Drew Angerer / Getty Images

Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes has resigned from the network under a cloud of controversy surrounding sexual harassment allegations made against him, 21st Century Fox announced on Thursday. The resignation is effective immediately.

Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman of 21st Century Fox, will assume the role of acting chairman and CEO of the network.

“Roger Ailes has made a remarkable contribution to our company and our country. Roger shared my vision of a great and independent television organization and executed it brilliantly over 20 great years," Murdoch said in a statement.

"I am personally committed to ensuring that Fox News remains a distinctive, powerful voice," he added. "Our nation needs a robust Fox News to resonate from every corner of the country."

The move marks an abrupt and undignified end for the controversial executive who transformed the cable news industry and grew Fox News into a major force in Republican politics.

Ailes will receive $40 million as part of a settlement package, according to the New York Times, citing two people briefed on the matter. The amount is essentially the remainder of his employment contract through 2018, according to the Times.

The removal of Ailes, who has personally overseen Fox News programming since the network's launch in 1996, now leaves uncertain the longterm future of the network's right-wing bent and could open the door for additional high-profile exits.

The exit comes after former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a civil suit against Ailes in early July, accusing her former boss of sexual harassing her and retaliating against her for refusing his advances. On Monday, New York reported that Ailes' corporate bosses, Rupert Murdoch and sons Lachlan and James, had made the decision to remove Ailes from his post. On Tuesday, the magazine reported that Fox News host Megyn Kelly had told internal investigators that Ailes had sexually harassed her as well.

"Within just two weeks of her filing a lawsuit against Roger Ailes, Gretchen Carlson's extraordinary courage has caused a seismic shift in the media world. We hope that all businesses now understand that women will no longer tolerate sexual harassment and reputable companies will no longer shield those who abuse women. We thank all the brave women who spoke out about this issue. We will have more to say in coming days as events unfold."

Carlson’s lawyers, Nancy Erika Smith and Martin Hyman, said in a statement, “Within just two weeks of her filing a lawsuit against Roger Ailes, Gretchen Carlson's extraordinary courage has caused a seismic shift in the media world."

The statement continues, "We hope that all businesses now understand that women will no longer tolerate sexual harassment and reputable companies will no longer shield those who abuse women. We thank all the brave women who spoke out about this issue. We will have more to say in coming days as events unfold."

Ailes began his career in local television, working his way into Republican politics as an operative for President Richard Nixon. As head of Fox News, he changed the cable landscape by stacking his primetime schedule with outspoken, right-leaning personalities like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. His removal comes amid a whirlwind presidential election, one in which many of Fox News' hosts have provided a platform to promote Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Murdoch's sons. who have at times been at odds with Ailes, also released a statement, saying, “We join our father in recognizing Roger’s remarkable contributions to our company. Our talented Fox News and Fox Business colleagues, up and down the organization and on both sides of the camera, have built something that continues to redefine the cable news experience for millions of viewers. We are enormously proud of their accomplishments. For them, as well as for our colleagues across our entire organization, we continue our commitment to maintaining a work environment based on trust and respect. We take seriously our responsibility to uphold these traditional, long-standing values of our company.”

Shortly after news of Ailes' resignation broke, the Drudge Report published the resignation letter sent by Ailes to Rupert Murdoch. In the letter, Ailes writes, " I take particular pride in the role that I have played advancing the careers of the many women I have promoted to executive and on-air positions."

Here's the full letter:

Dear Rupert,

With your support, I am proud that we have built Fox News and Fox Business Channels into powerful and lucrative news organizations that inform our audience and reward our shareholders. I take particular pride in the role that I have played advancing the careers of the many women I have promoted to executive and on-air positions. Many of these talented journalists have deservedly become household names known for their intelligence and strength, whether reporting the news, fair and balanced, and offering exciting opinions on our opinion programs. . Fox News has become Number 1 in all of cable because I consistently identified and promoted the most talented men and women in television, and they performed at the highest levels.

Having spent 20 years building this historic business, I will not allow my presence to become a distraction from the work that must be done every day to ensure that Fox News and Fox Business continue to lead our industry. I am confident that everyone at Fox News and Fox Business will continue as the standard setters that they are, and that the businesses are well positioned for even greater success in the future.

I am proud of our accomplishments and look forward to continuing to work with you as a consultant in building 21st Century Fox

All the best,

Roger.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates and follow BuzzFeed News on Twitter.

LINK: Megyn Kelly Reportedly Said Roger Ailes Sexually Harassed Her

LINK: Fox Launches Internal Review Following Gretchen Carlson’s Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

LINK: More Women Have Accused Fox News CEO Roger Ailes Of Sexual Harassment

Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty Images

A pair of America-themed Donald Trump web ads running on Politico declaring that "a working American is a winning America" feature a Dutch model dressed as a miner. The photo was taken by a Dutch stock photographer.

The photo, which can be seen on Shutterstock, is from Ysbrand Cosijn, a photographer based in Haarlem, Netherlands.

The model in the picture, Jan Jonkhout, is also Dutch. The model can be seen on his page dressed as a medieval knight in armor and plain knight clothes, a beachcomber, Scrooge, a hipster, a country western guitarist, a homeless man, and a man hiking.

Here are the ads:

Lucas Jackson / Reuters

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The Donald Trump veterans adviser who yesterday said Hillary Clinton should be shot for treason defended his comments on Thursday, saying Trump likely knows he is right.

