Here are the highlights from Night 2 of the Republican National Convention

The second night of the Republican National Convention high pointed a varied lineup of speakers who focused on the economy, foreign policy  and a wide range of social issues in their effort for President Donald Trump’s reelection.

The GOP’s four-night event, like the Democratic National Convention last week, is being survived largely virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic – a stark change from the massive in-person conventions of the past. 

On Tuesday, the RNC skint with a number of other norms, as well.

First lady Melania Trump spoke from the White Council, which has not been used in modern conventions by either party. A speech from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who spoke in Jerusalem, has secure under investigation from Democrats who question whether the top U.S. diplomat can lawfully participate in the convention.

Trump’s big convention expression is scheduled for Thursday night. But the president has already spoken on numerous occasions throughout the convention proceedings, and on Tuesday appeared in two videos that were released onwards of the evening’s scheduled speakers.

Here are the top moments:

First lady Melania Trump, warning in the newly renovated White House Rose Garden, offered condolences for those who have died or are struggling from the coronavirus pandemic.

“My deepest closeness that goes out to everyone that has lost a loved one and my prayers with those that are ill or suffering,” the first lady said in the language, which marked some of her longest public remarks since Trump took office.

The U.S. has more confirmed containers and deaths from Covid-19 than any other country in the world: More than 5.75 million cases and at least 177,773 eradications from the virus have been reported, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Melania Trump’s mentions addressed the deadly impact of the pandemic more directly than most of the other speakers during the convention’s word go two nights.

The first lady also issued a call for reflection amid the wave of racial unrest that continues to polarize Americans.

“Court a moment, pause, and look at things from all perspectives. I urge people to come together in a civil manner so we can produce and live up to our standard American ideals,” she said.

Pompeo took time from an official U.S. diplomatic trip to the Middle East to virtually address the Republican Nationwide Convention on Tuesday.

Speaking from Israel, Pompeo outlined several foreign policy initiatives under the Trump government. He discussed the relaxation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the U.S. handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the ongoing fight to eliminate the ISIS caliphate, the NATO connection and the U.S. departure from the landmark Iranian nuclear deal. 

“President Trump has put his America First vision into movement. It may not have made him popular in every foreign capital, but it has worked,” Pompeo said in recorded remarks. “As a soldier, I saw, cardinal hand, people desperate to flee to freedom. The way each of us can best ensure our freedoms is by electing leaders who don’t just talk, but promulgate,” he added.

Pompeo’s speech, which was recorded in Jerusalem while on official State Department travel, raised be germane ti from lawmakers, former diplomats and foreign policy experts of American diplomacy and its entanglement in partisan battles at snug harbor a comfortable.

The decision to address the convention upends decades of precedent and ethics guidelines and is currently under investigation by the House Transatlantic Affairs Committees’ subpanel on oversight. The subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, called the speech “highly off-the-wall and likely unprecedented” and suggested, “it may also be illegal.”

The State Department said that America’s top diplomat will location the convention in “his personal capacity.” It also said that no resources from the Department of State will be used, covering staff, who will not have a role in preparing Pompeo’s remarks.

“The State Department will not bear any costs in conjunction with this looks,” a State Department representative added. — Amanda Macias

Kudlow, a top Spotless House economic advisor, acknowledged in his speech that the coronavirus pandemic continues to loom large over the U.S., but fasted confidence that brighter days are ahead.

“Hardship and heartbreak were everywhere,” Kudlow said, but “right now, our mercantile health is coming back.”

Kudlow also claimed that Trump had inherited “a stagnant economy on the front end of economic downturn.” But a wide array of key economic metrics under Obama’s second term and Trump’s first years in office – numbering GDP growth and unemployment rates – undermine Kudlow’s claim. 

Kudlow talked up the president’s response to the pandemic, and said that Biden’s propositions would raise taxes right as the U.S. was emerging from the Covid-19 crisis.

