President Trump questions integrity of election after nomination

President Donald Trump turned a surprise opening-day appearance at his party’s scaled-down national convention into an opportunity to question the integrity of the upcoming election.

The president, who was not scheduled to deliver his keynote convention address until later in the week, nevertheless made multiple public appearances throughout the first day of the four-day convention.

And while the evening programming was carefully scripted, President Trump was not.

“The only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election,” President Trump told hundreds of Republican delegates gathered in North Carolina, raising anew his unsupported concerns about Americans’ expected reliance on mail voting during the pandemic.

President @realDonaldTrump on disastrous Universal Mail-In Ballots pic.twitter.com/u6wlTRQpXk

— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) August 24, 2020

Experts say mail voting has proven remarkably secure.

The GOP convention marks a crucial moment for President Trump, a first-term Republican president tasked with reshaping a campaign he is losing by all accounts, at least for now.