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is provided by... woman: two retiring executives turn their focus to greyhounds, giving these former race dogs a real chance to win. a raymond james financial advisor gets to know you, your purpose, and the way you give back. life well planned. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. announcer: and now, "bbc news" n milwaukee, this is "bbc world n news america." foreign policy tops the agenda on day three of the republican national convention focusing on complex around the globe. j.d. vance prepares to take the stage for the first time as donald trump's running mate.

leading house democrat adam schiff joins calls for president biden to abandon his reelection bid. ♪ sumi: welcome to "world news america." broadcasting from the republican national convention in milwaukee, wisconsin. i am sumi somaskanda. it is great to have you with us today. it is day three of the convention. the theme is "make america strong again." focusing on u.s. national security and foreign policy. donald trump took a walk-through of the stadium, inspecting the stage where he will address the republican party on thursday for the first time as their 2024 nominee. days after surviving an assassination attempt as well. later today, his running mate, j.d. vance, is set to make a speech accepting the party's nomination for vice president. he gave the media a preview this

afternoon. >> it is time to get rid of the corrupt biden-harris regime that has broken this country, that has ruined its reputation in the world, and most importantly, has made a basic middle-class life less affordable for our citizens. let's bring donald trump back to the white house. sumi: let's go to our north america correspondent who is on the convention floor for us. good to see you. i know the music is pretty loud. but if you can give us a sense of what things are like, i know this speech by j.d. vance is highly anticipated. reporter: that's absolutely right. think about the theme for tonight. make america strong again. you have j.d. vance, a veteran, someone who served in the marines after enlisting, went to iraq. he will have a lot to say about that. look at the posters they have ready for people. trump will end the ukraine war.

of course, the make america strong again posters. getting ready for that talking point. j.d. vance talked about how devastating trade policies have been for working-class americans, trying to push donald trump's isolationist policies of getting america out of more wars, not being america's peace officers. this is about introducing him to the american public. not all running mates have a netflix movie that people can watch and learn more about him, see his portrayal of his life on the screen, but he still doesn't have that name recognition across the nation. this will be his moment in the spotlight to speak about his time growing up in a family that really is hoping to be a success story. and just about his experience that will help donald trump in the white house should he win. he speaks, his wife will also

make a speech. you can tell a lot by a person's family. no doubt the delegates who will be seated here with their states are going to be listening closely to what she has to say. and before her, don jr., someone who is rumored to have pushed his father to have j.d. vance as his running mate. a lot in store for this evening, all kind of building up the excitement for donald trump tomorrow. let's see how j.d. vance does with this warm-up act tonight. sumi: i know we are both competing to talk over the music here, but one more question. you have been speaking to delegates, and then across the convention. what is the atmosphere like? nada: you know, it is so interesting how much what happened saturday, the attempt

assassination has a tent -- has affected this convention. so much talking about divine intervention, god's hands at work in this election. you see people quite emotional when speaking about donald trump. there's is also that element of energy. again and again, you hear people say they know they are going to win in november, that they feel they are in a position stronger than ever. that has lifted events around this convention. some talk about they need to unify the country. but we do here very holding strong to the policy differences, but republican sea set them apart from democrats. that is what we have been hearing all week, how different they think the trump administration would be. sumi: all right, thank you so much for reporting this -- reporting to us from the convention floor. we will talk to you later.

joining me now is jonathan martin, the politics bureau chief at politico. . he is with us with our booth. thank you for joining us. we were just hearing from our correspondent. we heard those messages of unity in the republican party after the assassination attempt on donald trump. has that message remained through the course of the first three days, or is it starting to wane? jonathan: i think it is difficult for any party to really imagine unity at one of their conventions. these are made for tv events scripted by political strategists, explicitly to drive contrast with the other party to go on the attack at against the other party. they are inherently not unified. they are dividing, because they are trying to set the terms of the american election. i don't sense a lot of unity when it comes to the country. there is more unity within the republican party, something different we have seen from the net -- the last nine years.

