Prominent Republicans —some of whom worked for former President Donald Trump— have taken the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris.
Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, former Pence homeland security adviser Olivia Troye and former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham have all thrown their support behind the Democratic nominee and suggested Trump lacks the moral character to lead the nation again. Former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger is also expected to speak.
They all had one message to their fellow Republicans and independents: do the right thing and vote for Harris in November.
“To my fellow Republicans at home that want to pivot back toward policy, empathy and tone, you know the right thing to do, now let’s have the courage to do it in November,” said Duncan, summarizing the other Republican speakers’ speeches as well as his own.
Duncan knows what courage requires. Defending the election results in Georgia after the 2020 presidential election, Duncan faced such serious threats from Trump supporters that law enforcement had to protect his home.
“In our family, my wife, Brooke, and I are raising three boys and we have a family motto,” Duncan said Wednesday night at the DNC. “And it says, ‘Doing the right thing will never be the wrong thing.’ During 2020, during just the lowest of lows when we had armed officers outside our house protecting us from other Republicans, Donald Trump had targeted us. My son came downstairs and he handed me this coaster that I had given him years before at a father-son retreat for our church. And he said, ‘Hey dad, doing the right thing will never be the wrong thing. Stay strong.’ To my fellow Republicans at home that want to pivot back toward policy, empathy and tone, you know the right thing to do, now let’s have the courage to do it in November.”
J. Scott Applewhite / AP
Troye, the former top Pence official, said she “grew up in the kind of working family that Trump pretends to care about.”
“Conservative. Catholic. Texan,” she said. “July 4th was our most sacred holiday. Those values made me a Republican. And they’re the same values that make me proud to support Kamala Harris.”
Troye described working inside Trump’s White House as “terrifying.”
“But what keeps me up at night is what’ll happen if he gets back there,” she said. “The guardrails are gone, the few adults in the room the first time resigned or were fired.”
Grisham, who was criticized for never holding a press briefing during her tenure, resigned on Jan. 6, 2021, as rioters assaulted the Capitol and Trump said nothing to stop them.
“I wasn’t just a Trump supporter, I was a true believer,” Grisham told the DNC crowd. “I was one of his closest advisers. The Trump family became my family. I spent Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s all at Mar-a-Lago. I saw him when the cameras were off. Behind closed doors, Trump mocks his supporters. He calls them basement dwellers.”
Grisham recalled a hospital visit when Americans were dying at the ICU and she said he was upset the cameras weren’t on him.
“He has no empathy, no morals, and no fidelity to the truth,” she said. “He used to tell me, ‘It doesn’t matter what you say, Stephanie —say it enough and people will believe you.’ But it does matter. What you say matters. And what you don’t say matters. On January 6th, I asked Melania if we could at least tweet that while peaceful protest is the right of every American, there’s no place for lawlessness or violence. She replied with one word: “‘No.'”
Grisham said she “couldn’t be part of the insanity any longer.”
“When I was press secretary, I got skewered for never holding a White House briefing,” she said. “It’s because, unlike my boss, I never wanted to stand at that podium and lie. Now here I am, behind a podium, advocating for a Democrat. And that’s because I love my country more than I love my party. Kamala Harris tells the truth. She respects the American people. And she has my vote.”
Former Republican Anna Navarro, a Nicaraguan-born political commentator and co-host of “The View,” also spoke out against Trump on stage at the DNC. She stopped supporting Republicans in 2016, partly over the “Access Hollywood” tape. Navarro blasted Trump for calling Harris a “communist.”
“Let’s be serious,” Navarro said. “Donald Trump and his minions call Kamala a communist. I know communism. I fled communism from Nicaragua when I was 8 years old. I don’t take it lightly.”
Kinzinger, a Republican former congressman from Illinois, has long been vocally critical of Trump. He’s expected to speak Thursday night.