Unconventional #38: RNC Day 1 — The ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ Edition

Unconventional is Yahoo News’ complete guide to what could be the craziest presidential conventions in decades. Here’s what you need to know today.

Welcome to Cleveland — whether you’re here in person, like Unconventional, or just gearing up to watch the festivities on TV.

From now until July 28, Unconventional will be publishing every weekday morning. Our goal? To be the one thing you need to read to understand what’s really happening at the conventions. Each edition will provide a behind-the-scenes look at the biggest — and weirdest — moments of the day, with original dispatches from the entire Yahoo Politics team. We’ll also give you a sneak peek at what’s next.

So let’s get this party started.

A forced march? Invasion of the body snatchers?

The mood right now in Cleveland — in the last hours before the convention officially begins — is almost eerie. The GOP is marching forward, en masse, to nominate Donald Trump. But beyond the 900 or so rank-and-file delegates who are personally loyal to the tinsel-haired mogul, many of the Republicans in town seem to feel a little queasy about what they’re about to do.

After a few drinks last night, a former staffer for Ted Cruz let slip a stinging criticism of Trump’s personal integrity before remembering where she was.

“That was off the record,” she insisted. “That was definitely off the record.”

Yahoo News Senior Political Correspondent Jon Ward spent much of last week talking to influential Republicans here, and he neatly captures the zeitgeist when he writes that “many of them are taking part in the convention and helping to nominate Donald Trump only out of concern for their party or because they dislike presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton so intensely.”

One person actively working to ensure that other Republicans fall in line behind Trump admitted, in Jon’s words, “that he wasn’t even sure if he’d vote for Trump this fall.” A Rules Committee member “described an existential sense of drift, a loss of purpose that made it harder to get out of bed in the morning, since Trump began to dominate the primary” — even though this same member voted with the Trump-aligned forces on the committee every time last week.

Having reported on several previous conventions ourselves, we assure you: This is not what they’re usually like.

For more, make sure to read Jon’s entire story.

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What does Monday’s marquee speaker really think of Trump?

Speaking of body snatchers, perhaps the most entertaining spectacle this week in Cleveland will be watching various politicians who were never particularly keen on Trump before he won the primary attempt to deliver sympathetic speeches on the convention stage.

First up on Monday night is Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst. Ernst is presumably going to say nice things in her remarks. But she also rejected Trump’s VP entreaties earlier this month, and she’s never been particularly enthusiastic about the presumptive nominee.

In December, she called his plan to ban Muslims from entering the country “ludicrous.” In April, she dismissed his remarks about women as “nonsense.” Last month, she pushed back on his Asia policy.

And while Ernst officially refused to endorse any of this year’s GOP candidates ahead of the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, she was widely seen as favoring Marco Rubio. She appeared at one of his events. She described him as “a good friend” who is “very near and dear to [her] heart.” The two youngish Republicans even hired some of the same campaign staffers.

On Iowa caucus day, Ernst directly questioned Trump’s commitment to conservatism in a breakfast interview with Bloomberg Politics, pointing to his past views on abortion and taxes as cause for suspicion.

“Judging from what he said just a few years ago, I would not have agreed that he was a conservative,” Ernst explained. “There’s no proof out there yet. .… We don’t have a record that we can judge him by.”

Just some context to keep in mind as you listen to Ernst’s speech Monday night.

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Overheard

“When Donald Trump says, ‘I’m the law and order candidate,’ he’s the first nominee to say that since Nixon. It captures the mood of the moment.”

— an Ohio GOP delegate reacting to the Baton Rogue shooting while sipping coffee in a Cleveland Starbucks

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Happening Monday: #NeverTrump’s next-to-last stand

With Jon Ward

For months, the media — Unconventional included — hyped last week’s Rules Committee clash between the Trump campaign and conservatives determined to “free the delegates” as a potentially explosive moment that could change the course of the entire convention.

Could the delegates unbind themselves from their states’ primary results and instead vote their conscience on the first ballot — a maneuver that would allow them to rebel against Trump and select someone else instead?

It was by far the most pressing question heading into Cleveland. But then the Rules Committee actually met — and the campaign to unbind the delegates fizzled like faulty firecracker. Outnumbered by Republicans who supported the status quo, and out-organized by the tactically brilliant RNC-Trump whip team, the insurgents simply couldn’t compete. They lost the decisive vote 87 to 12.

But apparently the story isn’t over just yet. The rebels are refusing to give up.

“I’m not going to let the Rules Committee think that they’re relevant,” Kendal Unruh, a Colorado delegate and leader of the Free the Delegates movement, told Politico. “I’m not going to empower them anymore. The power has been and will continue to be in the hands of the delegates.”

With almost no chance of success — and time running out — anti-Trump conservatives are still preparing to disrupt the proceedings at two points this week.

Their first opportunity comes Monday.

So what are they planning? Last Friday, Ken Cuccinelli, the former attorney general of Virginia, summoned sympathetic Rules Committee members to a “where do we go from here?” strategy session at the Hilton DoubleTree Hotel downtown. It lasted for eight hours. Here’s a photo from inside the room:

Similar meetings took place throughout Cleveland over the weekend. By the time Sunday rolled around, Unruh & Co. seemed to have settled on strategy. On Monday, the convention’s 2,472 delegates are set to automatically adopt the new package of rules passed by the Rules Committee last week. But the insurgents want the convention to break with tradition and reject this package and approve a different version that would free delegates to rebel against Trump.

To accomplish this Herculean feat, they’ll first have to convince a majority of the delegates from at least seven states or territories to sign their petition; only then can they force a floor vote on the matter. Next, they’ll actually have to win that vote by convincing the entire convention to rewrite the new rules — again, and in a manner that the Rules Committee has already repudiated.

