GOP prepares for night 2 of the Midterm Convention, Trump’s sendoff speech

Vice President JD Vance blasted Democrats on Thursday evening for being fixated on opposing President Donald Trump, his agenda and their own constituents.

“It’s not about you, it’s about foreign fraudsters, and it’s about who they hate. And we got to send their asses back in November,” Vance said.

Vance’s remarks come as Republicans at the convention have tried to paint Democrats as a party out of control on its messaging, policies and candidates; that far-left progressives have forced middle-of-the-road ideas out of focus.

He warned that those changes would have consequences for future Americans.

“Democrats are running candidates who will tell your children what they’re allowed to say, how they’re allowed to live and importantly, who they ought to hate, because that’s what the Democrat Party is about in 2026,” Vance said.

“We got to send a message this November. We got to send a message this November that the country does not belong to the radicals. It does not belong to the bureaucrats. It does not belong to the highest bidder. This country was handed down to us by our parents and their parents before them. We received this national birthright, and we are going to fight for it by electing Republicans this November.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, accused Democrats of embracing the party’s far-left wing during a speech at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas.

“When people tell you who they are, believe them,” Cruz said.

Cruz cited comments and positions he attributed to Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Texas Senate candidate James Talarico.

“When Hasan Piker says America deserved 9/11, believe him,” Cruz said. “When Mamdani says he wants to seize the means of production, he means it. When Abdul El-Sayed says he has an obligation to comply with Sharia law, he means it. And when James Talarico says he wants to dismantle capitalism, he means it.”

Cruz said not every Democrat in Congress agrees with those views, but argued that Democratic leaders are unwilling to confront the party’s most progressive activists.

“They are all afraid of these radicals because that’s where the money and the energy and the young people are in the Democrat Party,” Cruz said.

“Why does El-Sayed refuse to disavow Hasan Piker?” Cruz asked. “Why does Chuck Schumer stand alongside El-Sayed? Their threats are not simply empty words.”

Donald Trump Jr. used his speech at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas to honor late conservative activist Charlie Kirk and urge Republicans to remain engaged ahead of the November elections.

Trump Jr. said Kirk, who was killed one year ago, inspired young Americans to advocate for “faith, family, freedom and patriotism.”

He described Kirk as a prominent voice for free speech and said Republicans would honor his legacy by continuing to fight for the country.

“We will not back down. We will not fold,” Trump Jr. told the crowd.He portrayed the election as a contest between two competing visions for America, describing the Republican message as “common sense” versus what he called Democratic “extremism.”

Trump Jr. also accused the left of rejecting open debate and seeking “obedience” and “total control” over Americans’ lives.

Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, attended the convention’s tribute to her late husband, which included a memorial display and remarks honoring his influence on young conservatives one year after his death.

Vice President JD Vance delivered an emotional keynote address at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, reflecting on fatherhood, the loss of his friend Charlie Kirk and the future of the conservative movement.

Vance spoke about welcoming his fourth child and the importance of building a country where American families can thrive. He also honored Kirk, the conservative activist who was killed one year ago, and credited Kirk’s widow, Erika, with influencing his decision to have another child.

Vance described Kirk as a close friend who supported him during his early political career and helped strengthen his Christian faith. He said Kirk’s death left a void but argued that his message and movement would continue.

The vice president also criticized Democrats, portraying the midterm election as a choice between Republican policies and what he called the left’s embrace of socialism, open borders and cultural extremism.

Vance spoke before President Donald Trump delivered the convention’s closing remarks.

This is an excerpt from a story by Ashley DiMella reporting from Dallas, Texas.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused the Biden administration of losing track of hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children during his remarks at the GOP Midterm Convention on Thursday.

“They somehow lost 360,000 children, and they turned our federal government into the biggest child trafficking operation in world history,” Kennedy said.

“The Democratic Party, in short, lost its way. I mourn the fact, and neither my father nor my uncle would recognize the Democratic Party of today,” he added.

Kennedy’s remarks appear to reference federal findings about the government’s inability to effectively monitor the location and status of unaccompanied migrant children after they were released from federal custody.

A March 2025 Department of Homeland Security inspector general report found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement transferred more than 448,000 unaccompanied migrant children to the Department of Health and Human Services from fiscal 2019 through fiscal 2023, most of whom were later released to sponsors.

The watchdog found that, as of January 2025, ICE had not served Notices to Appear on more than 233,000 children, meaning they had not been assigned immigration court dates. More than 43,000 other children who had received notices failed to appear for scheduled immigration court hearings as of October 2024.