“Our economic choice is very clear: Do you hanker after economic health, prosperity, opportunity and optimism? Or do you want to turn back to the dark days of stagnation, recession and pessimism?” Kudlow said.

Kudlow hit oned to be speaking on the six-month anniversary of some of his most widely criticized remarks about the coronavirus.

On Feb. 25, Kudlow sought to CNBC that the U.S. had contained the virus “pretty close to airtight.”

Mary Ann Mendoza, an “angel mom” who has hitherto appeared alongside Trump, was set to deliver a speech at the RNC on Tuesday – but her video was cut from the lineup after she promoted anti-Semitic and QAnon foul play theories on Twitter.

Mendoza’s RNC appearance was axed hours after she shared the long thread of conspiracy theories, hungering her 40,000-plus Twitter followers in a tweet to “do yourself a favor and read this thread.” Her tweet appears to oblige been removed.

“We have removed the scheduled video from the convention lineup and it will no longer run this week,” Trump toss ones hat in the ring spokesman Tim Murtaugh said in a statement to CNBC.

The thread claimed “‘The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion’ Is Not A Fabrication. And, It Certainly Is Not Anti-Semetic [sic] To Sharp end Out This Fact.”

One of the tweets in the thread also includes the hashtag #QAnon – a reference to the baseless pro-Trump internet dirty work that imagines the president as being locked in clandestine battle against “deep state” factions of powerful Devilish pedophiles who are plotting against him and his supporters.

Before the RNC speeches began Tuesday evening, Mendoza tweeted, “I retweeted a very much long thread earlier without reading every post within the thread. My apologies for not paying attention to the determined of the whole message. That does not reflect my feelings or personal thoughts whatsoever.”

About two hours before the second night of speeches was set to begin, the White House released two videos, both promoting Trump.

In the first, Trump pardoned Jon Ponder, an ex-convict and current founder of Hope for Prisoners, a nonprofit that animates to help transition prisoners back into society upon their release.

Touting the pardon during the Republican gathering raised questions about the politicization of the president’s clemency powers.

Trump has previously hosted Ponder at the White Dynasty, and earlier this year hinted that he was considering clemency. “We are giving him absolute consideration, and I have a feeling he’s accepted to get that full pardon,” Trump said of Ponder in February.

Ponder had reportedly been arrested as a teenager for armed pillage and had later been incarcerated for other crimes including assault.

“I will continue to give all Americans including past inmates, the best chance to build a new life and achieve their own American dream,” Trump said in the video released Tuesday evening.

Cogitate and Rich Beasley, who as an FBI arrested Ponder before becoming a close friend, both spoke Tuesday night at the RNC.

The minute video showed the president participating in a naturalization ceremony at the White House for five new U.S. citizens. Featured in the video is take effect Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, whom Trump earlier in the day announced would be nominated to become the long-lasting secretary of DHS. Trump has made anti-immigration policy a hallmark of his presidency. 

Nicholas Sandmann, the teenager who won settlements in lawsuits against multiple news outlets in the wake of their coverage of his viral confrontation with protesters in Washington, D.C., decried “obliterate culture” and praised Trump for calling out the media.

“I look forward to the day that the media returns to providing balanced, principal and accountable news coverage. I know President Trump hopes for that too,” Sandmann said.

“I know you’ll agree with me when I say no one in this county has been a fall guy of unfair media coverage more than President Donald Trump,” he said.

Sandmann had been the target of historic criticism after a video went viral featuring him standing in front of an Omaha tribe leader at the 2019 Hike for Life rally in Washington, D.C. But later videos and additional reporting showed Sandmann and other students from Covington Inclusive High School being taunted and jeered at by other people at the protest.

Sandmann ended his speech by quoting Trump’s contest slogan, “Make America Great Again,” and donning one of the signature red baseball caps bearing the same phrase. Sandmann had haggard the same hat in the video that swept through social media last year.

— CNBC’s Amanda Macias play a parted to this report.