MILWAUKEE – GOP vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance says his mission as he delivers his acceptance speech on day three of the Republican National Convention is simple.

Vance, the 39-year-old senator from Ohio whom former President Trump named as his running mate at the beginning of the week, on Wednesday night will address the roughly 2,400 delegates and thousands of other attendees packed inside Milwaukee’s Fiserv Arena, and the millions of Americans watching the GOP convention from home.

‘We’re gonna get out there and try to fire up the crowd tonight,’ Vance said at a financial event hours before his prime time address at the convention.

The senator added that he would ‘make the case, a very easy case to make, but an important case to make, that we have got to re-elect President Donald J. Trump to the White House.’

And he joked, ‘I’m very excited about this evening, and I don’t plan to screw it up. But if I do, it’s too late. He [Trump] made the pick, right. It’s official now.’

Trump, in making his greatly anticipated and high-stakes running mate announcement as the GOP convention kicked off in swing-state Wisconsin’s largest city, will now share the ticket with one of his top supporters in the Senate, a one-time Trump critic who has transformed into a leading America First ally.

The former president and Vance teamed up on Monday and Tuesday nights in the Trump family box above the floor of the GOP convention.

Vance, a former venture capitalist and the author of the bestselling memoir ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ before running for elective office, on Wednesday night will appear on the podium to tell his story.

A source in Vance’s political orbit told Fox News to ‘expect the speech to focus heavily on his bio and incredible life story and how that ties into the America First agenda.’

Another source with knowledge of the speech told Fox News it will ‘connect his life experiences to the Trump policies. Folding in his firsthand experience of a tough upbringing that shaped his views on a lot of the biggest issues he is passionate about.’

The source said those issues include trade, immigration, ending endless wars, fentanyl and drugs, and how inflation hurts the poor the most.

That story began with Vance growing up in a working-class family in a small city in southwestern Ohio. His parents divorced when he was young, and as his mother struggled for years with drug and alcohol abuse, Vance was raised in part by his maternal grandparents.

After high school graduation, Vance enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and served in Iraq. He later graduated from Ohio State University and then earned a law degree at Yale.

Vance, who lives in Cincinnati, moved to San Francisco after law school and worked as a principal in a venture capital firm owned by billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who later became a major financial supporter of Vance’s successful 2022 campaign for the Senate.

Before running for Senate, Vance grabbed national attention after ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ – which tells his story of growing up in a struggling steel mill city and his roots in Appalachian Kentucky – became a New York Times bestseller and was made into a Netflix film. The story spotlighted the values of many working-class Americans who became supporters of Trump’s policies.

Vance was a vocal critic of Trump when the former president first ran for the White House in the 2016 cycle. 

However, Vance eventually supported Trump, praising the former president’s tenure in the White House, and in a Fox News interview in 2021, he apologized for his earlier criticism of Trump.

Trump’s endorsement of Vance days before the 2022 GOP Senate primary boosted him to victory in a crowded, competitive and combustible race.

‘I think the American people are going to love to hear JD’s story of overcoming adversity as a young man, becoming a Marine and serving his country in uniform in Iraq, and going on to becoming a business leader, and now a successful elected leader as well,’ fellow veteran and fellow Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas told Fox News on Tuesday.

Democrats, in a taste of things to come, on Monday wasted no time in criticizing Vance.

President Biden told reporters that Vance was ‘a clone of Trump on the issues.’ 

Vice President Harris, in a campaign video released on Wednesday, charged that ‘Vance will be loyal only to Trump, not to our country.’

And the president’s campaign argued that Vance was selected because he would ‘do what [former Vice President] Mike Pence wouldn’t on January 6: bend over backwards to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and no matter the harm to the American people.’

Fox News’ Alexis McAdams contributed to this report

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance will ‘run circles’ around Vice President Kamala Harris in a debate, Alabama Sen. Katie Britt told Fox News Digital in an interview at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Britt, a rising star in the GOP who delivered the official Republican rebuttal to President Biden’s State of the Union address earlier this year, praised Vance ahead of his highly anticipated convention speech Wednesday night and predicted Americans would ‘love’ him the moment they get to know him.

