Keeping America safe. That was the theme on day one of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. 

Former chairman of the Montana Republican party Will Deschamps has agreed to provide commentary for KGVO News from the floor of the convention.

"Tonight went pretty good with the theme of the night being keeping America safe," Deschamps said. "All the speakers were talking about security and safety of American citizens, both at home and abroad. There were speeches by Rick Perry, Marcus Latreille, Ryan Zinke and Pat Smith, the mother of one of the Navy SEALS who died in Benghazi, and Rudy Giuliani."

Deschamps said the afternoon session of the first day was taken up with procedural issues.

"There was a final report from the rules committee and the platform committee," he said. "There was an adverse motion made by the anti-Trump people, and when it came to a vote they wanted to change some of the rules on how the nomination process worked. It failed on a voice vote, and they went absolutely a little bit tilted and started screaming that they wanted a roll-call vote. However, the rules state that there must be at least eight states to have a recount. Eight had originally filed a petition for a recount, but three dropped out, so there were only five, so that motion failed. The remarkable thing about it was that once that was decided, everything calmed down. The anti-Trump people joined together with the Trump supporters. It was just so different from four years ago when we had the problems with the Ron Paul people."

Deschamps said Donald Trump made a brief appearance at the convention last night.

"He came on stage to introduce his wife who spoke quite eloquently and she brought the house down," he said. "Then, he came back out and escorted her back off the stage.It was the first time in many years that I can remember something like that happening."

Deschamps has agreed to provide an on-the-scene recap of each day's events at the National Republican Convention in Cleveland.

 

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