WASHINGTON – In her Republican National Convention speech, Kimberly Guilfoyle described herself as a first-generation American, citing her mother's Puerto Rican roots.
But Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, and its residents are U.S. citizens.
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Guilfoyle, a Trump campaign adviser and the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., cited her family history on Monday to make the case that she knows how dangerous a socialist agenda would be for the nation.
She says her mother was a special education teacher from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, while her father, whom she described as “also an immigrant,” came to this nation in pursuit of the American dream.” Her father is from Ireland.
Now, she says, “I consider it my duty to protect that dream.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
Kimberly Guilfoyle describes herself as a first-generation American, but also notes that her mother is a special education teacher from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory and its residents are U.S. citizens.
Guilfoyle, a Trump campaign adviser, cited her roots to make the case that she knows how dangerous a socialist agenda would be for the nation.
She says, “my father, also an immigrant, came to this nation in pursuit of the American Dream. Now, I consider it my duty to fight to protect that dream.”
Guilfoyle advocated for Trump on the opening night of the Republican National Convention.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
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HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MONDAY’S REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION:
— Republicans nominate Trump, who questions election integrity
— AP-NORC poll: Trump faces pessimism as GOP convention opens
— Pompeo shattering precedent, sparking fury with RNC speech
— St. Louis couple, in RNC speech, defends show of weapons
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Follow AP’s election coverage at https://apnews.com/Election2020
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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott says he is living the American dream and cites “the evolution of the Southern heart” as the reason he, as a Black man, was able to win a primary election against a son of Strom Thurmond.
Scott, the only Black GOP senator, was the closing speaker at the Republican National Convention on Monday. He recounted growing up in a single-parent household and failing out of ninth grade before finding a mentor and becoming a small-business owner.
The senator says any insinuation that America has gone backward is false. He talked about his 2010 primary win against Paul Thurmond, son of the segregationist senator, in a congressional race.
He says, “In an overwhelmingly white district, the voters judged me not on the color of my skin but on the content of my character.” He says, “We live in a world that only wants you to believe in the bad news, racially economically and culturally polarizing news.”
Scott says America isn’t “fully where we want to be.” But he says, “I thank God almighty we are not where we used to be.”
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Donald Trump Jr. is ridiculing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden with name-calling in a fiery speech to the televised Republican National Convention.
But more broadly, President Donald Trump’s eldest son is painting his father’s opponent for the presidency as part of a movement aimed at stripping the nation of its most basic freedoms.
“In the past, both parties believed in the goodness of America,” the younger Trump says. “This time, the other party is attacking the very principles on which our nation was founded,” citing freedom of thought, speech, religion and the rule of law.
Mocking Biden’s past meetings with Chinese leaders as vice president, he calls the Democrat “Beijing Biden” and pokes at his decades in the Senate and previously unsuccessful presidential bids by calling him “The Loch Ness Monster of the swamp.”
But the younger Trump offered a full-throated support of his father’s campaign theme that protests for racial justice are lawless, violent mobs intent on toppling long-honored past leaders.
He says, “It’s almost like this election is shaping up to be church, work and school versus rioting, looting and vandalism.”
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Kimberly Guilfoyle apparently didn’t get the memo when GOP leaders declared that Americans would hear an uplifting message at this week’s Republican National Convention.
Guilfoyle, who is Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend and a Trump campaign adviser, gave the loudest speech of the night Monday. She shouted at times and warned that Democratic leaders “want to destroy this country.”
She says, “They want to steal your liberty, your freedom. They want to control what you see and think, and believe, so they can control how you live!”
At another point, she said of Democrats, “Don’t let them step on you. Don’t let them destroy your families, your lives and your future. Don’t let them suppress future generations because they told you and brainwashed you and fed you lies that you weren’t good enough!”
Guilfoyle finished the speech with a broad smile and upraised arms, saying that Trump is the leader who will rebuild the promise of America.
“The best is yet to come!” she declared.
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Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is recounting how states like her native South Carolina have rebounded from racist violence, saying, “America is not a racist country.“
During the first night of Republicans’ national convention, the former South Carolina governor said Monday that, “in much of the Democratic Party, it’s now fashionable to say that America is racist.”
Referencing the 2015 shooting of nine Bible study attendees by a white man at a historic Black church in Charleston, Haley noted that South Carolina didn’t erupt into the violence seen after some shootings of Black Americans in other cities.