‘I am excited to watch him debate Kamala Harris because it will not even be a contest. With all due respect to the vice president, our next vice president of the United States, JD Vance, is going to run circles around her. No doubt,’ Britt said.

‘I am honored not only to call JD a colleague, but to call him a friend … The best part about it is we’ve gotten to know each other as people, and when the American people get to know JD Vance, they are going to love everything about him.’

Britt later said Vance’s life story of pulling himself up by his bootstraps and pushing through ‘unimaginable’ circumstances was part of why he is ‘uniquely suited to push forward President Trump’s agenda of secure borders, safe streets, stable prices, and really showing strength across the globe.’

She described the feeling of seeing Trump enter the convention hall on Monday to stand alongside Vance for the first time since his attempted assassination over the weekend as ‘electric.’

‘It was amazing. I mean, you could feel the energy,’ Britt said. ‘Watching him walk in to ‘God Bless America,’ there was a peace and a hope and a resiliency that not only came from him, but I think radiated across the entire arena.’

Harris called Vance to congratulate him after Trump announced him as his running mate and expressed hope they could meet at a vice presidential debate proposed by CBS News to be held at a later date.

Trump previously accepted a vice presidential debate on behalf of his future running mate to be hosted on Fox News. However, the Biden campaign has only been willing to do the debate on CBS. 

No vice presidential debate has been confirmed yet, but Biden and Trump agreed to two presidential debates. The first was hosted by CNN on June 27 and the second will be hosted by ABC News on Sept. 10.

Fox News’ Julia Johnson contributed to this report.

A new poll released on Wednesday found that 65% of Democrats say President Biden should drop out following his disastrous debate performance against former President Trump. 

The AP-NORC survey – which was conducted July 11-15, mostly completed before the attempted assassination of Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend – found that 7 in 10 adults, including 65% of Democrats, say Biden should withdraw and allow his party to select a different nominee.

Overall, 57% of adults say Trump should withdraw from the race and allow his party to name a replacement. But Trump is maintaining support from his party, with 73% of Republicans saying he should stay in the race.

Biden is facing more resistance from his party, with only 35% of Democrats saying he should continue his re-election campaign. 

The survey found that more people view Biden as honest than those who feel the same way as Trump, but Trump is more likely to be seen as capable of winning in November and better able to handle a crisis, according to the Associated Press. 

Black Democrats are among Biden’s strongest supporters. Half of Black Democrats say he should continue running, while only a third of White and Hispanic Democrats say the same.

Younger Democrats are more likely to want Biden to withdraw from the race. Three-quarters of Democrats under the age of 45 want Biden to drop out, compared to 57% of those over the age of 45.

Thirty-seven percent of Democrats are satisfied with Biden as their party’s nominee. Before last month’s debate, 42% were satisfied. Meanwhile, the number of Democrats who are dissatisfied has grown from 38% to 48%.

In contrast, about 6 in 10 Republicans continue to be satisfied with Trump, while roughly a quarter are dissatisfied with him at the top of the Republican ticket.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

From Nikki Haley’s standing ovation to political predictions by ‘Babydog,’ here are the biggest moments from Tuesday night at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

1. Nikki Haley wins over the crowd

Former Ambassador and presidential contender Nikki Haley received a standing ovation at her main stage appearance from former President Trump – a signal of a desire for unity after bitter words were exchanged between the two on the campaign trail. 

Haley, who was Trump’s fiercest primary rival, gave the former president her ‘strong endorsement’ during her speech on the RNC stage in Milwaukee, ending months of speculation on whether she would throw her weight behind the former president. 

‘You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him,’ Haley said. ‘Take it from me. I haven’t always agreed with President Trump. But we agree more often than we disagree.’

2. Ron DeSantis says America can’t afford another ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ presidency

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who also ran against Trump in the primary, got in a good dig against President Biden, telling the cheering crowd that the country ‘cannot afford four more years of a ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ presidency.’ 