The inspector general concluded that ICE could not effectively monitor the location and status of all unaccompanied migrant children after they left federal custody and warned that the shortcomings left the agency without assurance that the children were safe from trafficking, exploitation or forced labor.

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson told Republicans gathered in his city Thursday that he switched parties after becoming disillusioned with the direction of Democratic-led cities and embracing the GOP’s approach to public safety and economic policy.

“Welcome to the biggest city in America with a Republican mayor,” Johnson said.

“I spent most of my life as a Democrat, but a few years ago, I chose to follow a different course. I chose to join a party that believes in some fundamental truths: that public safety must be our top priority, that economic freedom is vital, that taxpayers and families deserve respect, and that pro-business policies create jobs and opportunity,” Johnson said.

Johnson, who switched parties in 2023, also contrasted Dallas with other major cities that he argued have put ideology ahead of responsible governance.

“Just look at Chicago, where the mayor once called defunding the police an actual, real political goal. Look at Seattle, where the Socialist mayor there told residents not to drink Starbucks and actually waved bye to taxpayers and job creators who were anxious about higher taxes,” Johnson said.

On the heels of President Donald Trump’s pledge to campaign for Republicans in competitive races, North Carolina Senate nominee Michael Whatley announced that Trump would visit the state next week.

Whatley shared the news Thursday on X, along with a White House link for supporters to sign up for the event. The visit would give Whatley a high-profile boost as he challenges former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper for North Carolina’s open Senate seat.

Whatley, a former chairman of both the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party, spoke at the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas on Wednesday.

The race is expected to be closely watched as Republicans work to defend their Senate majority and Democrats seek to gain seats in November.

Trump said during the convention that he would campaign in competitive states on behalf of Republican congressional and Senate candidates, potentially visiting some states more than once.

Ross Ulbricht, who received a full pardon from President Donald Trump after serving more than a decade of a life sentence, praised the president at the GOP Midterm Convention for what he described as efforts to rein in a “weaponized government” and protect civil liberties.

“President Trump heard about my case. He felt compassion for me because he, too, was the target of a weaponized government,” Ulbricht said. “He said that if the American people sent him back to the White House, he would free me. The day after he took office, he pardoned me.”

Ulbricht became a prominent cause among libertarians and criminal justice reform advocates after receiving a life sentence for creating and operating Silk Road, an anonymous online marketplace used to buy and sell illegal drugs and other illicit goods and services.

“Now, let me tell you what I learned in prison. I learned that the machinery we built to protect ourselves from criminals can be turned around and pointed at people who have harmed no one,” he continued.

Ulbricht went on to praise Trump for rolling back policies he said targeted gun store owners and parents concerned about what their children are learning in public schools.

Trump, meanwhile, has faced criticism from opponents who accuse his administration of using the Justice Department to target political adversaries.

A Texas Republican congressional candidate seeking to topple a vulnerable incumbent Democrat is calling out Democrats for getting lost in “their crazy woke identity,” accusing them of not knowing who they are.

“I know exactly who I am,” Tano Tijerina said. ”I’m Tano Tijerina, I’m a beef eating, truck driving, gun slinging,” before breaking for applause from the crowd.

“I’m a beef eating, gun slinging. I’m a truck driving, I am. Oh, I’m a Bible thumping, Jesus loving… cowboy that’s gonna fight like Hell for South Texas,” Tijerina continued.

Tano Tijerina is challenging Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar in Texas’ 28th Congressional District, one of five Democratic-held seats targeted in the mid-decade redistricting effort pushed by President Donald Trump.

Tijerina served as Webb County judge beginning in 2015 and was elected as a Democrat before switching to the Republican Party in December 2024.

“I used to be a Democrat. Down in Webb County. That’s just who we were. My family was. My neighborhood was. It was like a religion,” Tijerina said.

“But here’s the truth. I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.”

The GOP Midterm Convention honored Charlie Kirk on day two with a video montage featuring clips of the late Turning Point USA founder, including a speech in which he urged his followers to take an active role in politics.

“Duty is ours and the result is the Lord’s,” Kirk said in the video. “We do our part and we trust in God for the rest. God will not honor our laziness if we think being apathetic is going to save the country. It’s about using your agency, using your ability to act.”

Kirk urged his followers to reject political complacency and push for change.

“We are no longer going to accept comfortable losing,” he said. “We are no longer going to accept excuses from our elected officials.”

