Trump's convention hears a presidential speech — from Melania

'You are not alone'

It can't be known whether and how deeply Melania Trump feels the pain of an America ravaged by the coronavirus, rocked by job losses and riven by racial division. But she sees it, and she spoke about it with a frankness not heard previously at the Republican National Convention, nor from the Trump White House that was her stage.

While her husband and other Tuesday night speakers such as top economic adviser Larry Kudlow have strived to portray the pandemic almost in the past tense, the first lady didn't minimize its presence nor the nation's trauma. 

"I want to acknowledge the fact that since March, our lives have changed drastically. The invisible enemy, COVID-19, swept across our beautiful country. And impacted all of us. My deepest sympathy goes out to everyone who has lost a loved one," the first lady said. “I know many people are anxious, and some feel helpless. I want you to know you are not alone,” she said.

On Monday, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said America is "not a racist country." Melania Trump took a less triumphalist tack. "Like all of you, I have reflected on the racial unrest in our country,” she said. “It’s a harsh reality. We are not proud of parts of our history," she said before an audience of several hundred in the Rose Garden.

Earlier Tuesday, the president agitated on Twitter for the Democratic governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, to call out the National Guard because of rioting in Kenosha, where police shot an unarmed Black man seven times in the back in front of his young children. (Evers already had summoned the Guard.) The first lady called for a halt to "the violence and looting being done in the name of justice." But she also made a temperate appeal. "I urge people to come together in a civil manner," she said.

So how does speaking in such a different voice than her husband help him? A primary goal this week is to convince doubtful Americans after four years of his Twitter rages, self-serving falsehoods and abundant self-pity that he actually cares about them, not just himself.

The first lady took up the role of character witness while also insisting, straight-faced, "he doesn’t waste time playing politics," and channeling his complaints about an unfair media in a slightly softer way. “Whether you like it or not, you always know what he’s thinking,” she added. “In my husband, you have a president who will not stop fighting for you and your families." Declared Melania: "If you tell him it could not be done, he just works harder." That brought applause, a rare sound at a convention with few live audiences.

Not the last word

Will Melania's testimonial endure in viewers' minds and hearts? As Trump would say, we'll see what happens.

The rest of the convention's first two days had a harder, nastier edge. The next two days will include numerous bare-knuckled Trump partisans, such as frequent frother Rudy Giuliani, and of course the president himself.

Here's a video of the first lady's speech; read a transcript here.

Something in the heirs

Melania is a Trump by marriage. As for the president's children from his first and second marriages, it's in their genes.

Trump's younger daughter, Tiffany, matriculated into a full-fledged member of the family's attack pack by voicing her dad's oft-tweeted theme — that he's a victim of evil "media and tech giants" and you, the voter, will be too if you don't reelect him. The recent law school graduate offered a conspiracy theory as an argument.

"Ask yourselves, why are we prevented from seeing certain information? Why is one viewpoint promoted while others are hidden? The answer is control.” She warned: "This misinformation system keeps people mentally enslaved to the ideas they deem correct." 

Second son Eric Trump went all chip-on-shoulder and own-the-libs. “First, we were ignored. Then we were laughed at. Then they fought us. And then, together, we won," he said. Like father, the son took up attacks lines more fiction than fact, declaring that Joe Biden and the Democratic Party “want to destroy the monuments of our forefathers,” “disrespect our flag” and “burn the Stars and Stripes that represent patriotism and the American dream.”

Dispatching with Hatch Act

There's a law on the books called the Hatch Act that's supposed to keep federal employees from mixing partisan political activity with their official duties. But like a shady businessman keeping two sets of books, the Trump administration operates with two sets of rules.

Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent a cable to all U.S. diplomatic missions, warning American diplomats that under federal law, they cannot take overt sides in the presidential campaign, The Associated Press reported. Pompeo, while on an official trip to the Middle East, ignored his own warning with a Tuesday convention speech taped in Jerusalem that hailed Trump's "America First" policy, saying it “may not have made him popular in every foreign capital, but it’s worked.”

For a taped prime-time segment, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf performed a naturalization ceremony at the White House for five new citizens, who were congratulated by Trump. It seemed an effort to portray Trump as welcoming to legal immigration — in reality, he has sought to drastically reduce it. The five included immigrants from parts of the world he has labeled as "shithole countries."

In another show for the convention, Trump signed a presidential pardon for a convicted bank robber, Jon Ponder, who turned to religion while in prison and now works with ex-offenders. "He has created one of the most successful reentry programs, Hope For Prisoners, in Las Vegas," Trump said in a video taped at the White House.

Janison: Going roguish?

Several of Trump's closest advisers on the convention program have faced questions, investigations and allegations for their conduct on Trump's behalf, writes Newsday's Dan Janison.

The president's son Donald Trump Jr., who spoke Monday night, was among the 2016 campaign figures suspected by bipartisan leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee of possibly having presented misleading testimony on the topic of Russian interference. His name was referred to the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., to review the facts for any criminal activity, but no charges have resulted.

