serve today,” he began. “Tonight, we are honored to stand here as the parents of Captain Humayun Khan, and as patriotic American Muslims with undivided loyalty to our country.”

Next, he professed his belief in America. “Like many immigrants, we came to this country empty-handed. We believed in American democracy—that with hard work and the goodness of this country, we could share in and contribute to its blessings,” he continued, setting up the premise for his claimed legitimacy to attack Trump. “We were blessed to raise our three sons in a nation where they were free to be themselves and follow their dreams. Our son, Humayun, had dreams of being a military lawyer. But he put those dreams aside the day he sacrificed his life to save his fellow soldiers.”32

The politeness over, Khan went political. “Hillary Clinton was right when she called my son ‘the best of America.’ If it was up to Donald Trump, he never would have been in America. Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims,” Khan insisted. “He disrespects other minorities—women, judges, even his own party leadership. He vows to build walls and ban us from this country.” From here, Khan began addressing Trump directly. “Donald Trump, you are asking Americans to trust you with our future,” Khan pressed forward. “Let me ask you: Have you even read the US Constitution?” Here Khan took a paperbound copy of the US Constitution out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of law,’” Khan said, waving with his right hand the copy of the Constitution in the air above his head.

“Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery?” he asked Trump. “Go look at the graves of the brave patriots who died defending America—you will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities.” Continuing to paint Trump as a hateful bigot, Khan advanced to his conclusion in an insistent monotone that matched the rhythm with which he had waved the Constitution aggressively in the air, as if he were confronting Trump standing before him in the convention hall. “You have sacrificed nothing and no one,” Khan said to his imaginary Trump, his tone now accusatory. “We can’t solve our problems by building walls and sowing division. We are stronger together. And we will keep getting stronger when Hillary Clinton becomes our next president.”

The New York Times raved about Khan’s speech, reporting that Khan’s words “electrified the convention and turned Mr. Khan into a social media and cable news sensation.”33 The newspaper billed the Khan family as heroes, reporting, “If restrictions on Muslim immigration had been in place decades ago, Mr. Khan said, neither he, a lawyer with an advanced degree from Harvard Law School; his wife, Ghazala, who taught Persian at a Pakistani college before raising three boys in the Washington suburbs; their eldest son, Shaharyar, who was a top student at the University of Virginia and a cofounder of a biotechnology company; nor Captain Khan, who posthumously earned the Bronze Star, along with a Purple Heart, for saving the lives of his men, would have been allowed to settle here.” The article noted a third son, Omer, who works at his brother’s biotech company, was born in the United States. Khan told the newspaper that nothing from the speech was a product of coaching from Hillary Clinton’s campaign, but that it “all flowed pretty easily,” because he had been thinking of these issues for quite some time. “I respect the Republican Party as much as the Democratic Party,” Khan told the newspaper. But he added: “I definitely will continue to raise my voice out of concern that the Republican leadership must pay attention to what is taking place.”

Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech, the highlight of the Democratic National Convention on the last day, had been preceded by lackluster speeches given by former President Bill Clinton, as well as by President Barack Obama. Bill Clinton’s objective evidently was to make Hillary more likeable. Instead of focusing on policy issues, Clinton took nearly forty-five minutes to tell a rambling, folksy story of his romance and marriage with Hillary. Given the history of the Clinton’s marriage, the love-story Bill wove was far from credible. No less than Clinton loyalist George Stephanopoulos of ABC News pointed out that Clinton’s narrative was “not entirely comprehensive, in that some key parts of the couple’s life together were omitted, including Clinton’s high-profile affair that led to his impeachment in 1998.34

Obama’s speech at the DNC followed his public admission for the first time that Trump could end up succeeding him—a realization that prompted Obama to advise Hillary to “run scared” as she prepared to become the first female nominee of a major US political party.35 During his convention speech, Obama’s assignment was to place Hillary’s name in nomination, setting the stage for arguing Hillary’s presidency would be an extension of what the Democrats wanted to portray as eight years of economic and foreign policy strength and stability under Obama. Astute commentators noted what Obama actually accomplished was to speak predominantly about his own record as president. “He spoke of his time in office, how the presidency has physically aged him, but how his daughters euphemistically note he now looks more ‘mature,” Grabien News commented in their analysis of Obama’s convention speech. “He spoke of everything he is proud to have achieved—passing ObamaCare, expanding clean energy production, reducing consumption of foreign oil, passing the Iran deal, bringing troops home, killing bin Laden,” Grabien News continued. “He spoke of how inspired he’s become meeting Americans of all stripes. He spoke of his optimism. He spoke of the values he imparted from his family.” Then came the punch line: “If it’s starting to sound like Obama talked a lot about himself, that’s because he did.” Grabien News counted that Obama referred to himself 119 times in a speech that was supposed to be about Hillary Clinton.36

Hillary came on stage wearing a white pantsuit and matching white blazer covering a white silk blouse—an outfit admirers commented was designed to bring to mind the suffragettes who famously wore all-white during their protests one hundred years ago to establish a woman’s right to vote.37 As expected, Hillary made the feminist issue the centerpiece of her speech. “Tonight, we’ve reached a milestone in our nation’s march toward a more perfect union,” Clinton said. “This is the first time in our nation’s history that a major party has nominated a woman for president.” The comment received sustained applause, appropriate for the history being made at that moment. “Tonight’s victory is not about one person,” she continued. “It belongs to generations of women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible.”