but the whole point of this is not to unify, but to divide. to portray their version of the opposition. sumi: in that vein, j.d. vance, we saw him take to x after the assassination attempt. jonathan: i still call it twitter too. sumi: not just me. jonathan: forever twitter. sumi: to blame joe biden and the democrats for the assassination attempt. do you think we will see him carry that tone into his speech tonight? jonathan: i think he will be aggressive going after democrats. i would be surprised if he says anything about that, about pinning the blame on the assassination attempt on democrats. that would not be in the script. if he does it, it will be off script certainly. sumi: do you think this convention has been a showcase for the fact that this is donald trump's party through and through? jonathan: it is not the republican party anymore. it may as well be called the maga party. it is a european-style nationalist party.

the commitments to free trade, to reagan style a muscular foreign policy, to small government, pro-business orientation, all of that has been diminished trump. this is now much more of a cult of personality around one man. it is wherever he wants it to be. he is a singular figure who has remade one of america's two political parties in his image. we have never seen anything like it before. i was going to say, it's the greatest story of our time, but then again, the other party is in the process of trying to dump their incumbent president before his reelection. we have two good stories going on in america right now. sumi: more question before you go. it appears republicans are very confident, that is the sense i get. jonathan: i've noticed that too. sumi: do you think that confidence is warranted? jonathan: it's a divided country. we don't have landslide elections anymore like we had in

1972, 1984. we had presidents who won 49 states. that does not happen anymore. it is never going to be a runaway campaign. by the current standards, i think the republican party is on track to win this decisively. a lot happened in the next 100 days. but they are in a better position than the opposition, in part because the opposition is badly splintered. members of congress calling for their president to not run for reelection. that does not happen in america. it's like the american version of a front bench parliamentary can, where the democratic members of congress have staged a deaf act of no-confidence vote in joe biden, a half hour before his renomination. this is astonishing political news happening. it happens a lot more in parliamentary systems. it doesn't happen here, it is happening now against the backdrop of the other party that is reinventing itself into this nationalist party, cemented by trump picking j.d. vance. it is a heck of a time.

sumi: what a time in u.s. politics. jonathan: i hope you are jealous, because the sun is never setting on this american political story. sumi: thank you for joining us. republicans plan to criticize president biden's record as commander-in-chief, centering around the conflicts in the middle east and ukraine and also tensions with china. they are now many -- their nominees have shown support for israel and its war in gaza. and i'm china, trump said taiwan should pay the u.s. for protection, calling it -- on wednesday, china suspended nuclear nonproliferation and armed control negotiations with the u.s. in response to recent u.s. weapons sales to taiwan. and ukraine, j.d. vance has been a fierce critic of u.s. assistance for kyiv. that is a position that was welcomed on wednesday by the kremlin, russian foreign minister sergei lavrov had this to say about mr. trump's running mate.

>> i heard the same thing you did. he is in favor of peace, ending the assistance from biden. we welcome that. that is what we need. to stop pumping ukraine full of weapons and then the war will end. and then we can look for solutions. sumi: mr. lavrov said russia is ready to work with any u.s. leader elected in november, so long as they are willing to engage in "equitable mutually respectful dialogue." he added during president trump's administration, there was still communication between the two countries, despite u.s. sanctions on moscow at the time. that was before russia's full-scale invasion of ukraine. a german lawmaker with the center-right democratic union, and i asked him how european nations will work alongside a potential trump-vance

administration on ukraine. >> here for months already is donald trump, should he be elected, would start -- immediately. sumi: day one. jens: to try to negotiate a cease-fire, he's, whatever, to get solesky and putin in one room. that is what he said. and that is what j.d. vance says as well. again, our help on ukraine is very much depending on the u.s. they are the biggest donor moneywise, armor wise. we need to convince them that this is a common interest that russia is not the one that gets the victory in this. if there are negotiations, it has to beat with an outcome that is not leading putin to try it again elsewhere. jens: our correspondence in ukraine, israel, and china have more on what a trump-vance presidency might mean for foreign policy. >> face value, this is not good

news for ukraine or the west bus fee has continued military support j.d. vance, before the invasion, said he did not care what happened in ukraine one way or the other. he also played a central role in delaying a huge $60 billion military aid package from washington, which affected things on the frontline. nevertheless, president zelenskyy says he is not afraid to deal with a potential trump administration. one political expert here in kyiv told us he thinks officials and ukraine should focus on getting their own house in order ahead of the u.s. presidential election. >> trump-vance white house would make a difference in israel. donald trump was the most pro-israel u.s. president in recent history. he moved the u.s. embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem, not internationally recognized as israel's capital because its status is supposed to be decided in peace talks with the palestinians.

