What to watch for on the first night of the Republican National Convention

There are two broad factions of potential 2024 Republican presidential candidates, and they roughly represent the two potential outcomes of this November’s election. If Trump wins reelection, then the most promising GOP presidential candidates in 2024 will be Trump loyalists such as Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 

But if Trump loses to Biden, then Republicans who have positioned themselves to lead a post-Trump Republican Party out of the proverbial wreckage of November will suddenly have the upper hand in 2024. And no one so far has built a more viable post-Trump profile than Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations, who speaks on Monday night. 

Haley resigned from the Trump administration on good terms in late 2018, and the following year she wrote a political memoir, “With All Due Respect,” in which she claimed that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told her that he resisted implementing some of Trump’s policies because, if he hadn’t, “people would die.” Haley rejected the idea of working from the inside to thwart Trump.

Nonetheless, Haley has carefully created some space between her own positions and the president’s. She has even publicly called Trump out on occasion, like she did in August of last year after Trump insulted then-Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland. 

With tweets like these, Haley captured the mood of a significant chunk of the Republican electorate, especially pre-coronavirus, who generally approved of Trump’s policies but not necessarily his conduct. 

When she speaks Monday, watch to see how well Haley continues to toe this line between supporting Trump and not condoning his behavior, especially now that more than 175,000 Americans have died from coronavirus.

Does Haley go all in for her former boss? Or does she hint at the fact that Trump, currently the underdog in his own reelection fight, may someday be little more than a bad memory for the Republican Party?

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/24/rnc-tonight-what-to-watch.html