Good evening and welcome to MS NBCBC special coverage of the first night of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

I'm Rachel Maddo. I'm joined here at MSMBC Headquarters by my colleagues Joy Reed and

Nicole Wallace and Jen sake and Ari Melburg we've got Chris Hayes under a desk

here somewhere on days like this when it can feel difficult to wrap your head around all of the

news that will just not stop unfolding. We know you have every choice in the world

about where to watch the news tonight so we're grateful to have you here with us.

Let's start with some of the day's biggest developments just after 3 o'clock eastern this afternoon.

Republican nominee Donald Trump announced online that he had chosen Ohio Senator

J.D. Vance to be his vice presidential running mate.

J.D. Vance is 39 years old.

He has held political office for less than two years,

before which he was best known for writing his autobiography.

Senator Vance was famously a harsh Trump critic in 2016

when Trump first ran for president, J.D. Vance at the time, again then famous just as an author, called Trump reprehensible, called his policies immoral and absurd

and even wondering if Trump was,

and I'm quoting here, literally, America's Hitler.

Nevertheless, Vance has worked very hard to earn this vice presidential nod.

He has become one of Donald Trump's most vociferous defenders and especially an eager promoter of the lie that Donald Trump secretly won the

2020 election. The announcement of the JD Vance pick came today just moments before Trump was formally nominated as

the Republican Party's presidential nominee. That was done by a roll call of

state delegates in the FISA forum in downtown Milwaukee.

Trump needed 1,215 delegates to secure the nomination.

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