Welcome to the lead I'm Jake Tapper. We begin this hour with the 2020 lead as we

head into the third night of the Republican National Convention. Tonight

Vice President Pence will deliver his nomination acceptance speech from

Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland with an audience

of more than 100 guests expected. Pence's remarks are still being written, we're told,

but a source tells CNN that he plans to address the recent violence in Wisconsin hoping to make a case for standing for the national anthem and he will attack the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

One source saying he plans to quote take some lumber to Joe.

Pence's wife, second lady Karen Pence will also speak as well as outgoing White

House counselor Kelly Ann Conway and a Trump campaign official says

President Trump will participate in tonight's program as he has every night so far.

White House officials are defending President Trump's use of the White House, the People's House,

as a political backdrop throughout the Convention,

which breaks of course long-standing precedent and a 1939 law called the Hatch Act that bans

federal employees exempting the president and vice president from

using their positions in government for political election purposes as

CNN's Caitlin Collins now explains. Tonight Vice President Mike Pence will headline 9-3 of the Republican Convention

where he's expected to address the pandemic and racial unrest unfolding in Wisconsin.

He'll speak to the nation from Fort McHenry, the side of the battle in the War of 1812 that

inspired Francis Scott Key to Penn the Star Spangled Banner.

Pence is expected to wait into the nation's culture wars by urging athletes to stand for the national

anthem.

I don't think it's too much to ask the players in the National Football League to stand for our national anthem.

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