These 8 Republicans Took The Stage At The DNC To Warn America About Trump

Before Vice President Kamala Harris took the stage for her big moment at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, the lineup was peppered with some unlikely speakers: a bevy of Republicans, including some who worked in former President Donald Trump’s administration.

Many said they don’t agree with Harris on everything, but that they’re choosing a candidate who at least knows right from wrong. Several shared their journey from diehard Trump supporter to DNC speaker, pleading with Americans not to vote for him.

Here’s what they all had to say.

Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who never held a press conference while working for Trump, told the DNC crowd that unlike her boss, she “never wanted to stand at that podium and lie.”

“Now here I am behind a podium advocating for a Democrat, and that’s because I love my country more than my party,” she continued, saying she once was a “true believer” in Trump’s politics who spent major holidays with him and his family.

She went on to describe Trump as someone who has “no empathy, no morals, and no fidelity to the truth. When the cameras are off, she continued, he “mocks his supporters. He calls them basement-dwellers.”

Grisham also shared a text conversation she’d had with former first lady Melania Trump. When Grisham asked the first lady if she’d like to say something to help quell the violence on Jan. 6, 2021, Melania Trump simply replied, “No,” according to Grisham.

Former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger had a primetime slot on the DNC schedule, and he came out strongly for Harris.

“I’ve learned something about the Democratic Party, and I want to let my fellow Republicans in on the secret: The Democrats are as patriotic as us. They love this country just as much as we do,” the former Illinois congressman said.

“The Republican Party is no longer conservative,” he continued. “It has switched its allegiance from the principles that gave it purpose to a man whose only purpose is himself.”

Harris, he emphasized, “shares my allegiance to the rule of law, the Constitution and democracy.”

John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Ariz., told GOP voters they shouldn’t feel any loyalty to Trump.

“I have an urgent message for the majority of Americans who, like me, are in the political middle: John McCain’s Republican party is gone and we don’t owe a damn thing to what’s been left behind,” he said, referencing the late Arizona senator who was also a fierce critic of Trump.

Mesa is a city of more than half a million people that reliably votes Republican, and Arizona is a key battleground state in the presidential election.

Olivia Troye, once a counterterrorism advisor to former Vice President Mike Pence, said that “being inside Trump’s White House was terrifying.”

“But what keeps me up at night is what’ll happen if he gets back there,” she said. “The guardrails are gone, the adults that were in the room the first time resigned or were fired.”

“I saw how Donald Trump undermined our intelligence community, our military leaders and ultimately our democratic process,” she continued, adding that the United States’ foreign adversaries are rooting for a Trump victory.

She said she’s supporting Harris “not because we agree on every issue, but because we agree on the most important issue: protecting our freedom.”

Former Georgia Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan said he “realized Trump was a direct threat to democracy, and his actions disqualified him from ever, ever, ever stepping foot into the Oval Office again.”

His message was for Republicans and independents at home, he said, who are “sick and tired of making excuses for Donald Trump.”

“Our party is not civil and conservative. It’s chaotic and crazy,” he said to massive applause. “And the only thing left to do is dump Trump. These days our party acts more like a cult ― a cult worshipping a felonious thug.”

Rich Logis, the Florida co-chair for Republicans for Harris, said in a video appearance that he “made a grave mistake” when he became a diehard Trump supporter. “But it’s never too late to change your mind,” he continued.

“I finally stepped outside the MAGA echo chamber, I stopped listening to what Trump said and looked around with my own eyes,” he said. “And I realized he had been lying about pretty much everything.”

Kyle Sweetser, a former Trump voter from Mobile, Alabama, said he “held his nose” when he voted for Trump again in 2016, even though his administration’s tariffs had hurt his job as a construction worker and raised business costs.

When Trump tried to thwart the 2020 election results, Sweetser said he made a vow to himself. “I decided from that point, if this guy runs again, I’m going to vote Democrat for the first time in my life. So that’s when I started speaking out against Trump.”

Television commentator Ana Navarro, a Republican who’s long criticized Trump, hosted the primetime portion of Tuesday’s night’s DNC event.

Harris is “legitimately a joyful, optimistic leader. She cares about policy, yes, but she also cares about people an about how that policy affects real people, not just the members of Mar-a-Lago.”

She also spoke about how much her Instagram-famous dog, ChaCha, likes Harris and vice versa, and reminded the audience about how Trump broke a longstanding tradition by not bringing any pets to the White House.

“We cannot elect a president who does not like dogs or hangs around with people who shoot them,” she said, referencing Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who admitted to intentionally shooting one of her dogs in a memoir published earlier this year.