The message in Milwaukee was double-edged and impossible to miss.
Donald Trump listens to Nikki Haley, his former ambassador to the United Nations, at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday. |
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Donald Trump was on the balcony, surrounded by the MAGA politburo, and it was time for the vanquished to pay tribute. The ex-president sat smirking on Tuesday night as onetime presidential hopefuls whose dreams he crushed humiliated themselves on prime-time television, swearing loyalty to the Supreme GOP leader. The message on night two in Milwaukee was double-edged and impossible to miss: The Republican Party is indisputably and irrevocably Trump's party now, and it is united in pursuit of victory. "Donald Trump has my full endorsement, period," said former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who had warned during primary season that Trump would foment global and political chaos and who declared in February that she felt "no need to kiss the ring." |
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Trump smiles during Florida Gov. Marco Rubio's speech at the RNC on Tuesday in Milwaukee. |
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis once billed himself as Trumpism without the pandemonium, and as a potential president who could actually enact the MAGA agenda. But this time, he implored the crowd, "Let's make the 45th President of the United States the 47th President of the United States." And Texas Sen. Ted Cruz knows the drill. He has already spent years paying penance for his bitter 2016 primary fight with Trump, during which the future president insulted his wife and father. Still, he charged onstage and roared, "God Bless Donald J. Trump." |
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Florida Sen. Marco Rubio walks on stage at the RNC on Tuesday in Milwaukee. |
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In 2016, Trump obliterated Marco Rubio's hopes of a generational transformation of the Republican Party. Now the Florida senator has undergone the reeducation in populist nationalism required of anyone who wants a future in the GOP. Rubio this week sought to imbue Trumpism and the millions of supporters who crowd into the ex-president's rallies with a kind of poetic nobility. "What they want, what they ask for, it is not hateful or extreme," Rubio said, arguing that MAGA fans just want the basics – good jobs, lower prices, secure borders and safety from criminals and terrorists. "There is absolutely nothing dangerous or anything divisive about putting Americans first." This is the price of political ambition in a party that Trump now controls with an iron grip. All of the above still have presidential ambitions in a hazy future when he eventually leaves the stage. But nothing is guaranteed. Trump passed over all of his primary opponents from 2016 and 2024 in picking a new favorite – Ohio Sen. JD Vance — as his vice-presidential nominee. So there may be no reward for those who joined the parade of losers in Milwaukee. |
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'We're no different than an insurance company' |
Trump is still six months away from the Oval Office – if he ever gets back there. But the Republican nominee is already back to causing geopolitical earthquakes, suggesting in a new interview with Bloomberg Businessweek that the democratic island of Taiwan should pay the US for defending it from China. "We're no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn't give us anything. Taiwan is 9,500 miles away. It's 68 miles away from China. A slight advantage, and China's a massive piece of land, they could just bombard it," Trump said. His comments, published during the Republican National Convention, immediately raised alarms over whether he'd abandon the policy of strategic ambiguity that governs how the US would respond to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and that is designed to prevent such an attack by keeping Beijing guessing. But this also looks like a familiar Trump gambit – one that he used in his presidential term to drive up spending by US allies in Europe and Asia on defense. It also underscores the transactional view he has of even the most critical pillars of American foreign policy. In a recent article in Foreign Affairs, Robert O'Brien — Trump's former national security adviser, who is tipped for a top job in any second term — condemned China's pressure on Taiwan but called on Taipei to up military spending, much of which already goes to US arms manufacturers, and to expand conscription. Trump is running on a platform of avoiding foreign wars, so it's not surprising there are real doubts about whether he'd spend US blood and treasure to defend Taiwan. His comments show that if he wins in November, Washington's foreign policy will once again be dictated by what an unpredictable president thinks at any given moment and America will go back to being a volatile force in the world. |
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Thanks for reading. Thursday is the final night of the Republican National Convention. European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelesnky, meet at Blenheim Palace in the United Kingdom. |
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