“We have more combined political power than they have ever allowed us to believe,” Kirk continued. “We are the party of people that shower before work and shower after work. The people that get their hands dirty, the people that protect our streets, the people that have built this country.”

The tribute came on the one-year anniversary of Kirk’s assassination at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, where he was speaking at a Turning Point USA event on Sept. 10, 2025.

Vice President JD Vance is expected to take a more personal approach during his keynote speech at the Republican National Convention in Dallas on Thursday night, according to a source familiar with the remarks.

Vance is expected to reflect on becoming a father again and the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk while urging voters to continue fighting for their stake in the country.

The speech is expected to focus on fatherhood, the future and the direction of the nation, rather than the hardscrabble upbringing and “mamaw” story Vance emphasized during his 2024 Republican National Convention speech.

Vance’s remarks will come as he takes the primetime spotlight on the second night of the GOP’s first-ever midterm convention. President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak after Vance and deliver the closing address.

The speech also comes as Vance is increasingly viewed as a potential Republican presidential contender in 2028, though he has said he will wait until after the midterm elections before deciding whether to pursue a White House bid.

Speaking at the GOP Midterm Convention in Dallas on Thursday evening, Madeline Gorman, sister of Sheridan Gorman, spoke out against sanctuary city policies that she said allowed the man now charged with killing her sister to remain free before the fatal shooting near Loyola University Chicago.

“If laws had been enforced and law enforcement had been able to work together the way common sense says they should, Sheridan would still be here,” Gorman said.

“If someone is here illegally and commits a crime, why wouldn’t local law enforcement cooperate with federal law enforcement?” she added.

According to authorities, Jose Medina had encounters with law enforcement before Gorman’s killing. He was apprehended after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in May 2023 and was later arrested in Chicago in connection with a retail theft case.

Gorman’s killing quickly became a flashpoint in the national debate over illegal immigration and sanctuary policies that have created roadblocks to local-federal immigration enforcement efforts.

Medina, a Venezuelan national who authorities say entered the country illegally, is charged with first-degree murder and other offenses in connection with Gorman’s death. He has pleaded not guilty.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott used his speech at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas to promote the state’s immigration, law enforcement and election policies while criticizing Democrats running for statewide office.

Abbott praised President Donald Trump, saying no president had done more to secure the southern border. He highlighted Texas laws targeting sanctuary cities, illegal border crossings and foreign ownership of land, as well as measures addressing police funding and voter identification.

The governor also promoted Texas’ school choice program and his administration’s policies restricting transgender medical procedures for minors.

Abbott framed the upcoming election as a choice between “common sense and crazy,” accusing Democrats of supporting higher taxes, Green New Deal policies and what he called weak public-safety measures.

“We are going to demolish the Democrats,” Abbott told the crowd, urging Republicans to keep Texas red and help Trump “keep America great.”

Mike Rogers, the GOP nominee for Senate in Michigan, recounted the story of the Flight 93 passenger revolt and compared that courage to the alleged extremism of his opponent, Abdul El-Sayed.

“But when the terrorist hijacked Flight 93, intending to bring death and destruction to our Capitol, a brave Michigander named Todd Beamer called his family,” Rogers said. “And then he went on to inspire a nation when he told his fellow passengers, ‘let’s roll.’”

After Flight 93 had been hijacked during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Beamer rallied his fellow passengers to resist the terrorists, forcing them to crash the plane into a Pennsylvania field rather than their intended target of Washington, D.C. Beamer’s father, a Michigander, has endorsed Rogers over El-Sayed.

“He wants to represent Palestine. I want to represent Michigan,” Rogers said of El-Sayed. “And when the radical Islamic terrorists threaten Americans, we don’t need a senator searching for excuses. We need a senator hunting them. September 11th isn’t something that we deserved. No matter what Abdul’s buddies say.”

El-Sayed’s links to controversial Islamic clerics as well as Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who once claimed America “deserved 9/11,” have become focal points of the Senate race in Michigan.

“America, let’s roll,” Rogers said, closing out his remarks.

Ohio Republican congressional candidate Derek Merrin, who is seeking to defeat a long reigning Democrat incumbent, applauded President Donald Trump’s efforts to revive manufacturing jobs.

“The Trump administration is working to restore manufacturing and bring those back jobs back to my district and districts all across the country,” Merrin said during his address at the GOP Midterm Convention.