Haley also took a spin off the Black Lives Matter movement’s terminology, saying that the lives of Black police officers shot in the line of duty, Black small-business owners affected during rioting and “Black kids who’ve been gunned down on the playground – their lives matter, too.”
Haley is seen as one of the rising stars in the Republican Party, with a recent move back to South Carolina and a memoir sparking conversation that she may mount a presidential run of her own, possibly as soon as 2024. She says President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence “have my support.”
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A white St. Louis couple criminally charged for waving guns during a Black Lives Matter protest outside their home says Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden would invite unchecked lawlessness into American suburbs.
Mark and Patty McCloskey on Monday at the Republican National Convention reinforced the theme outlined in President Donald Trump’s campaign ads. The Republican is painting his opponent as complicit with rioting and violence that has taken place in some cities in recent months amid racial justice protests, the vast majority of which have been peaceful.
Patty McCloskey says, “They want to abolish the suburbs altogether by ending single-family home zoning.” She says the actions “would bring crime, lawlessness and low-quality apartments into thriving suburban neighborhoods.”
She says, “These are the policies that are coming to a neighborhood near you,.” She adds, “Your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats’ America.”
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Parkland father Andrew Pollack says he believes the “safety of your kids depends” on whether President Donald Trump wins a second term.
Pollack’s 18-year-old daughter, Meadow, was killed in February 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. He spoke Monday at the Republican National Convention and credits Trump for forming a school safety commission that issued dozens of recommendations designed to make schools safer.
Pollack blames a culture of leniency that failed to hold the gunman accountable for many transgressions that occurred before the shooting, which killed 17 people. He says gun control laws didn’t fail his daughter, but people did.
Pollack blames the school for ignoring those warning signs. He also says “far-left Democrats” implemented a policy designed to reduce school suspensions that he says blames teachers for student failures.
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A Black Democratic lawmaker in Georgia’s state legislature says he’s supporting President Donald Trump because they’ve made improvements benefiting the Black community.
During the opening night of Republicans’ convention Monday, state Rep. Vernon Jones said “all hell broke loose” when he announced his support for Trump. But Jones said he stands by his decision in part because Trump has backed initiatives including increased funding for HBCUs, criminal justice reform and “the most inclusive economy ever.“
Jones says, “The Democratic Party does not want Black people to leave the mental plantation” on which they’ve toiled. He added, “Black voices are becoming more woke and louder than ever.”
Earlier, former NFL star Herschel Walker said “it hurts my soul” to hear anyone refer to Trump as a racist, adding it’s “a personal insult that people would think I would have a 37-year friendship with a racist.”
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Ohio congressman Jim Jordan is describing an empathetic moment he shared with President Donald Trump, part of an effort that aides said is aimed at presenting a side of the president many Americans don’t see.
At the Republican National Convention on Monday, Jordan recounted a phone conversation with Trump as the Ohioan was en route to visit his grieving family after Jordan’s nephew died in a car accident.
Jordan says he asked Trump if he’d like to say hello to the boy’s father.
Jordan adds: “For the next five minutes, family and friends sat in complete silence as the president of the United States took time to talk to a dad who was hurting. That’s the president I know.
Jordan’s story comes a week after nightly vignettes of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s connection with people who have lost spouses, children and jobs, part of an empathetic narrative the party built to contrast with Trump.
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Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel is scoffing at Democrats’ choice of actor Eva Longoria to host one night of their convention, suggesting they couldn’t find a “real housewife.”
McDaniel dismissed Longoria, a star of “Desperate Housewives,” on Monday as a “famous Hollywood actress who played a housewife on TV.” McDaniel said, “I’m actually a real housewife and a mom from Michigan.”
It echoed a comment made by Trump last month when he warned “The Suburban Housewives of America” in a tweet that a Joe Biden presidency would “destroy your neighborhood.” He warned of an “invasion” and said he had scrapped a program to allow “low income housing” in the suburbs.
But McDaniel herself is an executive with a full-time job running a nationwide political organization with a multimillion-dollar budget.
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The leader of the pro-Trump organization Turning Point USA is calling the president “the bodyguard of Western civilization.”
Kirk said at the start of the evening portion of the Republican National Convention on Monday that President Donald Trump had reclaimed the U.S. government “from the rotten cartel of insiders that have been destroying our country.”
He says, “We may not have realized it at the time, but this fact is now clear: Trump is the bodyguard of Western civilization.”
He added that Trump was “elected to defend and strengthen the American way of life.”
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President Donald Trump will appear at the opening night of the Republican National Convention in a taped video with six former hostages freed during the Trump administration.
