Because we wanted to say thank you. Thank you for all the work you have done, and all the work you will continue to do in the days ahead. In the car on the way here, i was on the phone with more than 5,000 volunteers all across america. Were going to be getting people together in your state and in every state and territory across this land. We already have the largest Grassroots Campaign in american history, and were going to secure 2 million volunteers before election day. Its really about reelecting this president for four more years. But its about an agenda. Its about an agenda that made america prosperous, more prosperous than ever before. Before this great Global Pandemic struck our nation about more americans were working than ever before. In the midst of this pandemic as ill speak about wednesday night, the leadership of this president and the compassion of the American People shone forth. And well continue to work every day. Until we put this coronavirus in the past, when we reelect President Donald Trump, remember, its going to be four more years. That means more jobs, four more years means more judges. Four more years means more support for our troops and our cop cops. Its going to take at least four more years to dwayne that swamp. So men and women of the Republican National convention, its on. Now is the time, this is the moment for each of us to do everything that we can in our power to reelect this president , this team for four more years. Lets do our part to elect republicans up and down the ballot, lets reelect a republican majority in the United States senate, and lets make sure that leader Kevin Mccarthy is speaker. In a new republican majority in the United States house of representatives. [ applause ] so weve all got work to do, and i know youre up to the task. I saw the way this party, this movement led our nation back in 2016. And i just know each and every one of you are going to do your part this year. To reelect this president , and elect and reelect republicans with strong sound conservative principles every day. You know, theres i heard the other day that democracy is on the ballot. But i think we all know, the economy is on the ballot. Law and order is on the ballot. Our most cherished of ideals and ideas of free market are on the ballot. Thats why we need four more years of President Trump in the white house. [ crowd chanting ] im going to slip away, because i have a feeling somebody else will be here before too long. As i said, ill have more to say about the action that you took today come wednesday night at ft. Mchenry. But i mean to tell you, its the greatest honor of my life to be your Vice President. And im going to work my heart out to be your Vice President for four more years. And im absolutely convinced that if all of us do all that we need to do between now and november 3rd. If we organize, if we mobilize, if we hit the phones, if we hit the doorsteps, we do our part in every state and every territory of this country, were going to elect and reelect Republican Leaders all across this land. Were going to reelect President Donald Trump for four more years and with your continued support, and with gods help. Were going to make America Great again. Again. Thank you all very much. Its an honor to be with you today, god bless the Republican Party. And god bless the United States of america. Mike pence in charlotte, North Carolina. Good day, im andrea mitchell. Hes been speaking at the Republican National convention. President trump is about to hit the number of delegates to make him the nominee. The president prepares to make the case for four more years, during a convention that will be optimistic and upbeat, a theme of law and order. A friend and he would make way for someone else whos about to appear. We know the president is in shashl charlotte, he has landed. Its a critical moment for President Trump. Hes behind in the national polls. His sister called him a liar in recordings taped by mary trump. And were obtained by nbc news. This week, we expect to see a clear contrast in things with the democratic convention. The republicans do have live events with live audiences. They will use the white house as a stage for the president and first lady, an unprecedented break with practice that the white house is supposed to be off limits for campaigns. Joining me now, monica alba and kristen welker, rick tyler, author of a new book, and nbc president ial historian michael beschloss. It seems the Vice President just laid out some very clear themes, he talked about law and order, Second Amendment rights, he talked about the being against abortion, against reproductive rights more broadly, those were the themes he talked about, and he talked about the economy which is not so great now, but hes talking about it, putting the economy first. It really stood out to me that he framed it as the message we heard from former president barack obama last week in his address when he said democracy is on the ballot. Mike pence directly taking that message on, saying in addition to that potentially being at stake, all those things you listed, the economy saying law and order is on the ballot. You can see a preview of how he wants to make that argument in contrast directly to the democrats, that is something were really watching for here, a big departure from what we saw last week, we have an in person delegate count coming together. A community of 336 or so. Scaled back, far more people than were used to seeing in this pandemic. And color from the room. The delegates