Donald Trump named US Republican Presidential nominee

Cleveland, July 20 (IANS) The billionaire businessman Donald Trump was officially named the 2016 Republican Presidential nominee early on Wednesday.

His son Donald Trump, Jr., cast the votes for the New York delegation that put the billionaire businessman over the top of the 1,237 delegates he needed to clinch the nomination, as any talk of disruptive protest votes or walkouts dissipated, CNN reported.

An effort to place the name of Texas Senator Ted Cruz for nomination fizzled late on Tuesday afternoon.

The effort had no chance of success since most of the delegates won by Trump in his Grand Old Party (GOP) nominating victory were bound to vote for him in the roll call under the rules of the Republican primary process.

Cruz's inner circle had adamantly opposed any attempt to involve him in last minute convention floor intrigue, a senior adviser to the Texas senator told CNN.

"We're not encouraging it. We're actually trying to stop it," the adviser said.

A rebellion would have emphasised the divides in the GOP torn open by Trump's campaign, which was given little chance of success when he descended a golden escalator in Trump Tower with his wife Melania to set his sights on the White House in 2015.

Trump's name was put into the nomination by Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, an early supporter of the businessman, and was seconded by fellow early supporters New York Representative Chris Collins and South Carolina Lt Governor Henry McMaster.

"We have gotten off course and the American people know it," Sessions said in his speech, warning that crime is rising, terrorist attacks are proliferating, and Congress is deadlocked, arguing that Trump is the only answer.

"The American voters heard his message and they rewarded his courage and his leadership with a huge victory in our primaries," Sessions said, drawing raucous cheers from Trump fans on the convention floor.

"He loves his country and he is determined to see it be a winner again," CNN quoted Sessions as saying. "Donald Trump is the singular leader that can get this country back on track. He has the strength, the courage the will to get it done."

Trump's roll call will be followed by the nomination and vote for Indiana Governor Mike Pence as the Vice Presidential nominee.

Washington Post 

CLEVELAND —Donald Trump was formally nominated for the presidency by Republican delegates here on Tuesday night, a landmark moment in American political history that capped the business mogul’s surprising conquest of the GOP.

Trump formally reached the threshold of 1,237 delegates at 7:12 p.m. Eastern time, with votes cast by delegates from his home state of New York.

Trump’s clinching votes were cast by his own son, Donald Trump Jr., who spoke for the New York delegation.

“It is my honor to be able to throw Donald Trump over the top in the delegate count tonight,” he said. “Congratulations, Dad, we love you!”

The convention then broke into applause, as a band played “New York, New York,” with the jumbotron in the Quicken Loans Arena displaying the words “Over the Top”.

Trump will formally accept the nomination on Thursday night.

The political drama had long ago drained out of this day, after Trump’s primary victories had erased the prospect of a contested convention – and after Trump’s allies had squelched “Never Trump” delegates’ efforts to disrupt the convention itself. But it was still a remarkable moment. A little more than a year before, Trump had seemed like an afterthought: a reality-TV star with no political experience, facing a deep field that included more than 10 current and former Republican officeholders.

But Trump had a message that defied GOP tradition on trade, and defied the party’s own advice to make inroads with Hispanics: He called for ripping up U.S. trade deals, building a wall on the border with Mexico, and deporting undocumented immigrants en masse. There was only one Trump in the race.

And now, there is only Trump.

Anti-Trump delegates have said they plan to try to hold up Trump’s nomination by walking out, and trying to deny Trump a sufficient number of votes. But that effort – like the “Never Trump” movement’s other last-ditch efforts this week – failed.

Trump’s name was formally entered into nomination by an early backer, Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.). His nomination was then seconded by two of the elected officials who were first to endorse the mogul’s unlikely candidacy.

Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), the first House member to endorse Trump, called him “not merely a candidate. Donald Trump is a movement.”

hen South Carolina Lt. Gov. Henry McMasters (R) gave a speech that veered from unbridled happiness about Trump to deep pessimism about the state of the country Trump wants to lead.

“Weakness, decline, and ultimately, chaos and oblivion. We feel an eerie unease,” McMaster said, describing the state of the nation under President Obama. “But, ladies and gentlemen, that is about to change.”

Later in the evening, delegates are expected to nominate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as Trump’s running mate. There will also be speeches by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and two of Trump’s children.

The speakers will also include the president of a waterproofing company in the Bronx, Andy Wist. Wist, who has little political experience, will speak on an evening dedicated to economic themes, under the title, “Make America Work Again.”

All of those speakers will hope to reset and refocus the GOP convention after a lackluster first night on Monday. On that night, Trump counterprogrammed his own convention, by calling in to Fox News and preempting an emotional speech by a woman whose son was killed in the 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. A speech by rising GOP star Sen. Joni Ernst (Iowa) was pushed too late for prime-time TV, and given to a largely empty arena.

And a speech by Trump’s wife Melania turned out to contain passages very similar to passages in the 2008 convention speech by Michelle Obama.

Charges that Melania Trump had plagiarized cast a shadow over Trump and his campaign on the second day of the convention here in Cleveland, where Republicans are making the case to a skeptical country that the celebrity billionaire —the most unconventional and impulsive major-party standard-bearer in modern history — could be a credible and steadfast leader at a time of terrorist threats abroad and senseless tragedies at home.

Trump’s campaign and allies rushed to defend Melania Trump on Tuesday morning, even as other Republicans worried that the fresh controversy would eclipse Tuesday’s emphasis at the convention on Trump’s economic message.