- President Donald Trump is to speak on all four nights of next week's Republican National Convention, reported The New York Times on Saturday.
- Usually, the party's presidential candidate only speaks on the last night, to accept the party's nomination.
- The president, who has a background in reality TV, plans a spectacular first-ever virtual RNC that he hopes will eclipse last week's Democratic convention.
- The party's list of key speakers is dominated by Trump family members, with the president's wife and three of his children to address the conference, reported Fox News.
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President Donald Trump will speak on all four nights of next week's Republican National Convention, breaking with the longstanding tradition limiting the party's presidential candidate to one big acceptance speech on the last night of the event, The New York Times reported.
Trump will speak at the RNC's first-ever virtual event every night in a prime-time 10pm slot, reported the Times. The party plans are being coordinated by two former Apprentice producers who hope to eclipse the DNC's first virtual convention last week. Trump was the show's host for the first fourteen seasons, and the show's popularity gave him a national profile and contributed to his rise to the presidency.
According to Politico, Trump believes that last week's DNC event was too "gloomy," and wants a more upbeat tone for the GOP conference.
Some of the conference events, reportedly including the president's acceptance speech, will be hosted at the White House, which is not traditionally used by presidents for campaign events. It's a move that has been denounced by critics as unethical.
Half of the speakers are Trumps pic.twitter.com/XB90nY5tTm
— Blake News (@blakehounshell) August 22, 2020
According to the report, Trump plans to speak every night of the event because he "wants the opportunity to rebut charges made against him throughout the Democratic program, aides said, particularly on his handling of the coronavirus crisis."
The Republican Convention did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Members of the president's family will take center stage at the event, with the Trump family comprising half of the list of keynote speakers scheduled to address Republicans at the event, according to Fox News.
Along with the president himself, they include First Lady Melania Trump, the president's daughter and White House advisor Ivanka Trump, the president's sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, who are both executives in the Trump Organization, and his youngest daughter, Tiffany Trump.
The event will also feature speeches from ordinary Americans conservatives say have been impacted by liberal extremism. The St Louis couple who controversially brandished guns at Black lives Matter protesters outside their mansion are due to speak.
Nick Sandmann, the high school student, who sued several publications over their coverage of his encounter with a Native American protester in 2019, has also been given top billing.
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