“Last month, America’s manufacturing activity was at its highest level in four years.”Merrin then goes on to list the new plants that are being built in Ohio, which includes an auto plant in Rossford, Ohio that will bring 500 new jobs and that another automaker invested 400 million in Toledo, which will bring 900 new jobs.

He scoffed at his opponent Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, who has been in office since 1983. He accused her of standing idly by while Ohioans struggled.

 “For 43 years, my opponent, Marcy Kaptur, watched from her luxury Washington condo as domestic manufacturing floundered. Jobs disappeared one by one, hollowing out our city and sending our wealth to foreign nations,” Merrin said

Former Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., called attention to his opponent’s ties to Hasan Piker, a progressive streamer with an online footprint that has drawn scrutiny and alarm from Republicans.Rogers, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in the Wolverine state, is running against Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat who has campaigned extensively with Piker.

“On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, [I am] running against a guy who, just 25 years later, after that horrific event, thinks it’s okay to chum around with a guy who believes we deserved 9/11, who says he is a terrorist sympathizer,” Rogers said.

Rogers, like many Republicans, has aimed to tie Piker and his many controversial comments to other Democrats he has campaigned with, pressing them on why they had chosen to associate with him.

In addition to his comments about 9/11, Piker has attracted criticism for his characterizations of U.S. foreign policy. Once, when asked if he supported terrorism, Piker answered by saying, “No, I don’t. I don’t support the state of Israel, and I don’t support the state of the United States of America.”

“This is as crazy and as wild and anti-American as it gets. It’s really important to come down and say, ‘these are your choices — not just for Michigan, but really for the country,” Rogers said.

Rep. Jason Smith, R- Mo., who called himself a Hillbilly from the Ozarks in the beginning of his remarks of the GOP MIdterm Convention, said the Republican Party is the party of the working class — long believed to be true of the Democratic Party.

“I grew up in a single wide trailer, and then we upgraded when I was in junior high school to a double wide,” Smith said. “I’m a Republican because the Republican Party is the party of the working class.”

Like other speakers at the convention, Smith, who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee praised the Trump signing the Working Families Tax Cut Act into law.

“Thanks to the working families tax cuts, if you are a family of four and make less than $73,000 a year or less in the United States, you pay zero in federal taxes because of the big beautiful bill,” Smith said. “The personal stories I’ve heard from working families across the country speak to the real impact this tax relief has had on their lives.” 

President Donald Trump told a CBS News reporter Thursday that he does not believe he would need congressional approval to send $5,000 payments to American adults, a proposal he unveiled during the Republican midterm convention in Dallas.

Trump has described the payments as a dividend that could be funded through tariff revenue and other government proceeds. He said the checks would be issued if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the November midterm elections.

Some Republicans close to Trump have said they could introduce legislation to authorize the payments. Others have criticized the proposal as an expensive giveaway that could worsen inflation and increase the federal deficit.

The Constitution, however, gives Congress authority over federal spending. Article I, Section 9, says that “no Money shall be drawn from the Treasury” without an appropriation made by law. The Constitution Annotated, a congressional resource, explains that federal money generally cannot be paid out without an act of Congress.

The plan could cost more than $1 trillion, depending on eligibility rules. Vice President JD Vance has suggested that higher-income Americans might not qualify.

Trump has floated similar direct-payment proposals during his current term, but no nationwide $5,000 checks have been issued.

House Speaker Mike Johnson touted the Republican-led Congress as one of the most productive in American history during a speech at the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas.

“The media won’t tell you this, but this has been one of the most productive Congresses in the history of the institution since 1789,” Johnson said. “It’s been the most productive Congress in 80 years.”

Johnson said the House has passed more than 900 pieces of legislation during the current Congress, including the SAVE America Act four times.

He also credited Republicans and President Donald Trump with delivering what he called the largest middle-class tax cut and largest spending cut in U.S. history, while touting lower crime, reduced illegal border crossings, new children’s investment accounts and lower prescription drug prices.

“Republicans delivering and Democrats radicalizing,” Johnson said. “That is the contrast for America.”

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., took to the stage at the GOP convention in Dallas on Thursday evening, warning that while all Democrats aren’t socialists, the failure to push back on far-left policies has transformed the party.

“Just last week, nearly every Democrat in the House of Representatives voted against condemning socialism in Marxism,” Johnson said.

“The Democrat Party has been taken over by crazy far-left radicals.”

Johnson argued that, while figures like Zohran Mamdani, the self-proclaimed socials mayor of New York City, have taken the spotlight, many lesser known figures like him are also making their ascent.

He believes silence from moderates is making it possible.

