RNC tries to close the gender gap on Night 3

Vice President Mike Pence expressed his condolences for the families who have lost loved ones to coronavirus.

"After all the sacrifice in this year like no other, all the hardship, we're finding our way forward again," he said. "But tonight our hearts are with all of the families who have lost loved ones and have family members still struggling with serious illness. In this country we mourn with those who mourn, we grieve with those who grieve."

He continued: "And this night, I know that millions of Americans will pause and pray for God's comfort for each of you."

Pence also praised frontline workers for their "heroic" efforts.

"Our country doesn't get through such a time unless its people find strength within. The response of doctors, nurses, first responders, farmers, factory workers, truckers and everyday Americans who put the health and safety of their neighbors first has been nothing short of heroic," he said.

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Vice President Mike Pence accepted his party's VP nomination as a crowd in Baltimore, Maryland, cheered, "Four more years."

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Vice President Mike Pence used the opening remarks of his speech at the Republican National Convention to acknowledge the efforts underway in Louisiana and Texas to prepare for Hurricane Laura.

More on the hurricane: Hurricane Laura has strengthened into a Category 4 storm as it heads toward the Texas and Louisiana coasts.

The National Hurricane Center warns that "unsurvivable" storm surges of up to 15 feet could overwhelm parts of the Gulf Coast.

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In one of the final scheduled speeches for Wednesday night’s Republican convention, former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell spoke about President Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda, extolling his pivot away from globalization and toward nationalism, which he argued put “America first.” 

Grenell previously served as US ambassador to Germany, and earlier this year, the President brought Grenell in for a short stint as the acting Director of National Intelligence.

Grenell said during his speech that the press was shocked when Trump, running as a Republican presidential candidate in 2016, said “(t)hat American foreign policy was failing to make Americans safer.” 

“After the end of the Cold War, Democrats and Republicans in Washington bought into the illusion that the whole world would start to resemble America. And so they started to pursue unlimited globalization,” he added. 

Grenell appeared to embrace the “nationalist” term for Trump’s foreign policy agenda, saying, “The Washington elites want you to think this kind of foreign policy is immoral. And so they call it ‘nationalist.’ That tells you all you need to know. The DC crowd thinks when they call Donald Trump a nationalist, they’re insulting him.” 

"You’re in charge. Not lobbyists. Not special interests. Not warmongers, or China sympathizers, or globalization fanatic," Grenell later said. "With Donald Trump and Mike Pence in the White House, the boss is the American people. President Trump rightly calls his foreign policy 'America First.'"

The former ambassador also praised Trump’s negotiation tactics with foreign leaders, saying, “I’ve watched President Trump charm the Chancellor of Germany, while insisting that Germany pay its NATO obligations."

In his three months as DNI, Grenell oversaw controversial firings of top career officials, a re-structuring of several parts of ODNI, a deeply acrimonious relationship with oversees in Congress and the declassification of documents from the Obama administration that fueled the "Obamagate" conspiracy theory amplified by Trump and his allies.

Grenell used time at the lectern to also discuss his time as DNI and linking it to the Democratic Party, saying, “I saw the Democrats’ entire case for Russian collusion. And what I saw made me sick to my stomach.” 

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After sharing a personal story about getting a phone call from President Trump following her preventative mastectomy, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, “This President stands by Americans with preexisting conditions.”

She added, that “the same way President Trump has supported me, he supports you.” 

Facts First: This needs context. Though the President has repeatedly asserted his support for covering individuals with preexisting conditions, his administration has consistently taken steps to undermine the Affordable Care Act without presenting alternative plans that would offer similar benefits. 

The Trump administration and congressional Republicans have repeatedly put forward bills and filed lawsuits that would weaken Obamacare’s protections for people with preexisting conditions.  

Trump is also supporting a Republican lawsuit that is seeking to declare all of Obamacare void. He has not issued a plan to reinstate the law’s protections for people with preexisting conditions if the suit succeeds.

In early August, he promised he would issue an executive order to require health insurers to "cover all preexisting conditions for all customers,” but has not yet done so. 

