The 2024 RNC is now over, and a new phase of the 2024 presidential election is beginning. The mood of the convention was more like a religious revival than a political conference—largely explained by the failed assassination attempt on Trump just days before the convention’s start. TRNN’s Taya Graham and Stephen Janis spent the whole week in Milwaukee speaking with various RNC delegates about their views. In this final compilation of interviews, Trump supporters take the time to explain their own positions—and their answers might raise some eyebrows.
Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham
Post-Production: Stephen Janis, Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Stephen Janis:
This is Stephen Janis. We have spent several days here on the floor of the Republican National Convention talking to people how they feel, listening to some of the policy proposals. And what you get here is really much more like a religious ceremony than is a political convention. People are rapturous, people are emotional, people are accusatory.
Edward X Young:
We never raised the temperature. All of the violence and the rage and the hate comes from the left. The thing is, now they tried to kill our men.
Taya Graham:
Wait a second. That young man was a registered Republican,
Edward X Young:
Means nothing. He 20 years old. I remember. Wait, wait a
Taya Graham:
Second. There were interviews with his friends in high school who said he was conservative.
Edward X Young:
Well, let’s, anybody who would try to shoot any president or any candidate, anybody who would try to shoot anybody with a sniper rifle is psychotic.
Eric Trump:
Our country loves you. Our country appreciates you. Our country misses you.
Crowd:
[Chants] USA! USA! USA!
Taya Graham:
When you say we’re already at war, who do you believe you’re at war with?
Anonymous Trump Supporter:
Well, for instance on, I believe it was March 8th, 2023, C, D. C Director Redfield gave testimony to Congress that the DOD, he implicated the DOD in the Covid operation. He said that the military took over the labs in September of 2019. So I would say within our own government we’re being attacked.
Brother Jim:
It was not a surprise. It was expected because the Democrats have ratcheted up the rhetoric of killing and assassinating Trump. Even Biden said, it’s time to put him in a crosshairs in a scope.
Stephen Janis:
Now, Trump has his own rhetoric that is somewhat incendiary. How do you respond to people who say, well, he’s also doing, talking about stuff like this?
Brother Jim:
Well, Trump has never incited violence that people will be violent against other individuals.
Stephen Janis:
What about January 6th?
Brother Jim:
What about that January 6th? That was an insurgent by lots of feds, which we now know, and they were doing the violence and got other people to follow with them. Everybody
Kid Rock:
To put a fist up in the air. Everybody get a fist up in the air.
Chris:
All the assassinations that have happened in American history, with the exception of J-F-K-J-F-K and his brother, who I think in modern political pardons would be Republicans, all other assassinations were Democrats killing Republicans. I think that there is a legitimate thread that can be tied from Lincoln to this past Saturday that when Democrats don’t get their way, they tend to shoot Republicans. When Republicans don’t get their way, they tend to show up in a group and redress their government. They protest to redress their government and sometimes they do so angrily
Donald J. Trump:
Great. I also spoke to all three families of these tremendous people.
Ricardo Bravo:
They’re welcome. We welcome every American, every ethnic, and you can see here there’s more minorities than I think when I went to the last election, but you got to do it the right way. Or they can file the 1325 or 1326. If you get caught, then you go, go back. But if you isn’t
Taya Graham:
Our system very much backed up. Now there’s a wait list of years. You said your parents were able to do it the right way. I don’t know if that’s possible for people to do it the way your parents
Ricardo Bravo:
Did. Well, one of the ways to do it financially instead of spending money on all these other things, priorities with a trillion debt, we invested more in hiring the proper people on the border. We hired the administrative agencies to do it the right way.
Crowd:
[Chants] USA! USA!
Stephen Janis:
President Trump brought up black jobs. Did you find that offensive at all?
Darius Mayfield:
Yeah, actually, I thought it was offensive with all the black people and white liberals that actually found that offensive because nothing of what he said was offensive. He was talking about black jobs, black jobs in urban communities. Those are typically occupied by black and brown people. Those are black jobs. So this gaslighting that we have right now, I actually just put up a post and a post. I’m just surmising here. It said basically all these black commentators that keep saying that there’s not a lot of black people here at the Republican National Convention, though that is the most hypocritically, gaslighting statement I’ve ever heard because this is literally coming from people that have ostracized themselves from the Republican party from half of the country, and to be making comments like that makes no sense, but common sense, black people are here and I’ll make sure we diversify our political affiliation,
Dalene McCormick:
Our reserves were full. They’re now empty. So now we have to fill the reserve as well as open up our oil production so that we can become oil independent in America. I mean, there’s so many more I could talk about, but America
Taya Graham:
First thing is when I think of Hawaii, I think of its natural beauty. But when you say drilling for oil, I also know that there is some destruction that can occur to beautiful areas. Does the Republican party all support alternative sources of energy? I mean, we’ve got Elon Musk in this country making electric cars. I mean, is it just drill, baby drill or do you support, let’s say more green technologies?
Dalene McCormick:
I support it, but I want you to think about it logically. There is waste involved. We have these beautiful large windmills down at South Point in Hawaii, and what happens is the huge bases on these things sit on the ground near the ocean and rust out. So how is that green energy?
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