#dallas-convention
6 entries with this tag
At Trump's Midterm Convention, as Ted Cruz Named Three Democratic Candidates From the Stage, Audience Members Were Heard on the Broadcast Shouting "He Should Be Shot!" After Each Name — Cruz Did Not Stop or Condemn It, and It Happened on the One-Year Anniversary of a Political Assassination That Republicans Spent the Day Denouncing
On the closing night of the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, September 10, 2026, Sen. Ted Cruz was criticizing prominent Democrats by name from the stage. As he named New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, and Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, audience members were heard — audibly, on the convention broadcast — shouting "He should be shot!" after each name. It is important to be precise about who said what: the shouts came from the crowd, not from Cruz and not from Trump. But Cruz did not stop, acknowledge, or condemn the calls for violence in the moment; it is unclear whether he heard them, and his office and the RNC did not immediately respond. The incident carried a grim extra weight because it happened on the one-year anniversary of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk — a day many Republicans spent decrying political violence, even as attendees at their own convention openly called for named opponents to be shot. This belongs in the record not because Trump or Cruz spoke the words, but because it is the atmosphere Trump's movement has cultivated made audible: a crowd at his flagship event treating "shoot the Democrats" as an ordinary thing to yell, and a stage full of leaders who let it pass.
To Close His Dallas Convention, Trump Led the Crowd in a Loyalty Oath to Himself — Calling Himself "the Greatest President in the History of the United States" and Telling Anyone Who Doesn't Vote They'll "Go to Hell" — and, in the Same Breath as His Yearlong Crusade Against Imaginary Democratic "Fraud," Urged His Own Supporters to "Cheat Like Hell": "I Don't Care If I'm Registered or Not"
On September 10, 2026, closing the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Trump led the crowd in an extended "pledge" to vote — and told them to cheat. In the oath he directed the room to repeat, he said: "I don't care if I'm registered or not. I'm going to try and cheat like hell like they do. There's never been bigger cheaters." He told those who fail to vote that they would "go to hell," and described himself, mid-oath, as "the greatest president in the history of the United States." The moment is remarkable on two fronts. First, it is a sitting president openly urging his supporters to cheat in an election — even framed as bravado, an extraordinary thing for the head of state to say — and it detonates his own justification for a yearlong assault on voting access. Across this archive, Trump has restricted mail ballots, pushed a national voter database, and built a "citizenship verification" apparatus, all in the name of stopping Democratic "fraud" he has never substantiated. Here he tells his own crowd to "cheat like hell," which exposes the fraud rhetoric as projection and pretext: the cheating he warns about is the cheating he is now endorsing, for his side. Second, the "pledge" was to him personally — a loyalty oath to a man who called himself the greatest president in history and consigned non-voters to hell. A get-out-the-vote drive turned into a cult liturgy with a confession of intent to cheat built in.
The Unprecedented Off-Year "Convention" Trump Forced His Party to Stage Finally Happened — and Flopped in Public View: He Took the Stage to Hundreds of Empty Seats and Insisted "This Place Is Packed," Battleground Candidates the GOP Needs Stayed Away, the Program Ran on Hours of Praise for Him, and He Dangled a Vague $5,000 "Dividend" — All While Keeping Up the Social-Media Sprees That Defined His Week
On September 9-10, 2026, the first-ever midterm "convention" — the off-year Trump rally in Dallas that he personally demanded and that his party priced like a fundraiser, documented earlier in this archive — actually took place, and it played out as a self-inflicted embarrassment. Trump keynoted the opening night to an American Airlines Center with hundreds of empty seats, and told the crowd anyway that "this place is packed." A number of Republican lawmakers and candidates skipped it entirely — including some running in the battleground races the party must win to keep the House — a vote of no-confidence from the very people the event was supposed to help. The program leaned on hours of speeches praising Trump before he appeared, and his keynote featured a vague promise to send American adults $5,000 "dividends" if Republicans win control of Congress, an assurance long on number and short on mechanism. All of it unfolded against the backdrop of the erratic Truth Social sprees that have defined his week — renaming New Mexico "New America," a stock-trading brag, a threat to halt global trade. The convention was pitched as a show of strength before November. What it displayed instead was a party that spent a fortune to build a stage for a leader too unpopular for its own candidates to stand on with him — and a leader who looked at a half-empty arena and told everyone it was full.
