District Club: RNC Takes Dallas: Day 2

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Mary Margaret Olohan (0:46)

Good evening everyone and welcome to a very special episode of the District Club presented by The Daily Wire. I'm Mary Margaret Olohan, and I am joined by my wonderful co-host Ben Domenech, The Daily Wire's opinion editor, and Tim Rice, our DC Bureau Chief. We also have a very special guest tonight, Aidan McLaughlin, the Washington correspondent for Vanity Fair. Thanks for joining us, Aidan.

Aidan McLaughlin (1:09)

Thanks for having me.

Mary Margaret Olohan (1:10)

So we are here on night two of the Republican midterm convention.

President Donald Trump just wrapped his remarks, as did Vice President JD Vance. The energy is very high here tonight, and we got a lot to break down. I want to start right here with you first, Ben. What did you make of the Vice President's remarks tonight?

Benjamin Domenech (1:29)

Well, I think what we saw tonight was really, in a certain sense, the beginning of JD Vance's campaign to succeed the president. I don't think that comes as a surprise to a lot of people. I think that he leaned heavily into his personal story, particularly his family experience.

Again, that was something that we expected. One thing that I don't think that we expected though, is a big conversation that we had just the other day about what we would expect from this midterm convention was having an attitude of unity toward the Republican Party, one that was going to sort of bring everyone back together.

I think that JD Vance's speech leaned a lot more into that explicitly than I expected it to do so. Essentially, he laid out his objections to, and he even cited them as young men who are frustrated with the president's decision to go to war in Iran. At the same time, you see this New York Times story that dropped this evening from some of their most respected writers that went through the vice president's own misgivings about the war in Iran. And whatever you think of that approach, it's a lot more explicit about the divisions within this party than I think you might have expected from the vice president. How that's read by the Republicans in Capitol Hill and across the country, we're going to see their reactions to that in the coming days. But I was just a little surprised that he was as upfront about that division as he was in this speech.

Tim Rice (2:58)

Yeah, I mean, we sat here yesterday and said before the first day of speeches, like the best thing that could happen for Republicans is if either the president or the vice president stood up and said, hey, you know, we understand that some things are going in a way that you wouldn't want them to go.

We understand that you're maybe unhappy with the war in Iran or at the very least with the impact it's had on the prices of the plump. And I don't think any of us, certainly, I wasn't optimistic that either the president or the vice president were going to say it. And the fact that the vice president came out and said it today, I couldn't agree with you more, Ben. This was the maybe the second unofficial, but the closest to an official beginning of his 2028 campaign that we're going to get until he officially launches it. And I also do want to say before we get back into tonight's proceedings, let's quickly touch on last night we got a very classic Trump speech. It was two hours. It was the weave. But the last 30 to 40 minutes of the president's speech last night were honestly, was honestly an incredible midterm rallying cry.

Our colleague Chloe Trappanado was saying today that she thinks that this whole convention is very much like a rousing halftime speech by the coach and Trump is the coach. At the very end last night, he went out and said, you got to vote, you got to get out. You know, we can't let Democrats take it back. I mean, this is what we've done since the Joe Biden years. This is what Democrats want to do. And I mean, I think it's the most classic campaign speech that we've ever seen the president give for other candidates.

Mary Margaret Olohan (4:24)

That's totally fair. Aidan, what do you think? You've been here for both nights. What was your read on, first of all, the night one, the president's two hour weave and leading into today?