A campaign official said Monday that the former prisoners are among more than a dozen religious or other people whose release the Trump administration helped broker. They are Michael White, Sam Goodwin, Pastor Andrew Brunson, Joshua and Tamara Holt, and Pastor Bryan Nerran.
The convention is also set to feature a speech from the parents of Kayla Mueller, who died while a prisoner of the Islamic State group.
White, a Navy veteran, was imprisoned in Iran. Brunson, an evangelical pastor, was imprisoned in Turkey, Goodwin was held in Syria, the Holts in Venezuela and Nerran in India.
Trump has championed his hostage release program, which was led for years by now-national security adviser Robert O’Brien.
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A forklift has damaged a brick walkway at the national monument Fort McHenry, where Republicans were building a stage for Vice President Mike Pence’s appearance for the party’s national convention.
A national parks advocacy group expressed outrage at the damage, saying stewardship of national monuments should be nonpartisan and professional.
National Park Service spokesperson Stephanie Roulett confirmed the damage in an email Monday. She says the damaged bricks dated from a 1930s restoration at the fort.
Built in 1798, Fort McHenry and the Americans in it successfully defended Baltimore Harbor from the British Navy in the War of 1812. The scene inspired Francis Scott Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The U.S. designates the fort as a national monument and historic shrine.
This month, the Maryland Republican Party asked for and got a special-use permit from the National Park Service to use the fort as a backdrop for Pence’s political address Wednesday during the Republican National Convention.
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Republicans will have about 8,000 Roman candles, shells, comets and other fireworks ready to shoot into the sky around the Washington Monument on Thursday to celebrate President Donald Trump’s acceptance of the presidential nomination.
The National Park Service said Monday that it had approved the fireworks permit to mark the renomination of the president, who has demonstrated a fondness for big pyrotechnics and fetes at national monuments.
The permit details the fireworks that are planned. The parks service said the Republican National Committee would be responsible for all costs of the show as well as for reimbursing the agency for its work overseeing the event on Thursday, the last day of the Republican National Convention.
Mike Litterst, spokesperson for the National Park Service’s National Mall, said Monday that the service has received no permit requests so far for protests timed to the convention.
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President Donald Trump says without evidence that the coronavirus is fading, a claim that he has been making for months.
In the toss-up state of North Carolina, Trump spoke on a tarmac in Fletcher to several hundred cheering supporters — the majority not wearing masks — after he addressed delegates at the Republican National Convention in Charlotte.
Trump says the nation will “put this horrible incident coming from China behind us and we will have the vaccines very soon, but it’s going to be fading, and it is starting to fade.”
The U.S. coronavirus death toll and case count have been climbing for months. More than 176,000 Americans have now died of the coronavirus, by far more than any other country.
Trump predicted positive third quarter results for the U.S. economy and said next year would be even better.
After brief remarks, Trump drove to Mills River, where he was to tour Flavor First Growers and Packers and speak at a Farmers to Families food box distribution program.
Along the motorcade route to Mills River, some people expressed their disapproval of Trump’s presidency. One man, wearing a mask, held a cloth banner that said: “Mr. Trump Spewing Lies. Spreading COVID.”
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President Donald Trump is accusing Democrats of using voters’ concerns about COVID-19 to steal the upcoming presidential election.
Trump told delegates at the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Monday that the only way Democrats can win is “if this is a rigged election.”
Until he won, Trump also warned that the 2016 election was going to be rigged.
He says Americans know how to keep themselves safe from the coronavirus and can go to the polls, eliminating the need to mail in their ballots. He said, without providing evidence, that that creates fraud.
Voter fraud has proved exceedingly rare. The Brennan Center for Justice in 2017 ranked the risk of ballot fraud at 0.00004% to 0.0009%, based on studies of past elections.
Trump says other votes will be “harvested” by people going door-to-door to collect ballots that voters have not submitted. In addition, he says some states are not verifying signatures on ballots. He did not provide evidence for those claims.
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President Donald Trump is championing the stock market, telling delegates at the Republican National Convention that if he’s not reelected, the country will go in a “horrible direction.”
He said Monday that the upcoming presidential election is the most important in the history of the United States. He says, “Our country can go in a horrible direction or in an even greater direction."
He says the U.S. economy was humming along at high levels before the coronavirus pandemic. Trump condemned governors who are continuing to keep their states shut down to stem the spread of the virus.
It was a jab at his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, who has said that further shutdowns are needed to battle the virus.