The reference to the 1993 film depicting a group of coworkers propping up their deceased boss as a puppet to not ruin a vacation got a laugh out of Trump, who was sitting in the audience.

‘My fellow Republicans, let’s send Joe Biden back to his basement and let’s send Donald Trump back to the White House. Life was more affordable when Donald Trump was president,’ DeSantis said. ‘Our border was safer under the Trump administration, and our country was respected when Donald Trump was our commander in chief.’

3. Mom whose son died of a drug overdose drew tears from the crowd

Anne Fundner, who lost her 15-year-old son to fentanyl poisoning, brought the crowd at the RNC to tears Tuesday night with her remarks focused on the importance of securing the border and stopping the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.

Fundner, whose son, Weston, died on Feb. 27, 2022, said the Biden administration ‘does nothing’ to aid the raging drug epidemic or border crisis. Fundner was part of a series of ‘Everyday Americans’ who spoke about real life hardships they’ve suffered living in the U.S. under Biden administration policies. 

‘I hold Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, the border czar – what a joke – and Gavin Newsom and every Democrat who supports open borders responsible for the death of my son,’ Fundner said, prompting a standing ovation and loud cheers from the crowd.

She added: ‘For that alone, they should be voted out of office,’ to which the crowd began chanting, ‘Joe must go!’

4. Brother of Morin family’s somber reminder of the costs of illegal immigration

The family of a mother of five who was murdered, allegedly by an illegal immigrant, took aim at the Biden administration for having ‘opened our borders’ to the man accused of killing her.

‘Rachel, a joyful, accomplished athlete and mother of five was raped and murdered by a suspected illegal immigrant,’ Michael Morin, Rachel’s brother, told the crowd on Tuesday night. ‘This was described as among the most brutal and violent offenses that has ever occurred in Harford County, Maryland, history.’

Rachel Morin went out for a jog on a trail near her home but never made it back. Police found her body in a culvert, covered in bruises and with severe head trauma.

Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, 23, faces a half-dozen charges, including first-degree murder, rape and kidnapping, in connection with Morin’s death.

‘Joe Biden and his designated border czar Kamala Harris opened our borders to him and others like him, empowering them to victimize the innocent,’ Michael Morin said.

He said they had not heard from the White House, but had heard from former President Trump.

5. Baby Dog’s predictions

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice brought special guest ‘Babydog’ along with him for his address at the GOP convention. It was a move that erupted on social media as political onlookers rejoiced over the appearance of the English bulldog.

Justice is the Republican Senate candidate vying for the seat of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who is not seeking re-election. Justice said Babydog predicted the GOP in November will maintain the majority in the House, flip the Senate and ‘overwhelmingly’ elect the Trump-Vance ticket for the White House. 

Fox News Digital’s Adam Shaw and Michael Lee contributed to this report. 

President Biden has declared in an interview this week that his mental acuity is ‘pretty damn good’ — despite numerous recent polls showing majorities of Americans thinking otherwise and raising concerns about his age. 

‘I’ve been doing this a long time. The idea I’m the old guy, I am. I’m old. But I’m only three years older than Trump, number one,’ Biden told NBC News. ‘And number two, my mental acuity’s been pretty damn good. I’ve gotten more done than any president has in a long, long time in 3½ years. So I’m willing to be judged on that.’ 

‘I understand. I understand why people say, ‘God, he’s 81 years old. Whoa,’ Biden added. ‘What’s he gonna be when he’s 83 years old, or 84 years?’ It’s a legitimate question to ask.’ 

But a new national poll released this week by NBC News, which surveyed 800 registered voters between July 7-9, found that nearly 80% are concerned about Biden ‘not having the necessary mental and physical health to be a president for a second term.’ 

In an ABC News/Washington Post poll released last week, 85% said Biden is too old to serve out a second term. Meanwhile, 60% of respondents also said former President Trump is too old for a second term, up from 44% in the spring of 2023. 

