If he had kept with that theme, the speech would have been a memorable success. But the new Mr. Trump could not keep the old Mr. Trump in check. After saying the 2024 election should be about the issues that most affect Americans, Mr. Trump decried “crazy Nancy Pelosi” and claimed that the 2020 election was stolen. “They used covid to cheat,” he said.
The former president’s advisers had told reporters on Thursday afternoon that Mr. Trump would not mention President Biden by name during what they said would be a high-altitude address. Their candidate went off-script — acknowledging in an aside that he was doing so — and asserted that Mr. Biden has done more damage to the country than the 10 worst presidents in U.S. history combined. By contrast, Mr. Trump praised Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban and boasted about getting along well with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
There has always been a difference between Teleprompter Trump and Truth Social Trump, and there was again on Thursday. Mr. Trump said he was speaking “with great humility.” A moment later, he boasted about how much the convention crowd loved him. He offered moments of hope and optimism only to counter them with darker sentiments.
Convention speeches tend not to be policy masterworks, and this was no exception. Mr. Trump avoided social issues such as abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and guns. He claimed falsely that Democrats want to “destroy Social Security and Medicare.” (In fact, neither party has shown much inclination to address the nation’s looming debt crisis by adjusting entitlement programs in even modest ways.) Mr. Trump pledged to put a tariff of between 100 and 200 percent on every imported car. “They will be unsellable in the United States,” he said. A tariff like this would likely increase inflation; it might also violate the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which, as Mr. Trump noted a moment later in the speech, he helped negotiate as president.
On immigration, Mr. Trump reminded listeners that he skirted Congress’s power over federal spending, diverting money from the military budget for his border wall when lawmakers refused to fund it. He promised the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, modeled on President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback.”
In other words, it was a missed opportunity. Instead of speaking in a new, expansive and unifying voice, Mr. Trump reverted to past tendencies. By virtue of this choice, Mr. Trump left the door open for Democrats to explain how they would heal and lead a country hungry for peace, prosperity and civility. Of course, it’s up to Democrats to salvage their own presidential campaign effort, which has been in free fall since Mr. Biden’s debate performance nearly a month ago.
To this point: On Friday, more Democratic lawmakers called on Mr. Biden to exit the presidential race, even as the Democratic National Committee continues to press its plan to nominate the president before delegates even meet in Chicago next month. There are now four senators and more than 30 House members on record in favor of a change at the top of the ticket. The coming days might determine whether and how Democrats themselves can manage the sort of growth and renewal that failed to shine through on that brightly lit stage in Milwaukee.
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