Good morning. Donald Trump has tapped Ohio senator J.D. Vance to be his running mate – more on that below, along with an analogue approach to fighting wildfires and the search for Canada’s best mortgage rates. But first:
Today’s headlines
- After a federal judge dismissed the Trump classified documents case, the special counsel said he will appeal
- Records show that the RCMP has struggled for years to staff the unit dedicated to the protection of politicians
- Despite lung cancer’s deadly toll, screenings remain inaccessible for many people in Canada
J.D. Vance on the RNC floor.Charles Rex Arbogast/The Associated Press
U.S. Election
The political pivot of J.D. Vance
First, there was the roll call. On a hot, humid kickoff to the Republican National Convention, some 2,400 delegates inside Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum began casting their votes to select Donald Trump as their official presidential nominee.
Then, there was the reveal. After a months-long casting call for a running mate, Trump took to his social-media platform, Truth Social, to announce his pick: author-turned-populist-senator J.D. Vance. The news arrived right as delegates from Vance’s home state of Ohio were awarding their votes; chants of “J.D.! J.D.!” broke out on the convention floor.
As if an assassination attempt just 48 hours earlier wasn’t enough drama, Trump kept his VP shortlist in suspense till the very end, assembling them all in Milwaukee (at least according to Fox News) and then dismissing them one by one. Tough luck, Florida senator Marco Rubio. Too bad, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum. Even Virginia’s governor, Glenn Youngkin – who hadn’t been pegged as a serious vice-presidential contender – was called in just to be let down.
It’s a remarkable turnaround for the 39-year-old Vance, whose best-selling memoir about his Appalachian childhood, Hillbilly Elegy, came out the same year Trump was elected. Back in 2016, Vance had some harsh words for his now-running mate, describing Trump publicly as “loathsome,” an “idiot” and “cultural heroin” and privately as “America’s Hitler.”
But times change and so has Vance’s position. He supported Trump in 2020, the year before Vance’s own election to the senate. And since then, Vance has been in lockstep with Trump on a variety of issues, including immigration (he’s all for mass deportations), tariffs (he’s fine hiking them to 10 per cent), Ukraine (he tried, unsuccessfully, to block US$60-billion in military aid) and election fraud (he said, inaccurately, that the 2020 election was stolen).
At the RNC last night, a bandaged and subdued Trump appeared alongside Vance, who will address the convention on Wednesday night; we’ll hear from Trump on Thursday. Until then, here’s what else you may have missed out of Wisconsin.
Police on patrol outside the Fiserv Forum.PATRICK T. FALLON/Getty Images
The view from the street
The Secret Service did not adjust security plans for the RNC after this weekend’s shooting because, Milwaukee’s mayor said, the event already had the highest security level possible. And police certainly made their presence known. Upon landing at the Mitchell International Airport, Globe and Mail feature writer Shannon Proudfoot saw red-white-and-blue bunting and movie posters for a new Ronald Reagan biopic starring Dennis Quaid (which the RNC is screening a full 13 times this week). But mostly she saw Homeland Security officers with weapons strapped to their thighs.
In the city, Proudfoot encountered “huge phalanxes of police on street corners or circling downtown streets on bikes, helicopters whupping constantly overhead,” she told me. “There are big chunks of downtown cut off behind cement barricades or hefty metal fencing, and you simply can’t get past them without convention and security passes.”
The view from the floor
There will be plenty of solidly MAGA speakers at this week’s convention – yesterday alone brought Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, South Dakota governor Kristi Noem and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who has said there is a “war on white people in the west.” Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina, spoke as well, despite having ranted in a recent sermon that “some folks need killing.”
But as The Globe’s Adrian Morrow noted on The Decibel today, Trump’s former primary rival Nikki Haley also nabbed a slot – she’ll address the convention later tonight, and could be a persuasive voice to the vanishingly few undecided voters left. “She represents basically everything that was the Republican establishment before Donald Trump: She’s much more interventionist on foreign policy, she’s a small government conservative,” Morrow said. “So she’ll be important to convince Reaganite-type conservatives that the right-wing coalition around Donald Trump is intact.” (You can listen to Morrow’s full interview with the podcast here.)
The view from The Globe
• As the bullets flew, Robyn Urback writes, Donald Trump somehow had the wherewithal to recognize that this was a moment – the moment – to showcase everything he wants the Trump brand to stand for.
• Lawrence Martin agrees that moment was a gift from the gunshots, giving Trump a bit of poster-perfect political imagery.
• The assassination attempt on Trump is evidence that democracy does, in fact, hang in the balance in this election, Debra Thompson says.
• And David Shribman points out that J.D. Vance is not remotely Mike Pence 2.0. He’s Donald Trump 2.0.
The Image
‘Satellite imagery can’t catch fires as small as the human eye can.’
A red-and-white cupola on a 100-foot steel fire tower.Trina Moyles
Watching for wildfires from high up in a lookout tower is a critical way to catch them before they spread. Read more about this fast, cost-effective early-detection method here.
The Wrap
What else we’re following
At home: Weighed down by debt and declining revenues, Corus Entertainment warned that the company might not be able to continue much longer.
Abroad: Rwandans cast their ballots for president yesterday, while Syrians voted for a new parliament that could pave the way for President Bashar Assad to extend his term.
Mortgage rate: The Globe’s Erica Alini pitted five new online players against each other in a battle for Canada’s best mortgage rates.
Moon cave: If borrowing costs around here are still too high, might you be interested in something further afield? Scientists have discovered a cave on the moon that could make for a cozy abode.