The GOP scrapped one scheduled appearance hours before it was scheduled to speak Tuesday night. Mary Ann Mendoza was removed from the line-up of the night after retweeting a thread earlier in the day with an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about a Jewish plan to control the world.
But others have moved forward, despite a history of brand-new posts on social media and in some cases questions about the accuracy of their stories. In one case, anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson repeated on Twitter shortly before her speech was broadcast that she believes that if a man and woman do not agree on who they should vote for, the man should have the last word.
A press release from the Trump campaign on Monday night’s convention speakers described Natalie Harp as “a beneficiary of President Trump’s 2018 Right to Try Act.”
Harp, who is also an advisory board member for the campaign, thanked Trump for supporting policies that helped her survive a rare form of cancer. Specifically, Harp credits the law on the right to try, which was signed in May 2018, to save her life. The law gives patients access to treatments that are “not approved or licensed by the FDA for any use.”
The President tweeted about her story last year, after Harp appeared on Fox News. Shortly thereafter, Harp was invited on stage amid Trump’s remarks at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in June 2019 to share her experience.
But some experts have expressed doubts that the law to try was actually a factor in their treatment.
The treatment Harp says she received – “an FDA-approved immunotherapy drug for a non-approved use” – is a practice that the FDA calls “off-label use.” The exact timing of Harp’s treatment is unclear. The Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank that has been one of the leading proponents of Right to Try, notes that no special permission is required for the type of off-label use of a drug that Harp described, so it qualifies not for Right Try.
The McCloskeys
Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who spoke at the RNC on Monday night, attracted national attention in late June after the president retweeted a viral video in which the couple can be seen with guns fired from outside their mansion in St. Louis. to the mayor’s residence in a nearby street. The McCloskeys have meanwhile been accused of illegal use of a weapon, which is a crime.
The couple defended their actions, claiming they were in threatening fear for their lives, although Protestants maintained that they were peaceful and non-violent.
On CNN, Mark McCloskey told Chris Cuomo “I was attacked, and I was in threatening fear that they would run over me, kill me, burn my house.” Cuomo acknowledged that the Protestants probably broke the law by going through a private gate and that McCloskey used the civilian definition of assault, “that is, you were afraid that something bad would happen to you, but did nothing.”
Mark McCloskey further asserted “