This week, the New York State attorney general's office asked a judge to order Eric Trump to answer questions under oath for an investigation into whether the Trump Organization fraudulently overstated assets to get loans. Last year, as part of a legal settlement of self-dealing allegations against the Donald J. Trump Foundation, Ivanka Trump, Donald Jr. and Eric were ordered to undergo training on how to avoid committing future misconduct.

Kellyanne Conway, the departing White House senior adviser due to speak Wednesday, was found by a Trump-appointed ethics monitor to have violated the Hatch Act on numerous occasions while speaking in her official capacity. Trump refused to act on the report.

Giuliani, who speaks Thursday, was neck-deep in the Trump Ukraine scheme that led to impeachment and has come under scrutiny by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, which indicted two of his associates.

Tweeted anti-Semitism, scratched

Hours before she was scheduled to speak at the convention, Mary Ann Mendoza took to Twitter and urged her followers to investigate a supposed Jewish plot to enslave the world.

Mendoza, one of the Trump campaign's “angel moms,” was scheduled to speak about her son’s 2014 death at the hands of a drunken driver who was in the country illegally. “Do yourself a favor and read this thread,” wrote Mendoza, who is a member of the Trump campaign’s advisory board. The thread came from a QAnon conspiracy theorist.

CNN reported that she was pulled from the program shortly before it was to start after the Daily Beast reported on her tweet. Mendoza later tweeted an apology "for not paying attention to the intent of the whole message" and said, "That does not reflect my feelings or personal thoughts whatsoever." But CNN found that Mendoza tweeted similar content in the past.

FDA chief recalls treatment claim

Two days after Trump's assertion of a breakthrough in coronavirus treatment, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn on Tuesday apologized for overstating the expected lifesaving benefits of convalescent plasma.

At a Sunday news conference, Hahn echoed Trump in saying that 35 more people out of 100 would survive COVID-19 if treated with the plasma. That claim vastly overstated preliminary findings of Mayo Clinic observations and brought Hahn under a storm of criticism from medical and scientific experts.

“I have been criticized for remarks I made Sunday night about the benefits of convalescent plasma. The criticism is entirely justified," Hahn tweeted. "What I should have said better is that the data show a relative risk reduction, not an absolute risk reduction."

The data was collected from hospitals that used the plasma in varying ways, and there was no comparison group of untreated patients. The survival figures looked at differences over the amount of plasma used and the stage of the disease when it was given.

On "CBS This Morning," Hahn rejected suggestions the plasma announcement was timed to boost Trump ahead of the Republican convention. Trump has charged without evidence that some FDA officials were stalling on vaccine until the election, an assertion Hahn rejected in a Reuters interview on Monday.

More coronavirus news

See a roundup of the latest pandemic developments from Long Island and beyond by Newsday's Bart Jones and John Valenti. For a full list of Newsday's coronavirus stories, click here.

What else is happening:

• Trump announced Tuesday that he will nominate Wolf to lead the DHS on a permanent basis. Wolf has served as the acting head since last November, but Congress' Government Accountability Office on Aug. 14 found the appointment was invalid under legal rules on succession. Wolf has faced criticism for deploying federal agents in cities against political protests.
• TV viewership for the first night of the GOP convention fell short of the Democrats’ first night last week — 15.8 million, compared with 19 million — according to Nielsen. That will matter to Trump, who obsesses on ratings. The numbers do not account for webstream viewing.
• While Jerry Falwell Jr., a top Trump evangelical ally, is out as president of Liberty University, there's no word whether his wife, Becki, will stay on the advisory board of Women for Trump. Last year, Becki Falwell appeared in an online campaign video on "teaching traditional American Values." On Tuesday, she acknowledged her affair with a former Miami Beach pool attendant but denied that her husband watched them having sex. “I wish Christians and people would be as forgiving as Christ was,” she told The Washington Post.
• A group of onetime Republican presidential appointees who served as senior ethics officials or Justice Department aides endorsed Biden, warning that Trump has “weaponized” the executive branch and is putting in peril the legitimacy of the Justice Department, Politico reported. “A lot of us are extremely alarmed, frankly, at the threat of autocracy,” said Donald B. Ayer, former deputy attorney general during the George H.W. Bush administration.
• Trump continues to get strong marks in polls in the economy because conservative voters in particular see him as a successful businessman and tough negotiator, The New York Times writes. Some of those voters see stock market gains as a sign of a rebound.
• Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right QAnon follower who won a Georgia Republican House primary runoff and praise from Trump, has been invited to join the live White House audience for the president's acceptance speech Thursday night.
• Hillary Clinton has a piece of advice for Biden: Whatever happens, do not concede defeat on the night of the Nov. 3 election. Clinton said in a Showtime interview that the pandemic-related increase in mail-in voting means it could take longer to know the winner. "I think this is going to drag out,” she said.