And a Fox News national survey that was taken after the first presidential debate but before Saturday’s assassination attempt on Trump found that 63% believe Biden’s age is jeopardizing national security, 71% think the White House has been dishonest about Biden’s mental state, and another 63% doubt he is that involved in making important decisions these days. 

In that survey, a new low of 32% think Biden has the mental soundness to serve effectively as president, down 9 points since May. It is a larger 17-point drop among Democrats, from 78% two months ago to 61% now.  

Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom and Dana Blanton contributed to this report. 

About four in five Americans believe that the country is spiraling into chaos, according to a two-day poll. 

The poll by Ipsos for Reuters was conducted after the assassination attempt on former President Trump at his rally in Pennsylvania and after Trump announced Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, as his vice presidential running mate at the start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Monday. 

About 80% of respondents agreed with the statement that ‘the country is spiraling out of control.’ 

The poll found 86% of Americans are concerned about acts of violence throwing the country into chaos, while 56% are very concerned. According to the survey of 1,202 general population adults aged 18 or older in the United States, 57% said they are very concerned, and 87% said they are totally concerned that Americans will resort to violence instead of coming together peacefully to solve disagreements. 

The poll, conducted online, sampled 1,202 adults, including registered voters – 402 Democrats, 361 Republicans and 331 Independents.

The poll found 84% of voters surveyed said they were concerned that extremists will commit acts of violence after the election. That marked a significant uptick from the 74% of voters who expressed that fear in the Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in May. 

About 67% of Americans said they feared acts of violence against their community because of their political beliefs. That rose from the 60% of respondents who said the same in a Reuters/Ipsos poll from June 2023.

About one in three respondents said they believed Trump was favored by divine providence after surviving the assassination attempt on Saturday. 

According to the survey, 43% of registered voters said they preferred Trump, the Republican candidate, while 41% said they preferred President Biden, the Democratic incumbent, but the results fell between the poll’s three percentage point margin of error. The poll found 69% of Americans view Biden as too old to work in government, compared to 49% who see Trump as too old. 

Vice President Kamala Harris said in a newly released video that former President Trump selected Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, as his running mate to be a ‘rubber stamp’ for the Republican White House hopeful’s ‘extreme agenda.’

This comes ahead of Vance’s acceptance speech on Wednesday at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Trump, now formally the Republican nominee for president, announced Vance as his pick for vice president on Monday.

‘Trump looked for someone he knew would be a rubber stamp for his extreme agenda,’ Harris said in the video.

‘Make no mistake: JD Vance will be loyal only to Trump, not to our country,’ she continued.

Harris and Vance spoke by phone after Vance’s nomination in a brief and respectful conversation, Fox News’ Alexis McAdams reports, after Harris left a congratulatory voicemail.

Harris also criticized Vance for saying in an interview with ABC News earlier this year that he would not have certified the 2020 election until states submitted pro-Trump electors if he were vice president at the time, noting in the interview that he believes unsubstantiated claims of election fraud in the 2020 election.

‘Unlike Mike Pence, Vance said he would have carried out Trump’s plan to overturn the 2020 election,’ Harris said.

The vice president further pointed to comments Vance made during his 2022 Senate campaign, when he said he supported a national abortion ban at 15 weeks, with some exceptions such as protecting the life of the mother. Harris also cited in her video Vance’s vote last month against a Democrat-led bill to protect access to in vitro fertilization, or IVF. The bill was blocked by Republicans in the Senate.

‘He supports a national abortion ban and voted against protecting IVF,’ Harris said of Vance.

Harris also referenced Project 2025, a controversial initiative organized by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation and that was authored by a number of conservatives, including some former Trump administration officials.

Project 2025 offers right-wing policy recommendations for Trump should he win the presidency, including replacing civil service employees with Trump loyalists, abolishing the Department of Education, criminalizing pornography, eliminating DEI programs, cutting funding for Medicaid and Medicare, rejecting abortion as health care and infusing the government with Christian values.

Trump has sought to distance himself from the initiative, which has been criticized as an authoritarian and Christian nationalist plan that would undermine civil liberties, saying he knows nothing about it and that parts of it are ‘absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.’

