On a night at the Democratic National Convention headlined by former President Bill Clinton and current vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, news broke that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will end his wreck of a campaign and endorse Donald Trump. That, of course, was what he was doing all along.
Although the idea should be unthinkable, J.D. Vance had to address whether the campaign promised Kennedy a cabinet position in exchange, something Vance previously said would be unethical. There was reporting that Kennedy wanted that deal, and Trump considered it. Vance said there was no quid pro quo involved in Kennedy dropping out.
While a Kennedy prepares to support a candidate who opposes all the values of service and country his father and uncles stood for, a former Trump White House official took to the podium at the DNC to denounce Trump.
Olivia Troye was the Homeland Security and Counterterrorism advisor to Vice President Mike Pence and his lead on the White House Corona Virus Task Force until she resigned in August 2020. Pence claimed she was a disgruntled employee, but Troye, who described herself as a lifelong John McCain Republican, expressed deep concern about how Trump was mishandling the pandemic and putting Americans’ lives at risk and threw her support to Joe Biden in 2020. Last night she spoke to the convention and endorsed Kamala Harris:
“Four years ago, I resigned from the Trump administration. As a Republican who dreamed of working in the White House, it was a hard decision. But as an American, it was the right one. I saw how Donald Trump undermined our intelligence community, military leaders, and, ultimately, our democratic process. Now, he’s doing it again, lying and laying the groundwork to undermine this election.”
“Being inside Trump’s White House was terrifying, but what keeps me up at night is what will happen if he gets back there. The guardrails are gone. The few adults in the room the first time resigned or were fired.”
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Former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, also a Republican, followed Troye, directly addressing members of his own party and independents:
“If Republicans are being intellectually honest with ourselves, our party is not civil or conservative. It’s chaotic and crazy. And the only thing left to do is dump Trump.”
It’s the slogan Republicans should have adopted to fight for the life of their party in the primaries. They lacked the courage to put country over party.
In case anyone has forgotten just how courageous she is, early in the evening, the convention screen featured a video of Harris, back when she was a Senator, grilling witnesses like then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr with her direct questioning and refusing to back down. The point? Harris can prosecute the case against Trump. She will not give ground. She has seemed comfortable, so far, doing that as to both policy and democracy.
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It has become far too easy for Americans to forget just how dangerous Trump was during his presidency, culminating on January 6. At the time, virtually no one had difficulty calling out Trump’s role in the insurrection. Then memories began to “fade.”
At the time, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called Trump’s conduct “disgraceful” and said the rioters “had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth because he was angry he lost an election.” Now he’s backing Trump, again, despite saying on the floor of the Senate, “There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it,” he said after Trump was acquitted following impeachment in 2021, calling what happened on January 6 “a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty.”
Trump’s golf buddy, Senator Lindsey Graham, denounced Trump following the insurrection. “All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough.” He, too, is supporting his candidacy this year.
At the one-year anniversary of January 6, Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene went on Steve Bannon’s podcast. “We’re ashamed of nothing,” Gaetz said. “We’re proud of the work that we did on Jan. 6 to make legitimate arguments about election integrity.” They are the true face of the MAGA party, the former Republican Party.
Trump has never publicly acknowledged he lost the election.
“Let me be clear to my Republican friends at home watching. If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you’re not a Democrat, you’re a patriot,” former Lieutenant Governor Duncan told the Convention last night. Make sure you share that with all of your friends who are considering voting for Trump or sitting this one out.
Dump Trump.
We are in this together.