Chris Wallace: Trump ‘couldn’t keep up the act’ in RNC speech

CNN anchor Chris Wallace said former President Trump “couldn’t keep up the act” in his speech accepting the GOP nomination at the 2024 Republican National Convention late Thursday.

“It seemed as if he couldn’t keep up the act,” Wallace said on CNN in a clip highlighted by Mediaite. “And so, we started hearing about ‘crazy Nancy Pelosi’ and cheating on elections and talking about Biden.”

“Frankly, it was a long speech, it was a rambling speech, it was a speech by an older man, and I couldn’t help but think that the people that are gonna be happiest tonight are not the people at Trump headquarters, but the people — the Democrats, maybe at Biden headquarters, maybe at the headquarters of other people who think they’re gonna replace Joe Biden.”

Trump formally accepted his party’s presidential nomination with an address that lasted more than an hour and a half, the longest acceptance speech by a major party candidate. 

The former president and his advisers said earlier this week that he had scrapped his original convention speech draft in the wake of the assassination attempt against him last weekend for something more restrained.

However, during the convention speech, Trump went after former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and President Biden.

“Part of the, I have to say for me, disappointment, in this speech, is because the Trump campaign had talked so much about how we were gonna see a softer, more reflective Donald Trump,” Wallace said on CNN.

“And, he had a line early on, he said, ‘I’m going to be president for all Americans, because there’s no victory in winning for half of Americans,’ and I thought, ‘Well, we’re off to the races here, and this is really gonna be a different Donald Trump.’ As you say, he then went in, in very reflective, somber, un-Trumplike detail … talking about how God saved him, saved his life and seemed genuinely reflective.”

The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.