President Donald Trump launched a long, ranting speech during the second night of the GOP midterm convention despite promises to keep it short.
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Trump delivered a winding, nearly two-hour speech the night before and said that he planned to keep his speech the next night short. However, that wasn’t the case.
Behind him, a woman in the audience in a black blazer and red shirt could be seen checking her watch as it became clear that Trump planned to go on.
“Why is he still talking?” lamented former GOP operative Tim Miller during his live coverage for The Bulwark.
Trump repeated jokes and points from the previous night, including ripping into Ken Paxton, the GOP nominee for the Senate in Texas. This time, the cameras cut to Paxton smiling as Trump laid into him.
“I don’t like the way Ken dresses,” Trump said. “I don’t really like the way Ken talks.”
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Paxton, who ousted longtime Sen. John Cornyn in May’s GOP runoff, was on hand as the party’s Senate nominee. He faces Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in November.
“This is an interesting thing because every person in this audience was here last night,” pointed out The Bulwark reporter Andrew Egger during live coverage. “And yet they laugh at all the laugh line moments. I don’t get it.”
“Presumably, the TV audience is the same as the night before,” added The Bulwark reporter Lauren Egan.
The two-night gathering in Dallas marks the first Republican midterm convention, an event Trump pushed the RNC to approve after conventions were traditionally reserved for presidential years. The event was billed as “Trumpapalooza.”
The night’s program also featured a tribute to the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, assassinated one year ago, and an observance of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Karoline Leavitt, Donald Trump Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were also set to speak.
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