Trump arrives at Republican National Convention night 2 with focus on 'Make America Safe Once Again'

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A lifelong Jewish Democrat speaking Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention believes there will be a wave of support for former President Trump from Jewish Democrats this November.

"I know very few Orthodox Jews who have voted for President Biden in 2020 and are planning to do so again in 2024," Shabbos Kestenbaum told Fox News Digital. "We will, I believe, see a tremendous amount of Jewish support towards Donald Trump in a way that we haven't seen before."

Kestenbaum is one of several "everyday Americans" who will be speaking at the GOP convention in Milwaukee this week. He is one of six Jewish students who are suing their alma mater, Harvard University, for discrimination, after antisemitic protests rocked the campus following the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.

The Democratic voter said that he and other Jews are "angry" with how Biden has handled the Israel-Hamas conflict and it would hurt him in the election.

"He is bleeding both left and right. I think it's critical for his advisers, those who are surrounding him, to make it clear to him that there are constituencies outside of Dearborn, Michigan," he said, referring to the significant Muslim population there.

"There are constituencies across this country who are disillusioned and angry at his, for example, delay of critical ammunition to the state of Israel, his inability to crack down on illegal protests that harass Jewish Americans and his inability to secure the release of eight American citizens," he continued.

At the convention, Kestenbaum said he plans to address how universities have let down Jewish students amid these protests, appeal for the U.S. hostages still being held by Hamas, and call on reforms to higher education to "instill patriotism and the ideals of Western civilization once again in the classroom."

Fox News' Kristine Parks contributed to this report.

Former New York Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin said he's "tired" of seeing Republicans verbally and physically attacked, arguing that anti-Trump and anti-GOP rhetoric has reached new highs across the years.

"The rhetoric has gotten so bad between, yes, the bullseye comment, remember Dan Goldman making a comment about how President Trump needs to be eliminated. Bennie Thompson wants to take away Secret Service protection. One of [Thompson's] aides was just complaining that the shooter Saturday evening had missed President Trump. I'm tired of seeing Republicans attacked like this," Zeldin told Fox News Digital during the Republican National Convention on Tuesday.

Zeldin was responding to President Biden backtracking on his comment earlier this month that "it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye," saying the remark was a "mistake" after a 20-year-old man in Pennsylvania attempted to assassinate Trump during a rally on Saturday evening. Zeldin reflected that verbal and physical attacks against Republicans have been ongoing and heightening for years before a shooter tried to kill the 45th president.

"I saw it with Steve Scalise with the shooting a few years ago, the attack on Rand Paul, the targeting of Justice Kavanaugh, this very close, near-assassination of President Trump. Yes, we should settle our scores at the ballot box. I agree with that. It's a truth. It's something that everyone should preach and everyone should believe in," he continued.

"Ultimately, we have to confront, head on, the fact that there is a very extensive effort basically throwing everything that they can against President Trump outside of the ballot box to try to prevent him from taking office … It's gone too far. It's sick and it needs to end," he continued.

Fox News' Emma Colton contributed to this report.

Former President Trump’s allies are looking at his selection of Sen. JD Vance as a key appeal to Midwestern voters – and some New York Republican lawmakers hope it’ll give the GOP a boost in their state, too.

House Republicans representing the Democratic stronghold state held a media event on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention (RNC) on Tuesday, a day after Trump named Vance as his running mate in 2024 election.

Reps. Nicole Malliotakis and Mike Lawler both pointed to Vance’s pro-union stances, which line up with policies that have won support in their districts as well.

Malliotakis pointed out that Teamsters Union President Sean O’Brien, who spoke at the convention on Monday night, shouted out a handful of Republican lawmakers including herself, Vance and Lawler "as people who have been working with labor."

"I think that’s an area where – in New York, I have one of the largest districts of labor union representation, in membership. And I think that’s where JD Vance is going to resonate with working men and women," Malliotakis said. "Republicans are the ones creating jobs for these unions."

This is an excerpt from a story by Fox News Digital's Elizabeth Elkind.

Anne Fundner, who lost her 15-year-old son to fentanyl poisoning, said the Biden administration "does nothing" to aid the raging drug epidemic or border crisis during Day 2 of the Republican National Convention.

"I hold Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, the border czar – what a joke  – and Gavin Newsom and every Democrat who supports open borders responsible for the death of my son," Fundner said, prompting a standing ovation and loud cheers from the crowd.

She added: "For that alone, they should be voted out of office," to which the crowd began chanting "Joe must go!"

Fundner, whose son Weston died on Feb. 27, 2022, invoked a lot of emotion from the crowd during her speech, which focused on the importance of securing the border and stopping the flow of fentanyl into the United States.

"We need a president who will seal the border, aggressively prosecute drug dealers, and stop communist China from poisoning our children," she said. "This is not a red or blue issue, this is a red, white and blue issue."

