Live updates: Trump closes out Day 2 of RNC midterm convention

Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht sang Trump’s praises and portrayed him as a paragon of liberty in his RNC convention speech.

Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison over his founding of the Silk Road dark web drug market, became a major supporter of Trump after he pardoned him at the beginning of his second term.

“When you are in prison, there is a certain sound that a steel door makes when it closes behind you and you are locked inside. I heard that sound every day for over 11 years,” Ulbricht recalled. “Freedom is like air: you do not think about it if you do not notice it. You do everything you can to get it back.”

Ulbricht then claimed he lost his freedom “to a corrupt federal investigation,” and that he was smeared and accused of crimes he was innocent of.

“Even as a first-time offender, I was sentenced to die in prison. No parole. I thought I had lost everything,” he added, crediting his wife and mother for lobbying for his freedom.

“Because they would not stop, President Trump heard about my case. He felt compassion for me because he was also the target of a weaponized government,” Ulbricht added.

The libertarian icon then went on to praise Trump’s presidency more generally, specifically his focus on liberty.

“Sometimes I hear from the very people he made that campaign promise to. That after he freed me, he lost focus on the cause of liberty. That is not true. It is just easy to miss all of his victories for liberty among the torrent of headlines out there. Let me tell you what he has been doing,” he said, going on to lay out several cases of Trump’s pardons.

After laying out the president’s work toward libertarian priorities, Ulbricht urged everyone to vote for Republicans in November.

“I never thought anyone in the White House would do these things. He is actually doing them. There is work to be done. But it goes on. Because President Trump knows the costs,” Ulricht concluded. “I stand here tonight a free man. And you are free Americans, and that is thanks to him.”

The Washington Examiner’s live coverage of the Republican National Committee’s 2026 midterm convention has concluded. To read more, please visit https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/

Trump’s unorthodox final speech and a balloon drop brought a close to the RNC’s first-ever midterm convention.

Vance delivered the speech of his life on Thursday evening, weaving together the death of Charlie Kirk and the birth of his new son to deliver a powerful personal narrative and a coherent political philosophy.

It may be the moment he clinched the Republican nomination for 2028.

He spoke movingly of the death of his friend and his hopes for his new son, Alec, before warning of what Democrats wanted to do to God-fearing families in America.

“And so to the radicals who wish to abolish my family or any other, we have a simple message: Stay the hell away from my kids,” he said in the most powerful portion of the speech.

The day already felt like a coming-out party for Vance’s presidential ambitions, even if he has yet to declare a run.

He spent the morning wooing delegates with a series of private appearances, raising at least $2 million for the Republican National Committee. Trump even promised to cut short his own remarks, a sign that this was to be Vance’s day.

When the time came, the vice president met the moment.

Trump’s concluding speech at the RNC midterm convention went off the rails as the president made the audience swear an oath to vote for Republicans in November — or else incur divine wrath.

Giving the final speech of the midterm convention, Trump began having fun with the task, riffing with the audience before switching to a semi-serious pledge to motivate them to vote in the midterm elections.

“So please raise your right hand! I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States, that loves us so much that he can’t even breathe, that I will go out with my family, my friends, I will do it anyway — I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m going to try to cheat like hell like they do,” Trump said. “There’s never been bigger cheaters. They don’t care. I am going to go out and get my friends, my family, and we are going to vote on November 3, or we are going to vote before that.”

He shifted to some crowd work, riffing with his audience regulars.

“And you know what, if you want, you can vote Democrat, but I don’t think there is one person in this room that’s going to. I don’t think so. So I don’t have to preface. I don’t want to waste the words’ vote Republican’… If you are voting, come, you are voting Republican. OK, so help me God,” Trump said, and after an enthusiastic audience reaction and pledge, added, “Whoa! Now I know.”

The president then took an abrupt turn, pointing to the theological implications of the oath.

“Now I would say just about everybody — you know what happens if you don’t vote? You go to hell. You know that, OK?” he said, drawing laughter. “You go to hell. And I don’t want that to happen to you, so please go and vote.”

Trump couldn’t hold back from bashing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) looks in his RNC convention speech yet again, drawing laughter from the crowd.

“By the way, you’ve got to elect Ken Paxton. You got to … And I said something yesterday, and I don’t know if he’ll ever talk to me again. Perhaps he will,” Trump began.

“But I said it. My people said, ‘Please don’t say that.’ So I won’t say it. But I’ll tell you what I was thinking about saying,” he continued. “I said, ‘I don’t like the way Ken dresses.’ Although I also said he looked really sharp in that suit yesterday, I thought, spiffy.”

“And then I said, ‘I don’t really like the way Ken talks.’ And then I said something that they really hated. ‘Please, sir, don’t say it, sir.’ So I’m not going to say it, but I’ll tell you what I was thinking about saying: I said, ‘I don’t really like the way he looks. I don’t like it. I don’t like it.’ But you know what I do like? He was the greatest attorney general in the history of Texas,” Trump added, ending with some good words for the Senate hopeful.

Trump told the audience that he would be “brief,” after his lengthy speech the night before.

The RNC midterm convention schedule only has the president speaking for 15 minutes to conclude the event.

“And I‘m going to be a little bit brief. Because last night I spoke for two hours,” he said to laughter.

“And I don‘t feel like going over the same material again. So, what I‘m going to do tonight is a little bit different,” adding that he would be listening to live music onstage to conclude.

Vance directly addressed independent voters during his speech at the midterm convention, urging them not to surrender the country to the Democratic Party in the 2026 elections.

“I know there are a lot of people who are watching on TV who aren’t always sold, and I want to speak directly to them,” Vance said. “Not to the faithful, but to the people who are still making up their minds, the people on the margins, the people who are still a little unsure who they’re going to vote for.”