‘And if elected, [Vance] will help implement the extreme Project 2025 plan for a second Trump term, which would target critical programs like Head Start and Medicare,’ Harris said. ‘But we are not going to let that happen.’

Milwaukee, Wis.—President Trump is showing ‘real leadership’ to ‘not just America, but the world’ following the attempt on his life over the weekend — drawing a stark contrast between himself and President Biden, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said.

McCarthy spoke with Fox News Digital on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention, nothing that while JD Vance is a strong pick for vice president, this election is ‘all about Trump and he is stronger than he has ever been.’ 

‘Seeing President Trump, talking to him the day after the shooting, I mean, it is unbelievable that he is alive,’ McCarthy said. ‘I think just in that sheer moment he taught, not just America, but the world, that he is a real leader.’ 

McCarthy told Fox News Digital that in the past several days following the assassination attempt against Trump, he has spoken with numerous world leaders who have called to check in on the former president.

‘They say he showed real leadership, and that makes America stronger, and makes the world safer in the same instance,’ McCarthy said. ‘And then when they look at the times of President Biden tripping, falling over a bike — that showed a weakness in America.’ 

This week, less than 48 hours after the attempt on his life, Trump announced that Sen. JD Vance of Ohio is his pick for vice president. Trump made the highly anticipated announcement on his Truth Social account, amid months of speculation of who his running mate would be. 

But McCarthy doesn’t think it matters. 

‘Not taking anything away from JD, but I don’t think a VP is going to matter in this race,’ McCarthy told Fox News Digital. ‘This is all about Trump and Trump is stronger than he has ever been.’ 

McCarthy, though, said the Trump-Vance ticket is an ‘interesting’ one, that can draw in non-traditional Republicans. 

‘Just the history of JD and his life experience—being raised by his grandparents, joining the Marines, coming up from nothing, making something of himself, being an author, understanding the Appalachians—that is new for us,’ McCarthy said. ‘But President Trump has always reached out to a lot of Independents and Democrats and I think they know the contrast and the policies that they had under Trump and what world they lived in under President Trump and now President Biden. I think this will be a big night for us in November.’ 

As for Biden, McCarthy said he has watched the president ‘utilize the assassination attempt to try to reset his campaign and solidify his nomination.’ 

‘He is even trying to move it forward ahead of time by having the vote for the nomination early so that there’s not a fight at the convention,’ McCarthy explained. ‘For the first time, I see the Republicans more unified at any given time.’ 

McCarthy reflected on his relationship with Biden while serving as speaker of the House. 

‘Biden never met with Republicans, and the rhetoric you saw in his State of the Union — that wasn’t a speech to unite the country — he has been this way the whole time,’ McCarthy said. ‘And if you just watch President Trump and President Biden in the last week, one is angry and the other is very somber and uniting and that is President Trump uniting.’ 

McCarthy said he has seen Biden ‘lashing out.’ 

‘He has this anger in him — I’ve seen it individually and what I’ve warned people about is the fact that this is a different Joe Biden and I think it is all coming to fruition,’ McCarthy told Fox News Digital. 

McCarthy said the divide in the Democrat Party over Biden’s re-election campaign following his disastrous debate performance last month is a ‘Watergate moment for the Democrats.’ 

‘Who knew what when? They wouldn’t allow the president to go talk to people, they knew the cognitive problems he had,’ McCarthy said. ‘I have been talking about this for more than a year and they have been attacking me over it, and now it has all been shown.’

McCarthy reminded that Democrats ‘changed their own party rules so that nobody could run against him. They changed when the primary would be, starting in South Carolina.’ 

McCarthy added: ‘They did everything they could to hide the fact of why they now want him to be removed.’  

Former New York Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin said he’s ‘tired’ of seeing Republicans verbally and physically attacked, arguing that anti-Trump and anti-GOP rhetoric has reached new highs across the years. 