What was not seen on television, as the balloons dropped, the band played, and Bill and Chelsea joined Hillary on the podium, was the protest activity that never really ceased inside the convention hall throughout the DNC. When the roll call was taken and Hillary was selected as the Democrats’ presidential nominee, many Sanders delegates stood up and walked out in protest. Even as Hillary began delivering her historic acceptance speech on the convention’s last night, many Sanders delegates stood up and turned their backs on the podium, indicating their continued displeasure that Hillary had been nominated. In 2016, Hillary achieved what she failed to achieve in 2008. But the journey was only half done. The challenge now was whether or not Hillary could get enough votes to beat Trump in the general election, and that remained to be seen.

In an interview with ABC News George Stephanopoulos, Trump said Khan had “no way of knowing” that Trump would not have allowed him and his wife into the country because they were Muslim.38

“I saw him,” Trump continued, acknowledging he had watched Khan’s speech at the DNC. “He was very emotional and probably looked like a nice guy to me. If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. Maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me, but plenty of people have written that. She was extremely quiet. Personally, I watched him and I wish him the best of luck.”

“I’d say we’ve had a lot of problems with radical Islamic terrorism,” Trump answered. “You look at San Bernardino, you look at Orlando, you look at the World Trade Center, you look at so many different things. You look at the priest over the weekend in Paris, where his throat was cut—an eighty-five-year-old beloved Catholic priest. You look at what happened in Nice, France, a couple of weeks ago. I’d say something is going on and it’s not good.”

Stephanopoulos was not responsive to Trump’s references to terrorist attacks by radical Islamic extremists. Instead, he referenced Khan’s assertion that Trump has sacrificed nothing.

“Who wrote that?” Trump asked in response. “Did Hillary’s scriptwriters write it?”

Again, Stephanopoulos asked how Trump would answer the father of a fallen solder about what sacrifices Trump has made for his country.

“I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices,” Trump responded. “I’ve worked very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs—tens of thousands of jobs.”

“Those are sacrifices?” Stephanopoulos interrupted to ask, raising his eyebrows, obviously looking skeptical in objecting to Trump’s answer.

“Oh sure, I think they’re sacrifices,” Trump continued. “When I can employ thousands and thousands of people, take care of their education—I was responsible along with a group of people for getting the Vietnam War Memorial built in downtown Manhattan, which to this day people thank me for. I raise and have raised millions of dollars for the vets and I’m helping the vets a lot. I think my popularity with the vets is through the roof.”

ABC News reported that Trump “appeared to brush the speech aside” by saying Khan was very emotional. Responding to Trump’s comment that Khan’s wife stood silently by his side, ABC News attacked Trump, “This appears to be Trump tipping his hat to some far-right-wing and nationalist Twitter users who have suggested that Ghazala Khan was silent during her husband’s speech because they are Muslim and he prohibits her from speaking. ABC News further countered Trump by reporting that in an interview that day with ABC, Ghazala Khan said she did not speak because she was in pain. ABC News quoted Ghazala Khan as saying, “Please. I am very upset when I heard, when he said that I didn’t say anything. I was in pain. If you were in pain, you fight or you don’t say anything. I’m not a fighter. I can’t fight. So the best thing I do was quiet,” she said. ABC further commented that Khizr Khan said he asked his wife of forty-two years to speak but she declined, knowing she would be too emotional. ABC reported Khizr Khan as saying, “I invited her, ‘Would you like to say something on the stage?’ when the invitation came, and she said, ‘You know how it is with me, how upset I get.’” Clearly, ABC News sympathized with Ghazala and Khizr Khan in the determination of the broadcast news agency to portray them as the victims of Trump’s right-wing aggression.

ABC News further objected to Trump saying he had made sacrifices by his efforts on behalf of veterans. To counter Trump on this point, ABC News quoted Paul Rieckoff, the founder and CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a group ABC portrayed as “non-partisan” with close to 200,000 members, as saying, “For anyone to compare their ‘sacrifice’ to a Gold Star family member is insulting, foolish and ignorant. Especially someone who has never served himself and has no children serving. Our country has been at war for a decade and a half, and the truth is most Americans have sacrificed nothing. Most of them are smart and grounded enough to admit it.”

With the Khans, the mainstream media sensed a “gotcha” trap that Trump fell for, with potentially devastating consequences for the Trump campaign. Quickly, the mainstream media piled on, heaping derision and blame on Trump for his comments.