At His Half-Empty Dallas Convention, Trump Promised to Send Every Adult American Citizen a $5,000 "Dividend" — but Only If Republicans Win Both the House and the Senate in November: a Trillion-Dollar-Plus Offer With No Funding Plan, Framed as an Explicit "Elect My Party and I'll Pay You," From the Same President Whose Earlier $2,000 "Tariff Dividend" Checks Were Promised and Never Arrived
On September 9, 2026, in his keynote at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Trump promised to pay every adult U.S. citizen a $5,000 "dividend" — on the express condition that Republicans win both the House and the Senate in November. His words: "If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them ... I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000." He branded it the "Trump dividend" and added a caveat that the money must be spent domestically, "not in other nations such as Canada, Germany or China." The offer drew immediate accusations that it amounts to a bribe: a president dangling a cash payment to the entire electorate, contingent on his party winning the election. Two facts make it worse. First, it is almost certainly undeliverable as described — economists put the cost at over $1.2 trillion, there is no funding mechanism, and any such payout would require congressional approval that even Republicans have been reluctant to give. Second, Trump has done this before and not delivered: his 2025 promise of $2,000 "tariff dividend" checks by mid-2026 never materialized, with prediction markets ultimately giving it about a 3% chance. The $5,000 version is more than twice as large, funded by nothing more specific than "our tremendous economic success" — a success contradicted by the record gas prices, trade war, and inflation documented across this archive. It is a promise engineered to move votes, unlikely to be kept, offered to a half-empty arena the party's own candidates avoided.
Trump Told Voters to "Pretend, Please, That I'm on the Ballot," Demanding the Midterms Be a Referendum on Him and Staging a $45 Million Convention in His Own Honor — Even as the Vulnerable Republican Candidates Who Have to Actually Win Quietly Scrub His Name From Their Websites, One Swapping "Trump Conservative" for "Proven Conservative," Because Association With Him Has Become the Thing to Hide
Heading into the 2026 midterms, Trump has made himself the center of everything: more than 200 endorsements, near-total control of Republican strategy, an unprecedented $45 million convention built around him, and a direct message to voters — "Pretend, please, that I'm on the ballot." He wants the election to be a referendum on himself. The problem is that his own party's most vulnerable candidates are betting the opposite way. With his approval ratings dismal, his Iran war unpopular, and inflation and record gas prices weighing on voters, a growing number of Republicans in competitive races have quietly begun putting distance between themselves and the president — tweaking websites, softening language, and in some cases openly breaking with him. A Texas congressional candidate who once branded himself a "TRUMP CONSERVATIVE" now calls himself a "PROVEN CONSERVATIVE"; from California to Kentucky to Alaska, campaigns have trimmed the Trump references; in Michigan, a Republican congressman is campaigning on his vote against Trump's Iran war. The majority of GOP candidates still embrace him, and the party dismisses the trend as a "manufactured storyline." But the tell is unmistakable: a president insisting the midterms be about him, while the people who need to win are deciding that the safest thing to do with his name is take it down. He is demanding a referendum on himself that his own candidates are quietly trying to lose the connection to.
Republicans Are Staging an Unprecedented Off-Year "Convention" in Dallas That Nominates No One and Conducts No Party Business — a Trump Rally Its Own Organizers Nicknamed "Trumpalooza" — Where "Delegate" Status Isn't Won but Bought: a $25,000 Minimum for House Members to Attend, Rising to a $250,000 "Golden VIP" Package, While Dallas Taxpayers Are Left to Cover Nearly $2 Million in Security
A political convention is supposed to be a gathering of elected delegates who conduct the party's business — above all, nominating its candidate. The Republican Party is holding one anyway, in a year with no presidential nomination to make: a first-of-its-kind midterm convention on September 9-10, 2026, at Dallas's American Airlines Center, that its own organizers have nicknamed "Trumpalooza." It will conduct no official party business. It is a two-day rally built around Donald Trump ahead of the November elections. And its "delegates" are not chosen by voters — they are sold a credential. The National Republican Campaign Committee is asking House members to pay a minimum of $25,000 (with a guest) to attend, with packages rising to $100,000; a California committee's tiers run from $25,000 up to a $250,000 "golden VIP member" package with floor badges, hotels, transfers, gifts, and concierge service; the Texas GOP sells "honorary delegate" credentials for up to $20,000, cowboy hat included. Organizers raised some $45 million privately to fund it — but Dallas taxpayers are still on the hook for roughly $1.8 to $2 million in police and security costs. Even Republican insiders worry aloud that it has become "more of a fundraiser than a convention," pricing out the grassroots volunteers who actually power campaigns. Stripped of its bunting, this is a machine for converting money into proximity to the president, staged as a democratic institution it no longer resembles.