On Crowded GOP Convention Schedule, Many Speakers Named Trump

Reprinted with permission from DailyKos

In what has to be a last-ditch attempt to appear prepared for the Republican National Convention, President Donald Trump's campaign released its complete list of more than 70 speakers for the convention Sunday. On it, Trump's relatives and the likes of staffers including Kellyanne Conway are described as "honorable." It's at least nice to know convention organizers aren't disillusioning themselves into thinking the president fits that title.

Simply listed as "President Donald J. Trump," the former star of The Apprentice is on the schedule to speak on the convention's final day Thursday. Party officials, however, told The New York Times the president can be expected to sing his own praises every day of the convention at 10 PM EST. Trump's mindnumbing speeches laden with stale adjectives are rumored to start Monday, the first day of the convention held in Charlotte, N.C.

Included on the agenda are several GOP politicians, Trump advisers, and apologists such as the president's infamously corrupt personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani; Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who has yet to charge the officers who shot emergency medical technician Breonna Taylor in her own home; and Kim Klacik, who is trying to unseat the Democrat elected to fill the congressional seat of late Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings.

"Over four nights, President Trump's 2020 Convention will honor the great American story, the American people that have written it, and how President Donald J. Trump's Make America Great Again agenda has empowered them to succeed," Trump's campaign said in its announcement.

Republicans have seemingly struggled to nail down even the most basic details about their convention, which the president has repeatedly bragged will be mostly in-person despite the coronavirus pandemic. Two producers of The Apprentice have even been enlisted to make sure the event isn't a complete failure. Sadoux Kim, who worked for Apprentice creator Mark Burnett, and Chuck LaBella, a producer on The Apprentice, are on the convention's payroll, The New York Times reported.

To the president, the convention seems to be little more than a cherished opportunity to one-up Democrats, part of a plan he obviously thinks is the key to his reelection. "We're going to have more of it live than what they did," Trump told Fox News on Thursday. "I think it's pretty boring when you do tapes."

I think it's more than pretty boring when a president cares more for his own popularity than his constituents' lives during a deadly pandemic. Or as Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) put it on Fox News Sunday: "Donald Trump's like a man who's lost on the highway and refuses to ask for directions. In fact worse, he has peddled quackery."