What does $20,000 buy at Trump’s Dallas convention?<\/a><\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Heightened security<\/p>\n
Authorities have not publicly said when security planning began. Trump first floated a pre-midterm convention nearly a year ago in an August 2025 post on social media.<\/p>\n
Representatives of the Republican National Committee toured American Airlines Center the following February. The RNC had laid the groundwork in the month before the tour, voting to allow its chairman to call a \u201cspecial ceremonial convention\u201d with 60 days’ notice. The rule says \u201cno business shall be conducted\u201d at such a convention.<\/p>\n
About four months after the tour, Trump announced June 30 that the convention would be held in Dallas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA RALLY like none other,\u201d he wrote of the event in a social media post announcing it, in \u201cone of my favorite places in the World.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Locke Neely, a retired North Texas security consultant and former Secret Service agent, said a compressed timeline alone is no cause for concern. He cited an April incident in which a man carrying a shotgun breached a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association Dinner attended by Trump. Agents\u00a0quickly stopped the man.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be easier to get into Fort Knox than it will be to get in there trying to do something nefarious,\u201d Neely said in an interview.<\/p>\n
The preparations come after Trump faced two assassination attempts during the 2024 campaign. A gunman wounded him at an outdoor rally in Butler, Pa., in an attack that exposed breakdowns in communication and coordination among the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n
The prior assassination attempts and the ongoing U.S. military campaign against Iran could bring additional security considerations, said Joseph LaSorsa, a former Secret Service agent who served on President Reagan\u2019s protective detail and now runs a security consulting firm.<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors have described two plots tied to Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that included Trump as a target. In one, an alleged Iranian asset was charged after authorities said he had been ordered to devise a plan to kill Trump. In the other, a federal jury convicted an IRGC operative in a foiled political assassination plot that prosecutors said included Trump. Neither resulted in an attack.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m sure they\u2019ll tighten up security even more,\u201d LaSorsa said in an interview.<\/p>\n
Details about accommodations for demonstrators have not been announced. Asked about expected protests, Dallas police spokesperson Corbin Rubinson said the department is \u201ccommitted to protecting the First Amendment right to free speech and public demonstration and welcomes those who wish to do so peacefully.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has held two campaign rallies at American Airlines Center, first in 2015 as a Republican presidential candidate and again in 2019 during his reelection campaign.<\/p>\n
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President Donald Trump visits Dallas for a “Keep America Great” campaign rally at the American Airlines Center on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019, in Dallas.<\/p>\n
Smiley N. Pool\/Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n
Hope for peaceful protests<\/p>\n
The midterm convention comes as Republicans seek to preserve their dominance in Texas, where Attorney General Ken Paxton faces state Rep. James\u00a0Talarico, D-Austin,\u00a0in a closely watched U.S. Senate race.<\/p>\n
For Republicans, the convention is both a major fundraiser and a chance to energize the party before November. Monty Montanez, who leads the Dallas County GOP, said candidates, political clubs and other groups are planning satellite events around the main program, creating what he described as a broader gathering place for Republicans to organize and align ahead of the election.<\/p>\n
Dallas County Democrats are preparing their own response.<\/p>\n
Kardal Coleman, the county party chair, said organizers began planning a rally after the convention was formally announced, though they had not selected a location as of Thursday. He said the event would also become part of the party\u2019s fall push to contact voters and drive turnout.<\/p>\n
The two leaders offered sharply different views of what the convention represents, but both said they hoped demonstrations would remain peaceful.<\/p>\n
Coleman said Democrats intend to engage in \u201cnonviolent resistance,\u201d invoking a term central to Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s philosophy of protest.<\/p>\n
He called for heightened security to protect demonstrators and said he worried the gathering could attract members of the Proud Boys and people prosecuted in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol who have since\u00a0 received clemency from Trump.<\/p>\n
Montanez said safety and security should be one of the convention’s priorities, with enough space for supporters to gather and protesters to demonstrate \u2014 all without either group impeding the other.<\/p>\n
“It’s OK to disagree, but can we do it in a peaceful way?” he said in an interview. “That should be the focus.”<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
At left, Dallas police officers monitor activity from the rooftop of City Hall during the 1984 Republican National Convention. At right, officers stand guard as protesters gather at City Hall Plaza in Dallas.<\/p>\n
Dallas Morning News file<\/p>\n
At top, Dallas police officers monitor activity from the rooftop of City Hall during the 1984 Republican National Convention. At bottom, officers stand guard as protesters gather at City Hall Plaza in Dallas.<\/p>\n
Dallas Morning News file<\/p>\n
The 1984 convention saw a number of arrests. On its third day, police arrested Gregory Lee Johnson and several other demonstrators after Johnson burned an American flag outside Dallas City Hall. His conviction later became the basis of the landmark Supreme Court case Texas v. Johnson,\u00a0in which the court ruled that burning the American flag as political protest is protected by the First Amendment.<\/p>\n
Fullinwider, the longtime Dallas organizer, opposed President Reagan. But when he heard Republicans were bringing their national convention to Dallas in 1984, he saw an opportunity.<\/p>\n
The gathering offered a chance, he said, to show that Dallas was changing, that it was more than the politics associated with the John Birch Society, the conservative anti-communist group that had a prominent local following in the 1960s.<\/p>\n
Fullinwider said he felt none of that excitement when he recently learned Republicans were returning for the midterm convention.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Community organizer and activist John Fullinwider speaks during a candlelight vigil\u00a0at the Jack Evans Police Headquarters on Friday, September 7, 2018 in Dallas. Fullinwider participated in protests during the 1984 Republican National Convention as Dallas now prepares for another major GOP gathering in September.<\/p>\n
Shaban Athuman\/Dallas Morning News file<\/p>\n
He said he plans to support and join demonstrations come September, though he is content at 74 to leave the planning to younger generations of organizers. He still believes there is value in showing up and being heard.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime you can get out there and show there\u2019s an alternative to Trumpism, it\u2019s a good opportunity,\u201d he said. \u201cWe should take it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The convention will once again bring the national political spotlight to Dallas, along with a test of how the city accommodates dissent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump appears at a \u201cKeep America Great\u201d campaign rally at American Airlines Center on Oct. 17,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[732,102,104,103,95010,87998,91243,92241],"class_list":["post-378520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-article","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-news-politics","tag-tp-dallas","tag-tp-donald-trump","tag-tp-protest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}