On Thursday, Democrats turned over primetime convention speaking slots to a number of Republican critics of Donald Trump, including his former press secretary and a Republican mayor in Arizona.
“I feel a little out of place tonight but I feel more at home here than in today’s Republican Party. The Grand Old Party has been kidnapped by extremists and devolved into a cult,” Mesa, Arizona, mayor John Giles opened his remarks to the second night of the Democratic National Convention.
While the majority of the Republican Party is firmly behind Trump, he has been dogged by a small but loud group of GOP critics, including some ex-employees — a handful of whom have been given a platform at the Democrats’ convention as the party hopes to reach across the aisle to disaffected Republican or Republican-leaning voters.
Programming on Tuesday featured Giles, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham and Ana Navarro, a former Republican operative turned commentator. Later in the week, the convention is also expected to hear from former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger and national security official Olivia Troye.
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“I have an urgent message for the majority of Americans who like me are in the political middle: John McCain’s Republican Party is gone and we don’t owe a damn thing to what’s been left behind,” Giles said, invoking the late Republican senator who had a famously rocky relationship with Trump before his death of brain cancer in 2018.
Navarro also channeled McCain, quoting his 2008 campaign theme “country first.” Navarro worked on McCain’s 2008 campaign on his Hispanic Advisory Council.
“Last night we heard President Biden say that he loves his job but he loves his country more,” Navarro said. “Every American needs to love our country more. Every American has the duty to put our country first.”
Navarro also pushed back against attacks on Kamala Harris as a communist, citing her childhood experiences as an immigrant from Central America.
“Donald Trump and his minions call Kamala a communist. I know communism. I fled communism from Nicaragua when I was 8 years old. I don’t take it lightly,” Navarro said. She went on to liken Trump’s election denialism, attacks on the free press and installation of family members in key government jobs to Latin American dictators like Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.
Former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham also gave brief remarks about what Trump is like behind closed doors.
“Trump mocks his supporters. He calls them basement dwellers,” Grisham said.
“He has no empathy, no morals and no fidelity to the truth,” she said. “He used to tell me, ‘It doesn’t matter what you say, Stephanie. Say it enough and people will believe you.’ But it does matter — what you say matters.”
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Byron Tau is a reporter at NOTUS.
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