It’s hard to overstate how difficult this will be — especially with the crack RNC-Trump team still whipping votes against them. But it should be interesting to observe.

Meanwhile, Unruh and Cuccinelli are both attempting to gather the 28 Rules Committee signatures they need to pass minority reports and force the entire convention to hold messy, divisive votes on their pet issues — unbinding in Unruh’s case; closed primaries and other conservative reforms in Cuccinelli’s. The deadline for minority reports is also Monday.

Late Sunday, a person involved in the talks told Yahoo News that their chances of success — both with a minority report and rejecting the rules package — were “mostly over.”

The group’s last-gasp effort, according to this source, was shifting to a walkout by delegates on Monday when the rules package is voted on. And some delegates — but not a statistically significant number — are still planning on voting for Sen. Ted Cruz instead of Trump on Tuesday night.

Cuccinelli contested the idea that the minority report was a lost cause. “We should be fine on [that],” he told Yahoo News. But he said the rules package fight was less solid and that his group “won’t know till tomorrow” whether they have enough support.

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Convention Diaries

Click through for the full Yahoo News convention diary from Mississippi GOP delegate Nell Frisbee.

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Cleveland protestors, under the gun

Two fundamental American protections — the right to bear arms and the freedom of speech — may wind up clashing this week on the street of Cleveland.

At this point — especially after the shootings Sunday of several Baton Rogue police officers — you’ve probably heard about one of the more surreal quirks of Cleveland’s security plan. While convention-goers are prohibited from bringing water guns anywhere near the Quicken Loans Arena, actual fireams are fine.

(Also explicitly banned: the ancient battle glove known as a “cestus” — but that’s another story.)

How will Ohio’s open-carry laws affect the convention? Should people in Cleveland (and elsewhere) be preparing for OK Corral-style shootouts between politically passionate vigilantes on the streets of the CLE?

Bryan Hambley, for one, thinks the focus on violence is a bit overblown. But he warns that guns could have a big impact on the RNC regardless of whether anyone actually pulls a trigger.

Hambley is the young doctor who leads Stand Together Against Trump (STAT), the group that will be spearheading the convention’s largest anti-Trump march and rally on Thursday.

“Anything could happen, but at least I know that none of our people are bringing guns,” Hambley tells Unconventional. (STAT strongly emphasizes “peaceful and positive” protest tactics.) “What worries me more is if a small number of people with guns get a large amount of attention in the media — and if that, in turn, dissuades people from coming out to demonstrate.”

Hambley’s fear is that if images of guys with AR-15-style weapons strapped to their back start to circulate online and on TV, a lot of potential protestors will choose to stay home instead of speaking out.

The first such image surfaced Sunday — right on cue:

Hambley is hoping for 5,000 anti-Trump protestors. Whether they actually show up, though, may depend on how many similar photos they see. And they will likely see more — in the wake of the Baton Rogue shootings, Ohio Gov. John Kasich has refused to a request from the Cleveland Police Union to restrict the brandishing of guns in the convention area.

“One of the ICU nurses was planning to bring her kids because she wants them to see history in the making,” says Hambley. “But now she’s going to be watching the first few days of the convention closely, and if there are a lot of people carrying guns, she’s not going to come.”

Hambley sighs. “Which is disappointing,” he finally says. “Kids should feel safe downtown — Republican kids and Democratic kids.”

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And the award for craziest GOP comment goes to … Michael Folk of West Virginia!

By Michael Isikoff

It’s a safe bet there will be plenty of Clinton bashing at this week’s Republican convention in Cleveland. But one GOP delegate may have jumped the shark when he called for the former secretary of state to be tried for treason and “hung on the Mall in Washington D.C.”

The lawmaker, West Virginia State Representative Michael Folk, who is also a United Airlines pilot, has since deleted the offending tweet. But United Airlines said over the weekend — in its own statement on Twitter — that it was “appalled” by the comments and “looking into the matter further.”

United subsequently revealed that Folk had “been removed from flying pending our investigation.”

Earlier Sunday, a new anti-Trump super-PAC seized on the incident as a prime example of toxic political rhetoric, calling for a nationwide boycott of United Airlines “until they take concrete action to protect the public.”

Jon Cooper, chairman of the Democratic Coalition Against Trump, said the group wants United to “perform a psychological evaluation before Mr. Folk is allowed to return to the skies.”

For his part, Folk appeared to apologize for his tweet. “I do think she should be tried and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Folk told CNN Saturday. But as for being hanged, he said, “No, my gosh. That was the hyperbole in the statement.”

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By the numbers

50,000: The number of visitors expected to flood into Cleveland during the convention, according to organizers.

66,186: The average number of fans in attendance at a 2015 Cleveland Browns home game

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The best of the rest

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What to watch Monday

• 1 p.m.: Convention officially opens; Convention Business Session follows

• TBA: Speech by Willie Robertson, star of Duck Dynasty

• TBA: Speech by Marcus Luttrell, retired U.S. Navy SEAL and author of the book Lone Survivor

• TBA: Speech by Scott Baio, former star of “Charles in Charge”

• TBA: Speech by Pat Smith, mother of the late Sean Smith, information Management Officer, United States Foreign Service

• TBA: Speech by Mark Geist, Member of Benghazi Annex Security Team and Co-Author of 13 Hours

• TBA: Speech by John Tiegen, Member of Benghazi Annex security team and military consultant

• TBA: Speech by Antonio Sabato Jr., former star of “General Hospital”

• TBA: Speech by Jamiel Shaw, immigration reform advocate

• TBA: Speech by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton

• TBA: Speech by Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions

• TBA: Speech by Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City

• TBA: Speech by Melania Trump, wife of Donald Trump

• TBA: Speech by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency

• TBA: Speech Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst

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