Trump’s rivals Nikki Haley and Ron De Santis unite to embrace him

The former candidate urges her millions of non-populist, Trump-wary Republican supporters to embrace his MAGA campaign.

Nikki Haley after addressing the second day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Picture: AFP

Donald Trump has received a major boost, with his former bitter Republican presidential rivals uniting behind his push for the White House, with both Nikki Haley and Ron De Santis issuing powerful endorsements of the former president.

The move has huge implications for Mr Trump’s prospects of victory in the November election, with Ms Haley urging her millions of non-populist, Trump-wary Republican supporters to embrace Mr Trump’s MAGA campaign.

Speaking in front of the Trump faithful at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Ms Haley on Tuesday night (Wednesday AEST) received a loud mixed reception, with cheers and boos, but she used the prime-time platform to call for unity and lavishly praise the man she had once ­described as dangerous and unhinged.

“My fellow Republicans, president Trump asked me to speak at this convention in the name of unity,” she said.

“I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period,” she said to loud cheers.

“There are some Americans who don’t agree with Donald Trump 100 per cent of the time. I want to speak to them tonight.

“My message is simple – you don’t have to agree with Donald Trump 100 per cent of the time to vote for him.”

The theme of unity was further reinforced when another former Trump rival, Florida Governor DeSantis, spoke at the convention, saying “our border was safer when Trump was president and our country was safer under him as commander in chief …We cannot let (Mr Trump) down, we cannot let America down.”

The speeches came after Mr Trump said he wanted the RNC to send a message of unity to help bring the country together after he almost lost his life in an assassination attempt this week.

The Trump campaign has announced that Mr Trump and his newly announced vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, will speak together at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Saturday, a week after Mr Trump was shot in the ear at a rally in Pennsylvania. The rally will be held indoors, , with beefed-up security.

Mr Trump was earlier recorded telling independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy that the bullet that hit his ear “felt like a giant … like the world’s largest mosquito”.

Ms Haley, who came second to Mr Trump in a heated primary battle earlier this year in which he called her “a birdbrain”, was not initially invited to the RNC because Mr Trump was still angry at her attacks on him during that contest.

But the former South Carolina governor received a last-minute invitation to speak following Mr Trump’s attempted assassination, with him reportedly believing her appearance would help to send a message of unity.

Ron DeSantis leaves the stage at the RNC in in Milwaukee on Tuesday. Picture: AFP

Ms Haley’s praise for Mr Trump will be a critical influence on those Republicans who are conservative but wary of Mr Trump and his MAGA movement.

She is an old-style “Reagan Republican” who believes in global engagement, free trade and fiscal conservatism ahead of Mr Trump’s populist MAGA movement.

The votes of Ms Haley supporters could make the difference if the November election is close. She won between a quarter and a third of Republican votes in the primaries she contested and she continued to win sizable primary votes in states even after she dropped out of the race in March.

Prior to the convention, Ms Haley had released the 97 Republican delegates she won across 12 states in the primary contests and urged her delegates to vote for the former president.

The 52-year-old Ms Haley served as ambassador to the UN during Mr Trump’s presidency but the relationship between them soured as they both sought this year’s Republican nomination.

Ms Haley variously described Mr Trump as a dangerous and “unhinged” agent of chaos and said Mr Trump’s claim that he was robbed of the 2020 election “will be judged harshly by history”.

Other speakers on the second night of the four-day convention included another former presidential aspirant Vivek Ramaswamy and co-chair of the RNC Lara Trump, who is married to Mr Trump’s son Eric.

Ms Trump spoke of her shock at the assassination attempt on her father-in-law and thanked Americans for their well wishes. “He is a lion, he is bold, he is strong, he is fearless and he is exactly what the country needs right now,” she said.

Ms Trump spoke in front of the former president, who once again entered the arena to raucous cheers.