“We know who the Mamdani is, but it’s the Democrats in the swing seats who say one thing and then join forces and vote with the socialists that they’re afraid of. That is the dangerous part. They’re the ones who have let the barbarians inside the gate,” Johnson said.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, invoked his family’s history in communist Cuba during a speech at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, warning that Americans must remain vigilant in defending freedom.

Cruz said his father fled Cuba more than six decades ago and repeatedly expressed gratitude for the opportunity to build a life in Texas.

But he also recalled his father asking what their family would do if Americans lost their freedom.

“Where do we go?” Cruz recalled him asking. “We go nowhere.”

Cruz urged Republicans to unite around the Constitution and oppose what he described as the growing influence of communism and Islamism within the Democratic Party.

“Sharia law has no place in America,” Cruz said, arguing that it is inconsistent with the Constitution.

The Texas senator also praised President Donald Trump, saying the president had secured the border, attracted investment and helped transform the Republican Party into a “blue-collar party.”

Cruz’s remarks came as Republicans seek to rally voters ahead of the midterm elections.

He also referenced the anniversaries of Charlie Kirk’s killing and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying the party must stand against political violence and threats to American freedom.

Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., said Thursday she was “gravely disappointed” by fellow Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. John Fetterman’s surprise video appearance at the Republican midterm convention, calling it a “stunt” while criticizing his record in the Senate.

“I tell you, I was disappointed in that stunt,” Dean told reporters, recalling that she ran against Fetterman in Pennsylvania’s crowded 2018 Democratic primary for lieutenant governor.

“I got to know and really like him and his family and his values, but what we have seen in his service as a senator is something very different than what I got to know around John,” Dean said.

Dean criticized Fetterman’s “work ethic” and alleged lack of attendance and participation on Senate committees and argued that his voting record has increasingly aligned with President Donald Trump on issues including administration nominees and war powers.

“I am gravely disappointed with John and that stunt,” Dean said. “What I wish he was doing was back home in Pennsylvania making sure, like I am, that Pennsylvania will see more Democratic members of the House to uphold the values that he originally ran on.”

Fetterman was not physically at the GOP gathering in Dallas. The Pennsylvania senator appeared in a prerecorded video Wednesday introducing Republican Sen. Dave McCormick, whom he praised as a “great friend” and “the kind of senator that gets the job done.”

Fetterman described himself as a “common-sense Democrat” and said he would “reject the extremes and socialism” while pledging to work with McCormick and Trump to support Pennsylvania’s steel industry.

The appearance fueled renewed speculation about Fetterman’s relationship with his party, but the senator quickly rejected suggestions he could switch sides.

“I’m a lifelong Democrat who votes overwhelmingly with my party,” Fetterman said in a statement after the video aired, adding that if Democrats capture the Senate in November, “I will still be the 51st vote that I ran on.”

A Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) advocate pushed back Thursday against labeling parents who question chemicals and additives in their children’s food as “extremists,” while rallying behind President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas.

“Parents who ask about chemicals, additives and where their food comes from are not extremists. They’re doing their job,” Amanda Hughes, a Minnesota mother and activist, told the crowd. “They deserve honest labels, serious research, and sunlight.”

Hughes pointed to the Trump administration’s MAHA agenda, highlighting efforts to phase out petroleum-based synthetic food dyes, restrict certain junk-food purchases through state SNAP waivers and increase federal oversight of substances added to the food supply.

Hughes said her goal was not to promise parents “a world without illness,” but to give children the healthiest possible start while ensuring parents have information to make decisions for their families.

“Children deserve protection. Parents deserve power. And families deserve the truth,” Hughes said.

She closed by throwing her support behind the administration’s MAHA push. “President Trump and Secretary Kennedy are leading it,” Hughes said. “They welcome our questions. They have our backs. Let’s have theirs.”

Marty O’Donnell, a congressional candidate who worked on the soundtracks for Halo and Destiny, spoke to the Republican midterm convention on Thursday, arguing for the importance of faith, family and the American dream.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, self-evident, not negotiated, not hidden, not plead the fifth,” O’Donnell said. “Truth is knowable. Freedom is a gift from our creator. Lies and slavery come from the mind of man. That’s Marxism. Here’s the final thing. People need God. Without God, liberty collapses.”

“I’m running because of my grandkids,” O’Donnell continued. “I look at those kids, and I think about the country they’re about to grow up in. And I decided that I couldn’t sit on the sidelines any longer … One good job used to be enough. One good job was enough t