were all supposed to be wearing masks. Theres an ordinance in the city of charlotte for indoor gatherings of this size. Before the event officially started, we saw an inconsistent mask usage, also, theyre trying to be socially distant. Consider the irony here, charlotte, the site of the original convention which had been in the works, then the president uprooted to move it to jacksonville, florida. Which he had to cancel because of the pandemic. Today in charlotte, im sure he will thank the delegates, express his appreciation for that formal renomination. And something thats different from four years ago. We expect the state of florida to put him over the top. We expect to see a lot of the president , tonight hell be appearing in some fashion by a Campaign Official as well as throughout the rest of the week when the action moves to washington. Andrea . Kristen welker, lets talk about what we do expect to see tonight, we saw the president getting out of air force one and getting in his car. We assume that hes heading over to the Convention Center right there. What about tonight, what are you going to expect to see when the rest of the convention convenes with major events in washington as well . Well, andrea, republicans are saying that this is going to be a more optimistic convention than the democrats. Tonights theme will be the land of promise, but theyre starting off with a message of fear. Theyre going to paint a picture of what they will try to argue will be Joe Bidens America if he is elected. One of the things that is going to be striking about this congress vengs, is that this is largely targeted to the base, youre going to see that in the speakers that we hear from, a number of president s family members, don junior slated to speak tonight. And also, members of the gop party, key figures. Were also going to hear from the mccluskeys tonight. The missouri couple, that gun wielding couple at those black lives matter protesters. Their defense is, they felt as though they were defending themselves and their home from those protesters and President Trump has been quite defensive of them as well. We will hear from them, we will hear from nikki haley and tim scott. Why is this significant . If you look at what the democrats did last week, we heard from a range of different speakers, republicans john kasich, colon yin powell, range speakers from the democratic party, progressive speakers like senator Bernie Sanders and aoc. Its significant that this convention is going to focus so largely on the base. And based on my conversations over the weekend, this is an embattled president , this is a strategy that worked for him in 2016, so hes repeating it. Will it work this time around . We also know that based on our polling, some voters who voted for him in 2016 feel alienated, are not sure theyre going to be voting for him this time around. He cant afford to lose any of those voters, andrea . This is a real attempt to make sure that none of his Republican Voters jump ship, but its a risky strategy when you have the deficit that you are seeing with joe biden right now, andrea. We should point out i dont know whether they didnt add the delegates correctly. Nevada has put the president over the top. Its not a big surprise, but hes officially the nominee of his party. Not florida as we had been told by the Republican Campaign and convention organizers. The family will be front and center. We already saw ivanka trump getting off the plane with the president. Well see a lot of headliners from the Trump Political Party but not so many from the old line Republican Party, and many more today coming out against the president , including jeff flake and a large number of former lawmakers as well. Andrea, i think the strategy emphasizes it is no longer the Republican Party, but it is in fact the trump party, and the base mobilization strategy is what got trump to his pathetic poll numbers, and hes not been able to expand the base, which is what hell need to win reelection, he won in 2016. Because Hillary Clinton was not a popular candidate on the democratic side. He also lost because many of barack obama voters stayed home in wisconsin, pennsylvania, michigan and a lot of voters in detroit, philadelphia, pittsburgh and milwaukee, decided not to vote at all. And now all those constituencies are going to vote, and donald trump is going to try to appeal to his base. Well, thats fine with me, but that is a losing strategy. Look at what the Republican Party platform is, its a list since the 1860s of the Republican Partys beliefs for people to look at it and see what it is they believe. This years platform doesnt exist, its just a resolution that says we believe in donald trump, we believe in america, his America First agenda. There you go, thats the trump Republican Party of today. And its really sad. They did not even adopt a platform, just in a resolution as you point out. There are a number of things unusual about this congress vengs. The use of the white house is not against the law for the president and the Vice President , they are not covered by the law against using, having anyone on the white house Staff Campaign from the white house. They are the two people that are exempt. No staff can work on it, and the changes to the rose garden, i wanted to ask you about that. As close as a president has come before was 1940, Franklin Roosevelt accepted the democratic nomination, the convention was meeting in chicago, roosevelt stayed in washington. Theres a room at the bottom of the white house that in those