FLORIDA – One by one, Donald Trump’s defeated rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination took the stage to sing his praises at the party’s convention on Tuesday night. From his box just above the convention floor, Trump smiled at times as he watched his former opponents Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy voice their full support for his candidacy. If there were any doubts that this was Trump’s party, Tuesday’s programming put them to rest. “I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period,” said Haley, the former UN Ambassador who posed the strongest challenge to Trump earlier this year. She said Trump had asked her to speak at the event in Milwaukee in the name of “unity”.

Haley said in May that she would vote for the former president, but her headline speech on Tuesday was her most direct endorsement of the Republican nominee yet. Haley’s arrival, however, was not universally welcomed in the arena. There was a noticeable intake of breath as she acknowledged that she and Trump had their differences. Some Republicans have struggled to forgive her for launching an aggressive campaign against their favoured candidate. Late in the race, she questioned whether Trump had the mental stamina to serve as president. A smattering of boos greeted her as she took the podium, though they were soon drowned out by cheers and chants.

“She stayed in that race a lot longer than she needed to and dragged out the inevitable,” said Matt Bumela, a delegate from Washington state who had predicted the booing. “And said things about Trump that were negative all the way up to the end.” Haley notably broke from Trump when she called for the US to continue to support Ukraine in its war with Russia. When she later said she would vote for him in November, she said the former president would be “smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me”. On Tuesday night, she told supporters of hers who might be on the fence: “You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him take it from me Tonight is our unity night,” said New Hampshire state Senator William Gannon, who had served as a delegate for Haley. He believed Trump made the right choice to invite her to speak. wanna win the national election,” he said. “It was a wise move to bring her in. The third-place finisher in the primary, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, received a far more enthusiastic welcome from the crowd. (BBC)…[+]