‘The rhetoric has gotten so bad between, yes, the bullseye comment, remember Dan Goldman making a comment about how President Trump needs to be eliminated. Bennie Thompson wants to take away Secret Service protection. One of [Thompson’s] aides was just complaining that the shooter Saturday evening had missed President Trump. I’m tired of seeing Republicans attacked like this,’ Zeldin told Fox News Digital during the Republican National Convention on Tuesday. 

Zeldin was responding to President Biden backtracking on his comment earlier this month that ‘it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye,’ saying the remark was a ‘mistake’ after a 20-year-old man in Pennsylvania attempted to assassinate Trump during a rally on Saturday evening. Zeldin reflected that verbal and physical attacks against Republicans have been ongoing and heightening for years before a shooter tried to kill the 45th president. 

‘I saw it with Steve Scalise with the shooting a few years ago, the attack on Rand Paul, the targeting of Justice Kavanaugh, this very close, near-assassination of President Trump. Yes, we should settle our scores at the ballot box. I agree with that. It’s a truth. It’s something that everyone should preach and everyone should believe in,’ he continued. 

‘Ultimately, we have to confront, head on, the fact that there is a very extensive effort basically throwing everything that they can against President Trump outside of the ballot box to try to prevent him from taking office … It’s gone too far. It’s sick and it needs to end,’ he continued. 

Zeldin said that three days after Trump announced his run for re-election in 2022, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Jack Smith as special counsel to prosecute Trump, while Georgia prosecutor Nathan Wade ‘was sitting inside the White House Counsel’s Office,’ and DOJ official ‘Matthew Colangelo was putting in his papers to leave the Department of Justice’ to take a job in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office ahead Trump’s indictment in the New York criminal case.  

‘That was all nine days after President Biden said that we would have to pursue ways outside of the ballot box to take down President Trump,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to just sign up for the fact it’s all just a coincidence.’ 

‘Every normal, commonsense, average everyday American is able to see through it. Let’s truly focus on settling the score at the ballot box. Let’s not have to focus on crazy criminal cases and trying to bankrupt the president and all these other attempts that threaten safety.’

Several delegates at the Republican National Convention (RNC), including Arizona’s Stacey Goodman and Joe Neglia, were spotted donning ear bandages that mirrored the one being worn by former President Trump after he was wounded during an assassination attempt at his Pennsylvania rally on Saturday.

‘Yesterday when he came in, and there was that eruption of love in the room, I thought, ‘what can I do to honor the truth? What can I possibly do?” Neglia told Fox News Digital. ‘And then I saw the bandage and I thought, I can do that. So, I put it on simply to honor Trump and to express sympathy with him and unity with him.’

Neglia said he made the bandages en route to Milwaukee, where the convention is taking place this week. Trump has been wearing a bandage on his right ear where the bullet shot by Thomas Matthew Crooks’ pierced through his skin.

‘There’s a male version and a female version because there are only two genders!’ Neglia said. Other attendees were spotted sporting the look, too.

Trump received a warm welcome, again, from delegates at the RNC on Tuesday night, where lawmakers, activists, and everyday Americans spoke about immigration, crime, and the fentanyl crisis – fitting the night’s theme of ‘Make America Safe Again.’ This time, Trump arrived alongside his newly picked running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, where they took seats in Trump’s family box. 

Trump arrived on Day 2 of the convention just in time to hear Sen. Ted Cruz, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson and his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, among others. 

He also heard from former UN ambassador Nikki Haley – his final rival to drop out of the race – and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had also challenged Trump for the Republican nomination. Both have now endorsed the former president, as the Republican Party becomes more unified behind their standard-bearer. 

Republicans enthusiastically rallied behind Trump, with many thanking God for protecting Trump from narrowly surviving an assassination attempt over the weekend. The lawmakers also slammed President Biden’s ‘soft-on-crime policies,’ and for the crisis at the southern border –  two key issues central to the Republican platform.

‘He has inspired a movement,’ Rubio said in his speech. 

Trump is not scheduled to speak until Thursday, the final night of the convention, where he will formally accept the Republican Party’s nomination for president.