days was called the broadcast room, roosevelt gave his acceptance speech from that room, but thats nothing like having a big political partisan rally on the south grounds of the white house, weve never seen that before. In a national convention, and the white house, as you mentioned, andrea is changing. The rose garden, which Jacqueline Kennedy and her friend redesigned in 1962 with crab apple trees and the splendid array of flowers. An awful lot of grass. Let me see, michael if we can put up those pictures. Theres a before and after you tweeted out yesterday. If we could show people those crab apple trees along the colin aid which have now disappeared. I think we have those ready. We really want to show the change. If you can see on the left, the beautiful flowering trees that have always been there since Jackie Kennedy and her friend mrs. Bunny mellon. Now, for the first time you have a concrete walkway through the rose garden and some hedges. Thats a big change. Its run by the National Parks service, correct . Its not the White House Historical society . Yes, but this was done at the insistence of the president and the first lady. Its going to be a big change, were accustomed to seeing john kennedy awarding medals in that garden, Richard Nixon in his last couple days in office in august 1974, walking with his daughter tricia, this scene is woven into the presidency, its going to look extremely different from now on. That is the location where melania trump, we believe, will be doing her speech this week as well at the convention. And the south lawn, michael, we see weve seen pictures of a stage structure, so that is going to be the president s acceptance. Its going to look like a rock concert. Im agreeing with you, its going to look like a rock concert with the sound equipment thats going up, and the lighting equipment. Its going to look like live aid or something, much more than a traditional Political Convention or the traditional things that have happened at the white house. One other thing if i could mention, we heard Vice President pence talking about giving his acceptance speech wednesday night at ft. Mchenry. Just to illuminate what thats all about, ft. Mchenry is where the star spangled banner was raised in 1814 about a month after the burning of the white house in the capitol in washington, d. C. , by the british, which happened this day in 1814, so im supposed to know only about the past, but i will make a wild prediction, and my wild prediction is, wednesday night mike pence is going to say, this is a metaphor for america in 2020, we went through the bad time, and now were going to have a renaissance. And in fact, monica alba, youre still there at the convention itself where the president is heading that way, we should be seeing him shortly, they did get the permit today from the National Parks service for fireworks on the National Lawn on thursday night when the acceptance speech is given. Exactly, andrea, its interesting, because we saw that scene of fireworks from the biden harris ticket about this came about a week and a half ago when republicans applied for the permit, there were a lot of ethical concerns, there were questions about how the National Parks service, the staff, employees would be abe to work on Something Like this, on the National Mall set to take place after the president s speech on thursday night, after he formally accepts the renomination on the south lawn as youre discussing. That permit has been approved and they will be reimbursed fully by the Republican National committee and the interrupt campaign, those staffers will have to be the ones working on any of the fires and the production around it. Government employees are prohibited by the hatch act, working on anything for political gain. This is where you have a lot of murky territory this week. Speech writers for the white house are working on remarks for the first lady and the president for those respective speeches on tuesday and thursday. They do so again in their capacity, they have separate laptops they write more political speeches on versus the official white house remarks. All of this will be fascinating given who is in attendance. They would have to say theyre there in their personal capacity, thats how Kellyanne Conway will appear. This question comes up when you think about ivanka trump, who will be introducing her father on thursday in her personal capacity they say, but from the white house south lawn. We cant stress enough just how unusual it is. We do expect now, we can report fireworks will be launched from the mall after that speech, no big balloon drop for either convention this year, the democrats or the republicans, instead, i guess in a pandemic, you have to sub those balloons for fireworks. We expect the motorcade in charlotte could be arriving momentarily, and we will be expecting the president to address the delegates. Now, again, this is unusual that you have a convention, and you have the president sort of speaking during the daytime, ahead of the prime time programming this is someone who took notes and is a Reality Television producer at his core, and said i want to be featured and i want to be a part of this, more than i saw Vice President joe biden featured. Thats why youre likely to see him speaking here today, hell have an event in asheville, North Carolina later and then in south carolina. Tonight at the white house, we see him featured in the programming, in videos or another surprise which they continue to tease plenty of those throughout the week, andrea