Daily Mail
… as she tackles racial division, mourns victims of COVID and backs her husband saying he gives ‘total honesty’ and ‘loves America’
- Melania Trump made the closing case for her husband at the second night of the Republican National Convention
- Speech was designed to appeal to female voters
- ‘Whether you like it or not, you always know what he’s thinking, and that is because he is an authentic person who loves this country and its people,’ Melania Trump said of her husband
- She addressed the areas where female voters rate him as weak, the coronavirus pandemic and race relations
- ‘I know I speak for my husband and the family when we say we’re so grateful that you trusted him to be your president. We would be honored to serve this incredible country for four more years,’ she said
Melania Trump painted her husband’s weaknesses as strengths when she argued for President Donald Trump’s bid for a second term in a speech designed to appeal to female voters on Tuesday night – but also spoke at length on race and coronavirus, setting a strikingly different tone from her husband.
She painted herself as a wife and a mother during her 26-minute remarks, which outlined the reasons women should vote for President Trump in November and addressed the areas where female voters rate him as weak, the coronavirus pandemic and race relations.
And unusually she intervened directly in unfolding events, as violence flared for a second night in Kenosha, WI, in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, left paralyzed after being shot seven times in the back.
‘I urge people to come together in a civil manner so we can work and live up to our standard American ideals. I also ask people to stop the violence and looting being done in the name of justice,’ she said.
And she paid explicit tribute to the dead of the coronavirus pandemic – never using his ‘China virus’ phrase’ – saying she mourned with those left behind.
Her speech was meant to smooth away her husband’s rough edges even as she was careful to stay out of the political arena. It came on a night when Republicans tried to set a positive tone and lay claim to optimism, with Trump pardoning a black bank robber and swearing in five new Americans, both in the White House, while Mike Pence presented a video from Abraham Lincoln’s childhood home with ordinary voters paying tribute to Trump.
But it also saw Tiffany and Eric Trump channel their father with his younger daughter making a rare public appearance to rail against big tech and the media claiming they try to ‘mentally enslave’ people to control what views they hear.