The vice president then invoked late conservative activist Charlie Kirk while making his case to independents.

“Some people who love some of our policies, but maybe don’t agree with others, young men, many of whom felt inspired by Charlie Kirk, but are unhappy with some of what has happened in the wake of his death,” he said. “And I want to speak directly to that group because I think Charlie is a great example of how to disagree, but still participate in the work of saving this country.”

“What I’m asking you to do is do what Charlie did. Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater,” he continued. “Don’t give the country over to a bunch of crazy people because you happen to disagree with us on a policy issue here or there. Look, I’m not asking anybody to agree with me on every single issue. I’m not asking anybody to agree on every single policy of the administration. What I am asking you to do is to recognize the contrast with the radicals and recognize the achievements of the last 18 months.”

Vance went on to slam Michigan Democrat Abdul el Sayed for mocking his family.

Trump has taken the stage to close out the Republican National Committee’s first-ever midterm convention.

The president is slated to speak for just 15 minutes to conclude the convention, much shorter than his long speech yesterday.

On Wednesday, Trump unveiled his grand plan to give out $5,000 checks to all Americans if the Republicans win the midterm elections.

Vance laid into Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico in his RNC midterm convention speech, portraying him as a predatory figure obsessed with transgender children.

Talarico has become a favorite target of Republicans, both due to the high profile of the Texas Senate race and the ample attack ammunition granted through his unorthodox religious views and past comments on hot-button social issues. Vance devoted a section of his speech to the Texas state representative, beginning with his comments on transgender youth.

“And in Texas, you have Democrats, grown men, who seem to be pretty obsessed with trans children,” Vance said, drawing laughter. “I got to say, the president is very good at nicknames, but ‘Tala-freak-o’ maybe tops the list.”

“This Talarico guy will not shut up about how there are six genders. He will not shut up about how God is ‘nonbinary,'” he added. “I don’t know what the hell that even means, my friends. He won’t shut up about having traditional Christian values makes you a bigot.”

“I got to say, a guy that age, who is so obsessed and focused on transgender children, I don’t know about you, but I never want to see that guy’s web browser history. It’s not a good place,” Vance concluded, to laughter from the crowd.

Vance gave a cheeky reaction to cheers of “48,” referencing him becoming the 48th president, by urging the audience to focus on the midterm elections for now.

Vance was a crowd favorite, drawing frequent applause and cheers in the penultimate speech of the night. As his speech went on, and after denouncing a protester waving a Mexican flag, the crowd began chanting, “48.” The chants soon grew so uproarious that he could no longer avoid them.

“Can we please, we’ve got to take care of business this November, then we’ll worry about what comes next,” he said with a laugh, drawing further cheers.

He then outlined the Trump administration’s accomplishments.

DALLAS — Vice President JD Vance’s prime time address to the Republican midterm convention was interrupted by a protester with a Mexican flag.

“Well, my friend, if you love Mexico so much, get your ass over there!” Vance told the man as he was escorted out by security. “I’ll buy you the plane ticket.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, I had a whole speech written, but I think I got to change it because we just discovered the symbol of the far Left and idiot waving an American flag or a Mexican flag at a protest when he should be waving the flag of the United States of America,” Vance said.

Michigan Democrat Abdul el Sayed knocked his Republican opponent for speaking at the RNC midterm convention in Texas instead of listening to voters in his own state.

“I don’t know what campaign trail he’s been on,” el Sayed said of former Republican Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers. “His includes Dallas, apparently. I was in another city that starts with a ‘D’ that’s actually in Michigan today, having conversations with actual voters in our state.”

Rogers appeared onstage at the Dallas convention to slam his progressive challenger as the general election approaches.

“He’s a con man — I’m a lawman,” Rogers said. “He wants to apologize for America — I want to defend America. He wants to represent Palestine — I want to represent Michigan.”

El Sayed has been tied to Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, though the candidate has taken steps to distance himself from the controversial leftist figure. Piker has been accused of antisemitism for his comments on Israel in recent weeks.

“If he thinks that the issue is a streamer in California, then he’s got another thing coming,” el Sayed said. “I don’t know what he’s doing in Dallas because he’s certainly not talking about the issues that Michiganders face.”

Vance paid tribute to Charlie Kirk in his RNC midterm convention speech, relating his uniquely close relationship with the assassinated conservative activist.

After beginning on a high note, Vance switched to the “somber occasion,” noting that the last time he addressed a Republican convention, he was with Kirk.

“I was nervous, think about it. I was speaking on the biggest stage of my life. I had been in politics for barely a year and a half. But I will never forget that as I made that speech, as I addressed the country on the biggest stage of my life, in the front row, right about there,” he said, pointing to a spot in the audience, “my dear friend Charlie Kirk was smiling and cheering me, and reminding me that I had a good friend right here in the convention hall.”

The vice president turned his attention to Kirk’s two children.

“But to those sweet kids, I don’t imagine they’re watching tonight, they’re still very young. But I hope that one day they will watch, and they will know, and they will understand what I’m trying to say to them tonight. Though they may not appreciate it today, history will record that your father was a great man,” he said to applause.

DALLAS — Images of second lady Usha Vance in the introductory video for Vance were greeted with a cheer from the Republican midterm convention crowd in Dallas’s American Airlines Center.

Despite having a low profile during Trump’s second term, in part because she gave birth to the second couple’s fourth child in July, the second lady has emerged as a popular figure in the administration.

During the vice president’s speech, he addressed his wife’s absence from the convention.

“When they organized this midterm, the RNC asked my wife, who had a two-week-old baby and three other kids that are very young, if she would come to Dallas, Texas, to introduce her husband,” Vance said. “She said, ‘Hell no! I got four kids to take care of.'”