Chicago’s “rooftop pastor” Rev. Corey Brooks will deliver the final prayer on Night 2 of the Republican National Convention.
The South Side pastor who routinely crisscrosses the city among shooting scenes — and has aligned himself with GOP officials — said on social media he was “grateful for this opportunity and looking forward to giving a shoutout to Chicago.”
Southern Illinois delegate and state Rep. Terri Bryant, R-Murphysboro, said his slot showed the GOP is a “big tent party.”
“When you see African Americans, Latinos, and I think we’re going to see some other demographic groups, that are going to be represented — I think America is going to see very clearly that the big tent party is here,” Bryant said.
“We’re united and honestly, someone like Corey Brooks speaking on the stage tonight should send a message that we are united in that message and we’re united going forward.”
New state chair Salvi makes the rounds
Illinois Republican Party chairwoman-elect Kathy Salvi mingled with state delegates Tuesday morning in her first appearance since being elected last week as the next face of the party.
As delegates gathered for their group breakfast at their Oak Creek, Wisconsin hotel, Salvi chatted with current chairman Don Tracy, who announced his resignation last month complaining of incessant intraparty fighting.
Salvi, who officially takes over as party chair Friday after the Republican National Convention concludes, is expected to address delegates on Wednesday.
She ran unsuccessfully against U.S Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., in 2022.
Among the speakers was Downstate U.S. Rep Mary Miller, who railed against Democratic supermajorities in the Illinois General Assembly — “a bad idea factory,” she called it.
“We cannot surrender the whole state of our great President Abraham Lincoln to [Gov. J.B.] Pritzker and the radical left,” she told Illinois delegates. “We’re in a race to the bottom with California and New York.”
Project 2025 is Trump’s agenda, Dems say
Also Tuesday morning, Democrats planned a news conference at a downtown Milwaukee office on Project 2025, a product of the Heritage Foundation developed with the help of hundreds of former staffers from Donald Trump’s first presidential administration.
Democrats call it a blueprint for a second Trump term.
Top party officials will use the news conference to “highlight Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda to rip away health care access, slash Social Security and Medicare, and build an economy that delivers for Donald Trump’s ultra-wealthy friends on the backs of working families,” according to a news release from the Biden-Harris campaign. Quentin Fulks, deputy campaign manager for Biden-Harris was among those at the news conference.
Also appearing: U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party; and Liz Schuler, president of the AFL-CIO.