Mitch McConnell & Rudy Giuliani’s speech at the Republican National Convention

On August 27, 2020, the fourth and final night of the Republican National Convention featured speeches from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. McConnell positioned himself as the voice of “middle America” and the Senate Republican majority as “the firewall against Nancy Pelosi’s agenda,” while Giuliani delivered a sharp-edged address warning that rising crime in Democrat-led cities would spread nationwide under a Biden presidency.

McConnell: The Firewall from Middle America

McConnell opened by noting that of the three top congressional leaders — himself, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — he was “the only leader in Washington not from either New York or California.” Speaking from Kentucky, he said he considered it his “responsibility to look out for middle America.”

McConnell argued that Trump had inherited a country where “the first generation of Americans couldn’t promise their children a better life than their own” and had “made it his mission to change that.”

His sharpest attacks were directed at the Democratic Party’s agenda. “Today’s Democrat Party doesn’t want to improve life for middle America,” McConnell said. “They prefer that all of us in flyover country keep quiet and let them decide how we should live our lives.”

McConnell then listed specific Democratic positions he characterized as threats: “They want to tell you when you can go to work, when your kids can go to school, they want to tax your job out of existence, and then send you a government check for unemployment. They want to tell you what kind of car you can drive, what sources of information are credible, and even how many hamburgers you can eat.”

He continued with policy contrasts: “They want to defund the police and take away your Second Amendment rights. They want free healthcare for illegal immigrants, yet they offer no protection at all for unborn Americans. They want to pack the Supreme Court with liberals intent on eroding our constitutional rights, and they want to codify all this by making the swamp itself, Washington, D.C., America’s 51st state.”

McConnell explained why Democrats had focused on Biden’s personal story at their convention: “Now you understand why Democrats spent an entire week telling us about who Joe Biden is, not what he intends to do.”

He closed with a direct pitch: “I’m immensely proud of the work the Republican Senate has done. We are the firewall against Nancy Pelosi’s agenda. Like President Trump, we won’t be bullied by liberal media intent on destroying America’s institutions.”

Giuliani: From America’s Safest City to Crisis

Giuliani’s speech centered on a single theme: the rise of crime in cities governed by progressive Democrats. He used his record as New York’s mayor to frame the argument.

“New York City, once described as America’s crime capital, had become, by the mid-1990s, America’s safest large city,” Giuliani said. “Now today, my city is in shock. Murders, shootings, and violent crime are increasing at percentages unheard of in the past. We’re seeing the return of rioting and looting.”

Giuliani blamed the city’s current Democratic mayor for the reversal, arguing that “this Democrat mayor, like others, has often prevented the police from making arrests. And even when arrests are made, liberal progressive DAs release the rioters so as not to disrupt the rioting.”

He delivered a blunt warning to the national audience: “Don’t let Democrats do to America what they have done to New York.”

Giuliani on Biden and the Hijacking of Protests

Giuliani characterized Biden as a vessel for the party’s left wing. “Biden has changed his principles so often, he no longer has any principles,” Giuliani said. “He’s a Trojan horse with Bernie, AOC, Pelosi, Black Lives Matter, and his party’s entire left wing, just waiting to execute their pro-criminal, anti-police, socialist policies.”

He acknowledged the legitimacy of protests following the killing of George Floyd, calling it “a truly just cause” and noting that “condemnation of the killing was universal, from President Trump to Democrat leaders.” He said it appeared briefly that both parties might “come together with a unified proposal to reduce police misconduct.”

“This possibility was very dangerous to the left,” Giuliani argued. “They had a president to beat and a country to destroy. And although an agreement on action against police brutality would be very valuable for the country, it would also make President Trump appear to be an effective leader. They could have none of that.”

The Human Cost of Rising Crime

Giuliani used specific cases to personalize the crime statistics. He named four-year-old LeGrand Taufero, killed in Kansas City; 17-year-old basketball star Brandon Hendricks, killed in the Bronx “just days after graduating high school and on his way to St. John’s to play basketball”; and one-year-old Davell Gardner Jr., “shot and killed in a stroller at a cookout in Brooklyn.”

“For President Trump and for us Republicans, all Black lives matter,” Giuliani said, “and the lives of LeGrand and Brandon and Davell matter to us. All lives matter to us.”

He noted that the five cities with the highest homicide rates were all “governed by progressive Democrats using the progressive Democrat approach to crime, which is to do nothing substantive to reduce it, to release prisoners as many and as soon as possible, and to go to war with the police.”

Giuliani closed by comparing Trump to past presidents who led during crises: “Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Reagan were perfect for the challenges they faced and brought our nation through gloriously.” He concluded: “Mr. President, make our nation safe again.”

Key Takeaways

• McConnell positioned himself as the voice of “middle America” and the Senate Republican majority as “the firewall against Nancy Pelosi’s agenda,” warning that Democrats wanted to defund police, pack the Supreme Court, and make Washington, D.C. the 51st state.
• Giuliani used his record as mayor to contrast New York’s 1990s crime reduction with its 2020 surge, calling Biden “a Trojan horse” for the party’s left wing and warning that crime would “spread from cities and towns to suburbs and beyond” under a Democratic administration.
• Both speakers framed the 2020 election as a choice between Trump’s law-and-order approach and what they characterized as the Democratic Party’s embrace of progressive policies that had produced rising crime, rioting, and economic control over American families.