According to a May report from the CDC, approximately 74,702 Americans died of an overdose involving synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, in 2023.

"We owe it to our children to elect a president who will win the war against fentanyl once and for all," she concluded.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., is pushing back against a Democrat mayor who said he doesn't believe former President Trump is gaining steam with Black voters.

When asked about Scott's outreach to the Black community, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said during a Tuesday news conference that he thinks "there's probably a reason why Tim Scott wasn't selected to be the vice president even though Mr. Trump is supposedly trying to make inroads with African Americans."

He continued: "I don't buy that. I just don't."

Scott responded to Johnson's comments when talking to Fox News at the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin by saying, "Well, November 5th, you will have to buy it. It'll be sold."

The senator, who held an event at the RNC promoting voter outreach to the Black community, told Fox News that "if we market our message," Trump will "see the highest turnout of African-American voters we've seen since he's been running for president."

Scott acknowledged it is difficult for Republicans to make inroads with Black women, whom he called the most "loyal" and "fierce" voters in the Democratic Party. However, he argued that Black men are "very different."

A USA Today/Suffolk University poll released last month found that support for Biden among Black voters has dropped roughly 20 percentage points in the swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania since the last election.

Fox News polling showed that Biden led Trump by 64 points with Black voters in July 2020. Today, Biden's lead has shrunk to 42.

This is an excerpt from a story by Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller, Matteo Cina, Tyler Olson and Griff Jenkins.

Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump closed out Day 2 of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with a 20-minute speech that began by addressing the assassination attempt on her father-in-law, former President Donald Trump.

She said she had an "entirely different speech" planned prior to the shooting at Trump's Pennsylvania rally on Saturday that left one man dead and three others, including Trump himself, wounded.

"Nothing prepares you for a moment like that," she said. "Our family has faced our fair share of death threats, mysterious powders sent to our homes, tasteless and violent comments directed towards us on social media, but none of that prepares you as a daughter-in-law to watch in real time someone try to kill a person you love."

She continued: "None of that prepares you as a mother to quickly reach for the remote and turn your young children away from the screen so that they're not witness to something that scars the memory of their grandpa for the rest of their lives."

Lara shared a lot of praise for the former president not only for his role in politics, but his role as a father and grandfather. She also touched on the love shown and felt among Trump supporters, especially over the past few days in the wake of the assassination attempt on Trump.

"You would be hard pressed to find and to join a happier group of people coming together over their love for the greatest country on Earth, the United States of America," she said.

Lara spent time highlighting some of the successes of the Trump administration during his first term, such as stricter immigration laws, peace in the Middle East and comprehensive prison reform, knocking the "outrageous narrative" that Trump will do "terrible things" if re-elected.

"You didn't have to love everything that he tweeted, but you cannot deny you were better off when Donald Trump was in office," she said.

Chants of "Corey!" rang out at the Republican National Convention as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla, hailed Corey Comperatore a "hero" during his remarks Tuesday.

"Americans like Corey Comperatore, he was a former fire chief, and a loving husband," Rubio said of the Pennsylvania father, who was killed during the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally Saturday. "He was described as the best dad a girl could ever ask for, as a man of God who loved Jesus fiercely and looked after members of his church. Corey was one of the millions of everyday Americans to make our country great."

Rubio, who was once a primary rival of Trump's during the 2016 election and was rumored to be a potential running mate this year, argued that Trump has "inspired a movement" since his 2016 campaign.

"A movement of people who grow our food and drive our trucks, the people who make our cars and build our homes, the people whose taxes fund our government, and whose children fight our wars," Rubio said.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders took the stage at the Republican National Convention in support of former President Donald Trump, arguing that the former president and Republicans will do more to empower women.

"The left doesn't care about empowering women," Sanders said after recalling the treatment she received while servings as Trump's press secretary. "Biden and Harris can't even tell you what a woman is, they only care about empowering themselves."

Sanders, who became the first woman to serve as Governor of Arkansas when she took office in 2023, also noted the attempted assassination on Trump at a Pennsylvania rally Saturday, arguing that God protected the former president and wasn't done with him yet.

Madeline Brame, whose Army veteran son was killed in a stabbing in 2018, lashed out at "soft on crime prosecutors" who have turned the country and many American cities into "war zones," drawing thunderous applause from those at the 2024 Republican National Convention.

"My son, Sergeant Hason Correa, an Afghanistan War retired veteran, received enemy fire from the Taliban, only to be murdered with a knife on the streets of New York City," Brame said.

"The four assailants responsible for his death initially were facing justice, but that changed when District Attorney Alvin Bragg was elected," she continued. "Suddenly, two of the homicidal maniacs responsible for my son's death had their gang assault and murder charges completely dismissed. ... "I later learned Alvin Bragg often dismisses and reduces dangerous criminals. He wants to clear the jails and return violent felons onto our streets every day."

