A crowd at the Republican national convention is chanting “Four more years!” as Trump gives a characteristically wide-ranging speech. Republican delegates formally nominated Trump for another term, Monday.

He has already praised what his administration “achieved” in response to the coronavirus pandemic, criticized CNN for failing to air the Republican delegate roll call, and said he “would not take the word ‘God’ out of the pledge of allegiance”.

President Trump is now speaking about his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic at the Republican National Convention.

He said his administration has “achieved” a lot in terms of the pandemic, and that governors were “totally ill-prepared” to confront the pandemic.

Governors that were totally ill-prepared,” said Trump. “Nobody wants to say that.”

When Covid-19 reached the United States in March and April, Trump told governors they would need to secure their own supplies to counter the pandemic, including ventilators. That lead to a run on the supplies as states, institutions and the federal government all competed for supplies.

Trump also said vaccines would be “pouring out years ahead of... a more traditional administration.”

Before he ended, he had touched on a drug pricing executive order experts describe as “mostly symbolic”. Trump claimed it would cut drug prices by “50, 60 or 70%”. He used that to describe low drug prices as the only reason he likes “socialism”. Then said America would never be a “socialist” country.

Trump then said he will “fully fund” law enforcement and hire more police and promote “school choice”

He also claimed his administration protected insurance coverage for “pre-existing conditions,” or sick people who before the Obama administration were regularly denied private health insurance coverage. In fact, his administration is suing to overturn the Affordable Care Act, which would end these protections.



Trump is now arguing Democrats are, “using Covid to steal an election.” He continued: “They’re using Covid to defraud the American people, all of the people, of a fair and free election, and they can’t do that.”

Trump concludes his first speech at the Republican National Convention with another attempt to undermine confidence in the results of the upcoming November election:

“This is the most important election in the history of our country, don’t let them take it away from you,” Trump said referring to the Democrats.