CLEVELAND — Donald Trump’s supporters painted a dark and dystopian portrait of an America in decline on Monday, as a parade of people spoke about a country slipping from their grasp, cops getting gunned down in the streets, and their family members slain by illegal immigrants.
But a self-inflicted scheduling blunder — the Trump campaign put the evening’s headliner, Melania Trump, well before the prime-time hour ended — had the networks turning away before the precious hour of free TV had been used up. Worse, her speech bore a striking resemblance to a Michelle Obama speech from 2008.
People inside the hall streamed for the exits as Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn droned on, and NBC wrapped up its hour, after some banter between its anchors, with a shot of a shockingly empty arena.
It was a rough end to a day that began with Trump’s campaign feuding with the popular Republican governor of Ohio, and that featured shouting and jostling on the convention floor as the party tried to stamp out the last embers of the Never Trump campaign. All day, cable news chyrons spoke of disunity and chaos.
On stage, there was a red-meat buffet of raw emotion for an angry Republican electorate, with little talk of ideology or policy. Indeed, there were more mentions of fallen American soldiers than of conservatism.
But there were even fewer signs of outreach across the aisle or to independents. For most of the night, the convention lineup felt and sounded more like a tea party rally on the statehouse steps — with little-known speakers delivering hard-line speeches — than a traditional national convention.
The Trump campaign’s stated theme for the evening was to “make America safe again,” and they sold Trump as a rescuer of the nation by focusing almost exclusively on the current, imperiled state of affairs.
Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, spoke in prime time about “why our enemies see us as weak and vulnerable” and of the terrorists planning to “come here and kill us.”
“There’s no next election,” he said, “This is it.”
Melania Trump stood out, in an all-white dress, as a beacon of positivity, hailing her husband’s tenacity: “He will never, ever give up and most importantly he will never ever let you down.”
She presented a big tent GOP, naming Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hispanics, African-Americans and Asians as among those welcome in her husband’s party. She was the exception, however.
More than an hour earlier, a series of speakers delivered intense, emotional addresses about family members killed by illegal immigrants and why they supported Trump — and opposed Hillary Clinton.
But MSNBC, CNN and Fox News did not carry those speeches, sharply limiting the audience. It was fallout, in part, of the Trump campaign’s decision to craft a schedule that squeezed six Trumps and the head of Trump’s winery into prime time this week.
Trump himself stepped on one of the early evening’s most moving speakers, Patricia Smith, the mother of one of four Americans killed in Benghazi. As she spoke, holding back tears, the arena was rapt — and roiling with anger. “I blame Hillary Clinton, I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son,” Smith said.
But Trump was trampling all over the emotional testimony. He had called in live to Fox News, which switched away to hear his thoughts. Among Trump’s urgent messages: “I’m probably the least racist person there is,” he told Bill O’Reilly.
One victim of the schedule malfunction was Sen. Joni Ernst, viewed by many as a rising star in the GOP. She spoke after Flynn, and by the time she was done even Trump’s kids, Bob Dole and Giuliani had vacated their seats in the VIP section. Gov. Scott Walker had abandoned his seat among the Wisconsin delegates, too.
The earlier parts of the first day of the convention in Cleveland did not go much better. Trump’s motorcade got into an accident en route to the city. And Trump’s campaign picked a fight with Republican Gov. John Kasich, who has sky-high approval ratings in the swing state but has declined to endorse Trump or attend the convention.
Paul Manafort, Trump’s top campaign adviser, began the day by saying Kasich was “embarrassing his state” by not attending, appearing on MSNBC and other morning shows.
Ohio Republicans reacted angrily.
“All along, we’ve been looking for a more unifying message coming from the Trump campaign,” Matt Borges, the state GOP chairman, told POLITICO. "And then he came to Cleveland this morning as we’re lifting the curtain on one of the crown jewels of the Republican Party and the effort we had in Ohio to bring this convention here, he decided to go in a direction that was obviously calculated — he did it on all the shows — and he’s factually incorrect.”
Ohio is supposed to be a linchpin in Trump’s path to 270 electoral votes and his skeletal campaign will likely need to lean heavily on the operations of the Ohio GOP.
Trump himself made an appearance during prime time, emerging to the strains of Queen’s s “We are the Champions,” his distinctive silhouette appearing in front of a bright-white background that seemed otherworldly.
“We are going to win so big,” he said.
Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana was one of the last of the speakers whom Trump and the Republican Party Trump had listed as a headliner.
But by the time he was speaking, the strict hierarchy of floor passes that governed the arena all day had been abandoned. Security guards told people everyone was welcome on the floor.