Brame said the "injustice" she and her family endured "was devastating" and noted that she didn't "want anyone else to experience the senseless pain that many other victims across this United States of America have to live with every day."

"So I decided to use the voice that God gave me to be the voice for the voiceless across America," she said. "We need justice for victims, and we need accountability for prosecutors who failed in their duty. Soft on crime prosecutors like Alvin Bragg in New York, Kim Foxx in Chicago and George Gascon in Los Angeles, have turned our great country and cities into war zones."

Brame also took aim at President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, saying they have "neglected the poor, minority communities across America."

"Poor and neglected communities like mine are suffering. And who else in here is sick and tired of being sick and tired," she questioned. "The Democratic Party that poor minorities have been loyal to for decades, including myself, betrayed us. They stabbed us in the back. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who claim to represent us, have abandoned us. They neglected the poor, minority communities across America."

"But my eyes have been opened, just like so many other poor minorities across America," she added. "Donald Trump shares our values — love of God and family and country. He's been a victim of the same corrupt system that I have been in, my family has been. He has committed to providing economic opportunities, helping those suffering from addiction with long time inpatient drug programs."

The family of a mother of five who was murdered, allegedly by an illegal immigrant, took aim at the Biden administration for having "opened our borders" to the man accused of killing her.

"Rachel, a joyful, accomplished athlete and mother of five was raped and murdered by a suspected illegal immigrant," Michael Morin told the crowd at the Republican National Convention. "This was described as among the most brutal and violent offenses that has ever occurred in Harford County, Maryland history."

Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, 23, faces a half-dozen charges, including first-degree murder, rape, and kidnapping, in connection with Rachel Morin's death.

Authorities have labeled him a potential serial killer after his alleged involvement in a slew of crimes against women in Central America and the United States. He is an illegal immigrant suspected not only in Morin's murder, but also a pair of sex assaults in California and the brutal slaying of another woman in his home country of El Salvador.

Morin went out for a jog on a trail near her home but never made it back. Police found her body in a culvert, covered in bruises and with severe head trauma.

"Open borders are often portrayed as compassionate and virtuous. But there is nothing compassionate about allowing violent criminals into our country and robbing children of their mother," Michael Morin said.

"Joe Biden and his designated border czar Kamala Harris opened our borders to him and others like him, empowering them to victimize the innocent," he said.

He said they had not heard from the White House, but had heard from former President Donald Trump.

MILWAUKEE — Republican Florida Rep. Cory Mills floated the idea of a "J13" committee styled after the Democrats' Jan. 6 committee after Democrats' anti-Trump rhetoric in the lead-up to the assassination attempt on the 45th president's life. 

"Look, I think we need to identify the hypocrisy here. Whenever President Trump on Jan. 6 said, "Go home peacefully,’ but he was upset about things, he doesn’t have control of what people who are evil or have intent to cause bodily harm does. But yet they ridiculed him, and they still utilize the J6 argument as a way to try and vilify Republicans," Mills told Fox News Digital from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. 

"Well, what about other rhetoric that has been said by Maxine Waters? ‘Get in the face of your elected officials,'" he said, paraphrasing California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters' 2018 comment encouraging supporters to harass President Donald Trump at the time.

"'Put a bullseye on Trump,'" he said, paraphrasing President Biden's comment this month to donors just ahead of the assassination attempt against Trump Saturday during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Biden backtracked on the comment after Trump was shot in the ear in Pennsylvania. 

Several delegates at the Republican National Convention, including Arizona's Stacey Goodman and Joe Neglia, were spotted donning ear bandages that mirrored the one being worn by former President Trump after he was wounded during an assassination attempt at his Pennsylvania rally on Saturday.

"Yesterday when he came in, and there was that eruption of love in the room, I thought, 'what can I do to honor the truth? What can I possibly do?'" Neglia told Fox News Digital. "And then I saw the bandage and I thought, I can do that. So, I put it on simply to honor Trump and to express sympathy with him and unity with him.”

Neglia said he made the bandages en route to Milwaukee, where the convention is taking place this week.

"There’s a male version and a female version because there are only two genders!" Neglia said.

Fox News Digital's Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.

Eric Trump says he is "infuriated" by the response of government officials to the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

Eric Trump responded to statements by the Secret Service director that the building on which the gunman was situated had a "sloped roof" and there was a safety factor to be considered.

"My father almost lost his head because of that incompetence," Trump told Fox News' Jesse Watters.

"My 4-year-old daughter could have walked up that roof," he said. "It's infuriating, it's an act of God he survived."

MILWAUKEE — Montana Senate candidate Tim Sheehy said the Democratic Party is braced to continue to see their victories "vanish" in the lead up to Election Day.