“Mr. Khan’s speech at the convention in Philadelphia was one of the most powerful given there,” Maggie Haberman and Richard A. Oppel, Jr., wrote in the New York Times on July 30, 2016.39 “It was effectively the Democratic response to comments Mr. Trump has made implying many American Muslims have terrorist sympathies or stay silent when they know ones who do. Mr. Trump has called to ban Muslim immigration as a way to combat terrorism.” The New York Times article noted the Stephanopoulos interview drew “quick and widespread condemnation and amplified calls for Republican leaders to distance themselves from their presidential nominee.” Additionally, the newspaper commented on Trump’s “implication that the soldier’s mother had not spoken because of female subservience expected in some traditional strains of Islam, and noted that “his comments also inflamed his hostilities with American Muslims.” Haberman and Oppel quoted Ohio Governor John Kasich, who had posted on Twitter, “There’s only one way to talk about Gold Star parents: with honor and respect.”

After the Stephanopoulos interview, Trump issued a statement calling Captain Khan a “hero,” while also reiterating his concern that the United States should bar Muslims from entering the country. “While I feel deeply for the loss of his son,” he added, “Mr. Khan, who has never met me, has no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution, (which is false) and say many other inaccurate things.”40 Alexander Burns, reporting in the New York Times on August 2, 2016, noted that for days after the controversy began, Trump refused to apologize for his comments, ignoring the advice of top advisors to move on from the feud to focus on the economy and the national security record of his opponent, Hillary Clinton.41 President Obama entered into the controversy, declaring Trump “unfit to serve as president” and “woefully unprepared to do this job,” as he challenged Republican leaders to withdraw their support of their nominee. In response to the barrage of criticism, Trump refused to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan or Senator John McCain in their primary campaigns.42

That the Khizr Khan incident was a Clinton campaign set-up was strong-ly suggested by an article reporter Matthew Boyle wrote in Breitbart.com on August 1, 2016. It got a wide audience for reports that Khan had worked at the law firm Hogan Lovells, LLP, a major DC law firm from 2000 to 2007, when the firm was known as Hogan & Hartson.43 The law firm has been on retainer as the law firm representing the government of Saudi Arabia in the United States for years. The government of Saudi Arabia is on record as having given between 10 and $25 million to the Clinton Foundation. Hogan Lovells lobbyist Robert Kyle had bundled more than $50,000 for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. A lawyer at Hogan & Hartson has been Bill and Hillary Clinton’s “go-to guy” for tax advice since 2004, preparing for the Clintons their personal income tax returns. Hogan & Hartson did the patent work for a software firm used to monitor Hillary Clinton’s private email use. The law firm also employed Loretta Lynch in the time between her two appointments as US attorney in New York. Khan’s own personal law firm, KM Khan Law Office, is involved in the business of “buying visas” through the EB5 program that allows certain foreign investors to obtain visas after making specified investments in the United States.

Various other sources reported two Clinton campaign staffers wrote Khan’s speech. Khan was paid $25,000 by the Clinton campaign to speak at the DNC. A female Clinton staffer bought only two hours before his speech the copy of the US Constitution that Khan used as a prop during the speech. In total, the Clinton campaign approached five Gold Star families before Khan was approached to speak at the DNC. All five families were paid $5,000 and signed a non-disclosure agreement not to speak with the press. Khan’s immigration law firm is $1.7 million in debt and owes upward of $850,000 in tax penalties. After his speech at the DNC, the IRS put Khan’s tax audit on hold. Then CNN paid Khan a fee to tell his “story” and to give repeated interviews across the CNN network.44 While the Clinton campaign and its supporters in the media countered all the pushback stories,45 the controversy continued to rage, to the detriment of Trump’s ability as Republican nominee to get his message out clearly and without distraction. This, of course, affirms the Democrats strategy of setting out Khan as a DNC “gotcha” trap for Trump.

A report from the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy analysis assessed the damage the Khan controversy did to the Trump campaign. “The ensuing firestorm brought Trump a slew of coverage during the final week of the convention period,” the Shorenstein Center reported. “The reporting was nearly 100 percent negative, and cut across nearly every area of Trump’s coverage: his stand on immigration, his personal character, his knowledge of the law, his poll standing. The Khan exchange was that week’s most heavily covered development, shifting the balance of news attention strongly in his direction. He got 34 percent of that week’s campaign coverage—the highest weekly total of any presidential candidate at any point to date in the 2016 campaign. And the overall tone of his coverage was 91 percent negative—the most negative for any candidate in any single campaign week to date.”46

On August 7, 2016, the Clinton-supporting New York Daily News reported the Khan controversy hurt Trump in the polls. The newspaper reported that a Washington Post/ABC News poll showed Clinton leading Trump by eight points with registered voters, with 50 percent for Clinton and 42 percent for Trump. The poll suggested the Khan controversy had “crushed” Trump, with 79 percent of respondents disapproving of Trump’s week-long feud with Khan, including 59 percent of Republicans. “The poll indicates that Trump’s shameful feud with the Khans—the Gold Star parents of a Muslim US Army captain killed in combat—has already hurt his candidacy,” wrote Jason Silverstein, reporting for the New York Daily News. “Voters in the poll agreed on little as strongly as their revulsion over Trump’s attacks on the family.”47