Staging and lighting is set up on the South Lawn of the White House on August 24, 2020 in Washington, DC. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
On Night 4 of the Republican National Convention, President Trump will deliver a wildly different speech than the one Joe Biden gave last week.
What to watch: Trump will offer a blistering rebuke of Biden’s record and his decades as "a failed" elected official in a closing address that will declare November as a battle between “us vs. them,” campaign officials tell Axios.
- Biden's speech didn’t mention Trump by name once, but instead used the platform to share his personal story and offer himself as “an ally of the light.”
- Trump will say Biden is “an empty shell of a candidate” and a “Trojan Horse” for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, said Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh.
- Trump will also go into “granular detail” about his second-term agenda.
Trump is expected to address the shooting of Jacob Blake and make reference to Kenosha as part of a larger discussion of unrest in the U.S.
- Trump's speech will be delivered from the White House South Lawn, a departure from presidential norms.
The big picture: The campaign is especially excited about an appearance by Alice Johnson, whose prison sentence Trump commuted.
Other speakers include:
- Ivanka Trump, who will call her father the “people’s president"
- House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy
- Rudy Giuliani
- New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who switched parties to become a Republican during impeachment