"This whole ‘Donald Trump's gonna hijack the government and prosecute his adversaries.’ Well, what have they been doing for the last three years? 'Donald Trump's gonna advocate for violence on his political adversaries.' What have they been doing, you know? So I think it's almost a case of comedic projection, where they're literally saying Donald Trump's gonna do everything that they've actually been doing for the last three and a half years," Sheehy told Fox News Digital from the RNC on Tuesday, when asked about the Democratic Party's anti-Trump rhetoric before and after the assassination attempt on the 45th president's life.

"So of course, [we] shouldn't be surprised that now we're seeing them flip-flop, as they're watching their victories vanish in front of their face here in the next 90 days. They're just literally trying to say anything that they can to cling on to potential victory, and that includes outright lies," he continued.

President Biden and his allies had repeatedly slammed Trump as a "dictator" and Biden saying it is "time to put Trump in a bullseye" just days ahead of a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man who tried to shoot and kill Trump at a rally in the Keystone State. Biden has since backtracked on the comments.

Sheehy, a Navy SEAL veteran running to replace longtime Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, will address the RNC on Tuesday, telling Fox News Digital that he will focus his speech on the GOP winning a "full-ticket victory" in November.

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Emma Colton.

Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, who sought the Republican nomination for president before dropping out to support former President Donald Trump, declared Tuesday from the Republican National Convention that it is time to "send Joe Biden back to his basement."

"My fellow Republicans, let's send Joe Biden back to his basement and let's send Donald Trump back to the White House. Life was more affordable when Donald Trump was president," DeSantis said. "Our border was safer under the Trump administration, and our country was respected when Donald Trump was our commander in chief."

He added, "Joe Biden has failed this nation. As a veteran, I was appalled when 13 of our service members were killed in Afghanistan due to Joe Biden's dereliction of duty. As a citizen, as a husband and as a father, I am alarmed that the current president of the United States lacks the capability to discharge the duties of his office."

DeSantis insisted Americans need a "commander in chief who can lead 24 hours a day and seven days a week," and that the U.S. "cannot afford four more years of a Weekend at Bernie's presidency."

Fox News Digital's Paul Steinhauser reports from the floor: "Haley speech was pretty well received, but let’s be honest. DeSantis is rocking the house as these delegates are eating it up and loving it."

Nikki Haley, former ambassador to the U.N. under the Trump administration and Trump's final presidential rival, took center stage at the Republican National Convention on Day 2 of the RNC on Tuesday night.

"Donald Trump has my strong endorsement," Haley said in the beginning of her speech.

"We should acknowledge that there are some Americans who don't agree with Donald Trump 100% of the time," Haley continued. "I happen to know some of them and I want to speak to them tonight. My message to them is simple: you don't have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him."

"Take it from me. I haven't always agreed with President Trump. We agree more often than we disagree," she said.

At the end of her speech, Trump flashed Haley a thumbs up.

As of last week, Haley wasn't invited to speak at the convention and wasn't planning on attending the four-day confab, which is being held in the largest city of swing state Wisconsin.

But following Saturday's attempted assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in western Pennsylvania, where the former president was visibly bloodied after a bullet grazed his ear and where one spectator was killed and two others critically injured, the GOP quickly united around their standard-bearer. And as part of that push for unity, Haley was invited to speak at the convention.

Fox News Digital's Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, after delivering a blistering speech calling for tougher border security and support of the police, receives a standing ovation from former President Trump.

Cruz highlighted the importance of border security in the light of the deaths of American citizens at the hands of illegal immigrants.

He was greeted by a standing ovation, including from Trump and running mate JD Vance. He also got chants of "back the blue" from the crowd.

The theme of day two is "Make America Safe Once Again."

Two women at the Republican National Convention took a page of the Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, R-N.Y., playbook, deciding to wear dresses that send a message.

Fox News's Liz Elkind talked to Sara Brady, who sported a Gadsden Flag dress with the famous "Don't Tread On Me" slogan and Idaho State Sen. Tammy Nichols, who is serving as a delegate, sporting a white "Make America Great Again" dress.

"It's exciting, busy, fun, energizing," Brady said of attending the RNC.

The two dresses seemingly harkened back to Ocasio-Cortez, who famously attended the 2021 Met Gala wearing a white dress with "Tax the Rich" written in red on it.

Former President Donald Trump arrived on Day 2 of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in the battleground swing state city to cheers and applauds as "What I Like About You" played in the background. The former president joined his VP, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, in the family box alongside his family members, where the pair will hear several Republican lawmakers give speeches focusing on crime and immigration.

Trump is not expected to speak until Thursday, where he will formally accept the nomination to be the Republican Party's presidential candidate on the 2024 ticket. Trump and Vance are also scheduled to rally together on Saturday in Grand Rapids, MI. It will be Trump's first rally appearance since Saturday's shooting.