RNC 2024 Day 2 updates: Nikki Haley to speak as GOP stresses Trump’s ‘unity’ theme

The second day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee gets underway Tuesday afternoon after a dramatic appearance Monday night by the party’s new nominee — former President Donald Trump — wearing a bandage on his ear where he was wounded in an assassination attempt two days before.

Among the featured speakers — a late add — will be Trump’s former primary rival — former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley — who once called Trump a “catastrophe.” She now is expected to stress Trump’s new theme of “unity.”

2024 issues Wisconsin voters said they care about the most

Wisconsin voters spoke with ABC News about what issues matter most to them this election as the RNC happens in their backyard. They include inflation, border, health care and democracy.

Republican voter Valori Schmidt, 68 and a retired teacher, said the border mattered most to her.

“We cannot sustain America on this massive influx of immigrants,” she said. “And then they’re everywhere that we don’t know. I want — I love the American dream. I love immigration coming in the correct door, the correct way.”

-ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler

Trump elevates an ally in JD Vance and sets the course of the GOP’s future: ANALYSIS

Former President Donald Trump pick of Sen. J.D. Vance as his vice president is helping set the course of the Republican Party’s future.

With the selection of Vance as his running mate, it give the first-term senator a massive platform to help steer the party at the end of a hypothetical Trump term in 2029 — and even a leg up if he were to then seek the top job himself.

“Trump wants to make sure MAGA outlives him,” said Dan Eberhart, a Trump donor, referencing the “Make America Great Again” mantra that the former president popularized. “I think that was a big part of the choice.”

-ABC News’ Tal Axelrod

Liz Cheney blasts Trump’s pick of JD Vance as VP

Former Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, one of Donald Trump’s most vocal critics, is blasting his selection of J.D. Vance as his pick for vice president in a post on X — slamming his stance on the 2020 election and contrasting it with that of Trump’s former running mate Mike Pence.

She said with Vance on the ticket, the Republican Party is no longer one of “Lincoln, Reagan or the Constitution.”

“JD Vance has pledged he would do what Mike Pence wouldn’t – overturn an election and illegally seize power. He says the president can ignore the rulings of our courts. He would capitulate to Russia and sacrifice the freedom of our allies in Ukraine. The Trump GOP is no longer the party of Lincoln, Reagan or the Constitution,” Cheney wrote.

Her post quoted a earlier post she wrote in February in which she claimed “Neither Trump nor Vance is fit to serve.”

“Yesterday, @JDVance1 claimed that Trump could defy rulings of the Supreme Court as President. Vance also admitted he would have done what VP Pence refused to do on January 6th—help Trump illegally seize power. That’s tyranny. Neither Trump nor Vance is fit to serve.,” Cheney wrote then.

-ABC’s Isabella Murray

Nikki Haley among tonight’s featured speakers as GOP stresses ‘unity’

Following a memorable day with former President Donald Trump selecting Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate, the convention is off to a rolling start.
Tuesday’s theme is “Make America Safe Again” and speakers will focus on crime, fentanyl, and illegal immigration.

As the Trump campaign tries to capitalize on Trump’s new message of “unity,” Nikki Haley, Trump’s former bitter primary rival, will speak. Originally, Haley was not offered a slot, but was added the day after the attempted assassination> of Trump Saturday at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

–ABC’s Kelsey Walsh