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Sister Dede Byrne, a member of the Little Workers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, asserted, “President Trump will stand up against Biden-Harris, who are the most anti-life presidential ticket ever, even supporting the horrors of late-term abortion and infanticide.” 

Facts First: This is false. No politician from either party – and, really, no one – supports infanticide, or killing a baby that’s been born, which is illegal.  

Democrats generally favor less restrictive abortion laws and several states allow abortions later in pregnancy. 

According to their campaign website, Biden and Harris support codifying Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide prior to viability, which can occur at about 24 weeks of pregnancy. 

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Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn said of Democrats she didn’t identify: “They say we can’t gather in community groups, but encourage protest, riots, and looting in the streets.

Facts First: Blackburn’s claim about riots and looting is an exaggeration. While there are scattered examples  of Democrats making comments that can be seen as supporting riots, the party and Democratic leadership have not “encourage(d)” violent protests. 

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has explicitly condemned such protest, both in a speech in June and in a Wednesday video statement released after Blackburn recorded this speech.  

“[T]here is no place for violence,” Biden said. “No place for looting or destroying property or burning churches, or destroying businesses — many of them built by people of color who for the first time were beginning to realize their dreams and build wealth for their families.”

Rep. James Clyburn told the Washington Post on June 3 that “peaceful protest is our game. Violence is their game,” adding, “This looting and rioting, that's their game. We cannot allow ourselves to play their game." These are just two examples of the many Democratic leaders who have criticized the riots and looting. 

Blackburn could, like other conservatives, make a subjective argument that Democratic cities and states have not done enough to denounce or discourage protest violence — and it’s possible she could find some Democratic official somewhere in the country who has cheered on a riot. But her suggestion that Democrats as a group have encouraged riots and looting is misleading. 

As Vice President Mike Pence made the last minute decision to address Wisconsin unrest in his RNC speech tonight, CNN’s Van Jones says he is glad and that his “prayer is that he will try to bring us together.”

“If you're an African American tonight, the despair is so hard to hold off,” he said. “I'm scared for my sons. My big boy just turned 16. He's as tall as me. He's driving now in Los Angeles.”

Ahead of Pence’s speech, Jones said, that he wants "the vice president to speak to me tonight. You've got your votes, sir. You’ve got your votes locked up. You’ve got your red states locked up. Talk to me and talk to my family tonight, Mr. Vice President. Because we have people out here who are hurting.”

Former Sen. Rick Santorum claimed that a Black man is more likely to be killed in a neighborhood criminal incident instead of a police officer.

“We’re talking about seven or eight unarmed people in the entire country last year who were shot by a police officer,” Santorum said.

“My kid is much more likely to get stopped or hurt by a police officer than anybody else because of the neighborhood I live in,” Jones said in response. “The way that we fix it is that we're honest about the fact that you've got communities being crushed between street violence and police violence and the fact that you have too much lawlessness in police departments, it’s making everything worse.”

“If you want Black votes, talk about that tonight," he asked of Pence. "Talk about these right-wing vigilantes tonight. Don't just pick and choose.”

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Clarence Henderson described his own personal experience with racism during his Republican National Convention speech tonight.

"By sitting down to order a cup of coffee, we challenged injustice. We knew it was necessary. But we didn’t know what would happen," Henderson added. "We faced down the KKK. We were cursed at and called all kinds of names. They threatened to kill us. And some of us were arrested."

"But it was worth it," he said.

Henderson, a Republican and civil rights activist, said "America isn’t perfect," but it is "always improving."

He went on to President Donald Trump "is not a politician. He is a leader."

Henderson blasted Joe Biden for having the "audacity to say if you don’t vote for him 'you ain’t black.'" He is referring the Democratic presidential nominee's remarks during an interview with Charlamagne tha God on "The Breakfast Club," during which he told he told a popular African American radio host that anyone struggling to decide whether to support him or Trump in the general election "ain't black."

"Well to that, I say, if you do vote for Biden, you don't know history," he continued.

Henderson argued that "Trump truly cares about Black lives" and is "offering real and lasting change."

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