MILWAUKEE, WI – Day one of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is coming just days after an attempted assassination on former President Donald Trump, the party's presumed nominee. 


What You Need To Know

  • Monday is day one of the 2024 Republican National Convention 

  • Security measures were stepped up; delegates were seeing a large presence of law enforcement around the arena 

  • Mike Valanzola is a former Massachusetts Senate candidate, and served in the Baker administration 

  • Valanzola wants to focus on the issues and believes Republicans are on the right side 

With security measures stepped up, delegates are seeing a large presence of law enforcement around the arena. 

“I think what happened this weekend is tragic and scary and hopefully will allow for some immediate postmortem and evaluation,” said Massachusetts delegate Mike Valanzola. “I think that, the plans they had in place for security measures for this convention and having attended conventions in the past, I think is top-notch. “

Valanzola is a former Massachusetts Senate candidate and served in the Baker administration. He says the rhetoric being used on both sides of the aisle does more harm than good. 

“I think we need to turn down the temperature a little bit in our political rhetoric,” he said. “This is not supposed to be a game of war between the two parties. It needs to be game of ideas and ideologies and differences of opinion and philosophies. But when we get the violence like that, it's rather scary.”

Valanzola wants to focus on the issues and believes that the Republican Party is on the right sides of things like immigration, the economy and inflation, and if the message is focused this week, they could have a great election outcome. 

“I hope that the messages that we hear from every speaker this week are up to and including the former president as a message of unity, a message on the issues, and to really stay positive and focused on the future. And I'm confident that if we can do that this week, and I think we will, we can have a good November.”