his team put forward a peace plan that favored israel over the palestinians. the difference would be stark now, at least in tone, because relations between israel and the biden administration are very strained over the gaza war. there is frustration with the israeli prime minister, benjamin netanyahu. because he has resisted their advice about how to conduct military operations to reduce harm to palestinians and increase aid, and because he has rejected their vision for a postwar gaza, which is based on a state for palestinians. >> for the chinese government, the previous trump administration meant chaos in international relations. with beijing and washington trading barbs over covid, and all manners of things. they expect more of the same. it will probably also mean more u.s. tariffs on chinese goods, and this could hurt china's exports. in, china's policymakers already moving this country's economy away from reliance on sales to the u.s. the bonus of a trump presidency

is this perception that he runs down the west overall. got a trump administration means division amongst western countries and it makes china in comparison appear to be a sea of stability. sumi: we can speak to fred, he served as chief of staff on the national security council under donald trump and his vice chair of the center for american security at the american first policy institute. thank you for joining us. i want to ask you about ukraine. reuters reported in june that you and lieutenant general keith kellogg, who served in the national security council, presented donald trump with a plan to end the war telling ukraine it will only get more u.s. weapons if it enters talks. telling russia any refusal to negotiate would mean putting more weapons and ukraine. is that the plane donald trump would take to both sides to end the war in 24 hours, as he said he would do if he is president? fred: some of these press

reports have been incorrect and we wrote a research plan, not a peace plan. most of our research plan talked about how this war started. how biden's incompetent policies led putin to invade we did have ideas on how to end the war. we set out the end of the paper that president trump has said he has his own plan meant that he has not revealed on how the should be ended. i think looking at the whole conflict, the trajectory right now is a war of attrition that ukraine will lose. we have to find another way. there was no talk at the recent summit of negotiations or cease-fire or peace talks. sumi: if the plan that i saw in the reports is correct, it would involve a cease-fire based on -- that would involve ukraine -- a research paper appear that would involve ukraine seating quite a bit of territory. fred: we did not say that.

that's not -- you have not read our plan. what we said and what we proposed, in this is something that the council for relations has proposed, a liberal who does not agree with us all the time, that we would stop the war along the current battle lines. ukraine would not give up any territory, would never give up any right to its territory back. we would use negotiation to get them back, with the understanding that they may not happen until putin leaves the scene. whenever called for ukraine to cede any territory to russia. i don't think trump will call for that either. sumi: understood. what do you think -- what do you think is a realistic plan to bring both sides to the table? fred: i think we need strong presidential leadership, and we need strong support from our allies, especially in that uk2 pressure both sides to come to the negotiating table.

we need a foreign policy that recognizes what america's real threats are. the biden administration's primary national security threat is climate change, not russia, not nuclear proliferation, not china, the real threat. i heard something interesting from your earlier reporters. i think trump will be tough, but he is also going to talk. president biden has not talked to putin since february 2022. in the depths of the cold war, american president spoke to the heads of state of our adversaries. instead, biden has lambasted putin as a war criminal, linking him to hamas that is not the way heads of states should be behaving themselves. have to have a dialogue or this conflict will get worse. sumi: a question on china. what does that dialogue look like with xi jinping, particularly to avoid any action on taiwan? fred: again, i'm not speaking for mr. trump, but i think mr. trump will stick to the strategic ambiguity approach.

best way to lower tensions with taiwan is to lower tensions with china. i think we also have to have dialogue and engagement with china. henry kissinger before he died said in a interview that there has been too little u.s. diplomacy with russia and china. with china, there should be constant working level meetings to talk about issues of dispute between the two countries. that is not going along here. there has not been serious diplomacy by this administration with any of our adversaries, especially russia and china. that has to change. sumi: really good to have you on bbc news thank. . you for sharing your perspective. fred: good to be here. sumi: as republicans meet here in wisconsin, president joe biden is campaigning in nevada. he is trying to shore up his support among hispanic and black voters, as he continues to face pressure to drop out of the race. the latest blow comes from one

of the most high-profile democrats in congress, adam schiff, the former chairman of the house intelligence committee. in a statement, he wrote "joe biden has been one of the most consequential presidents in our nations history. but our nation is at a crossroads. a second trump presidency will undermine the very foundations of our democracy. and i have serious concerns about whether the president can defeat donald trump in november." the choice to withdraw from the campaign is president biden's alone, i believe it is time for him to pass the torch." a new poll on wednesday shows growing discontent among democrat voters with biden's candidacy. nearly half surveyed say they are dissatisfied with mr. biden becoming the party's nominee. that number from the associated press and the norc at the university of chicago jumped by 10 percentage points after the debate. joining me is my panel who has been with us all week former democrat congresswoman stephanie murphy and former republican

congressman rodney davis. i have to start with you, stephanie, with those numbers from that pole. the number of democrats piedmont president biden to end his candidacy is rising here we have also seen adam schiff come out publicly. it does feel like this is not going away. rep. murphy: i served with adam schiff on the january 6 select committee. i know he is sincere in his concerns for the future of this country, should there be a second trump term. i find it interesting that he is one of three top national security democrats to come out and call for the president to step down as the candidate. we have the head of the intel, jim himes, the head of armed services adam smith, as well as adam schiff here. i think that is quite telling. these are all people who represent blue districts. there is not really a reason for them, it is not like they are in

a frontline district or one where they have to appeal to more republicans. they are doing it from an informed place, and a sincere place, concern about the country and the party. and i look at the poll numbers and i think, it was going to be a difficult race. but when you have those numbers showing that your base is not supportive of your candidacy, i think it becomes an impossible race. sumi: does this look for republicans? imagine the strategy here is to lead democrats fight among themselves? rodney: it looks like what democrats have enjoyed about republicans for decades. we are sitting back, and popping popcorn. this adam schiff statement is a big deal. i did serve with adam. we know adam. we know adam well. i don't think adam is doing this because of just where donald trump is in the race now.

i think adam is looking at this race and it has become more difficult for president biden or any democrat for that matter to prevail in november. i also think he is seeing polling numbers that may affect him and his senate race in california, with my good friend steve garvey. he may see numbers that this is impacting the ability for democrats to regain the house of representatives, and that is what is leading him and others to come out strong. sumi: at the rate at which things are going with those polls, how likely is the possibility, or how big is the risk that the democrats could lose the house of representatives, the senate, and the presidency in november? stephanie: i think the risk is very high. and i think that is why you are seeing people the more public about it. for a year and a half or so, the public concern about the president's mental acuity had lingered around two thirds, like 65%.

the debate performance basically was a reckoning causing the democratic party to have to address the concerns the broader public had. now you are seeing then look at the polling numbers they have. and at the chances of being able to flip the house, and hold the senate. that is what is driving them to become more public and vocal. sumi: we have about a minute left. we are at the republican national convention. what are you expecting to see from j.d. vance tonight? rodney: this is a big night for j.d. vance. he has to show who he is to the american people. when you look at his governing experience, there is not much. he has less governing experience than former wise presidential candidate sarah palin did because she was a governor of one of the 50 states. he has less experience than then presidential candidate barack obama, who also ran during his first term in the u.s. senate. this is a pressure pack night

for him to be able to show the american people who he is and that he is capable of governing if that time came. sumi: we have 20 seconds. what do you expect from j.d. vance tonight? stephanie: i expect to hear more of the nativism, nationalism, and sort of the isolationism that is the brand that he has, which is a real departure from the reagan republicans. sumi: indeed. it is a different world. always great to talk to you. announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... financial services firm, raymond james. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. ♪ ♪

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>> good evening. the program tonight, j.d. vance preparest to take the state of the republican nation