New Hampshire state representative Al Baldasaro told the Howie Carr Show, "You know something, Donald Trump, I haven’t talked to him, but I have talked to some other people. Donald Trump is an honorable guy. Donald Trump understands the political correctness garbage. I’m sure by now Donald Trump knows exactly what I said, in accordance with the laws of the land.

Baldasaro continued, "If they can show me what I said is not right, treason, you do not get shot in the firing squad, then I’ll apologize. Show me where I’m wrong.”

Earlier in the interview, Baldasaro blamed liberals for the controversy over his comments on the Jeff Kuhner Show, which were first reported by BuzzFeed News.

"Every time I open my mouth, freedom of speech, the liberals go wild. I can't understand it. The progressives just can't handle the truth," he said.

Baldasaro laughed off reports the Secret Service is looking into his comments, saying it was because they probably wanted a photograph with him.

"What I said was, as a veteran, speaking as veteran, I said, if you get on a server with Secret Service, CIA, special forces names around the country on that server and somebody gets, that's messages that could kill Americans, that's treason," said Baldasaro. "I said, treason, she should be shot in the firing squad. The liberal media took this and run. Naturally, you ought to to be proven for treason, you ought to go to court. But, we're dealing with idiots."

"What we're dealing with people who are little slow, OK, the Democrats, the liberal media. Like I said, I wish they would stop trying to go 'I gotcha,'" said Baldasaro, claiming angry people were calling his family members.

"I told the truth," he said. “What’s happening is the liberals got their panties is an uproar and they’re going, calling my sisters and threatening—not so much threatening, calling names, swearing at them: ‘Your brother’s no good.’ This and that. How do you denounce somebody for telling the law, speaking the law. How do you denounce somebody because they are a military person, they’re expressing the freedom of speech.”

“It will be a cold day in hell that I will ever give up a piece of my freedom of speech. What I said is in compliance with the laws of the land,” he continued. If they can’t accept the laws of the land on treason, the FBI brought out everything she did wrong that I myself or you or anyone else would go to jail and they didn’t do it. Ok, so, I know, I still, as a military guy—first of all, let me clarify, I speak for myself, as a state representative, as an individual. I don’t speak for Donald Trump.”

Drew Angerer / Getty Images

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Republican Sen. Thom Tillis from North Carolina criticized Ted Cruz on Thursday for not endorsing Donald Trump in his primetime speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

“I think Senator Cruz is always looking for a plausible out,” Tillis said in an interview on The Tyler Cralle Show, “What he did was a mistake.”

Tillis went on to praise Trump for allowing Cruz to speak.

"I think Donald Trump showed a lot of leadership by being able to walk into that arena. He saw the script they allowed him to speak anyway, they could have disallowed him, they gave him a chance to talk, but at the end of the day, in public service your word is your bond.”

Tillis continued, “[Cruz] made a commitment, in a very public way that he was going to support the nominee, of course though he thought he was gonna be the nominee at that point. And now he went back on it.”

“I don’t have any time for people who break commitments that are fundamental to Republicans in this nation, and I’m very disappointed with what he did.”

Via courts.arkansas.gov

WASHINGTON — Arkansas Chief Justice Howard Brill on Thursday provided the fourth vote needed to grant inmates' request to keep executions on hold while they ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their appeal.

Brill's procedural ruling was also favored by the three justices who have disagreed with the court's rejection of death-row inmates' challenge to Arkansas' death penalty secrecy law.

In June, the state Supreme Court rejected nine inmates' challenges to the secrecy law in a 4-3 vote. On Thursday, the same four justices — Brill included — rejected the inmates' request for the court to reconsider their decision.

However, Brill joined justices Paul Danielson, Josephine Hart, and Robin Wynne in granting the inmates' request to grant them a stay pending the outcome of their petition for the Supreme Court to grant certiorari and hear their appeal in the case.

Justices Karen Baker, Courtney Hudson Goodson, and Rhonda Wood — all of whom had, like Brill, voted against the inmates' challenge and the rehearing request — would have denied the stay request.

The inmates now have 90 days to file their certiorari petition at the U.S. Supreme Court. A response from the state could be filed by the state or requested by the court after that — a process that takes additional time before the justices would consider the petition.

Given that timeline, it is unlikely the justices would consider the request before December — meaning executions are almost certainly on hold in Arkansas through the rest of 2016 due to the fact that, even if the U.S. Supreme Court denies cert, advance notice then needs to be given for any execution dates set at that point.

While the state has not held an execution in more than a decade, Gov. Asa Hutchinson attempted to restart them in 2015, but has so far been stymied in carrying any out.

The court's denial of the rehearing request:

The court's granting of the stay request:

Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images

CLEVELAND - At the Republican National Convention, delegates and attendees responded to the news of Roger Ailes tenure at Fox News coming to an end, with some lauding the decision and others defending the longtime chairman and chief executive, critical that the decision was made before the legal process concluded.

But they all agreed — they would gladly take the $40 million settlement Ailes is reported to have received on his way out.

"I would sexually harass for $40 million," said John Andrica, a Fox News viewer and special delegate from Ohio, as he spooned macaroni and cheese into his mouth. "Not bad."

Still Andrica said that with Gretchen Carlson's lawsuit alleging sexual harrasment and accusations from other women piling up, it was probably time for Ailes to go.

"Where there's smoke, there's fire," said Amanda Miller, a guest at the RNC convention, adding that it was upsetting that the alleged harassment may have taken place for decades.

"But it shows you how much the culture had changed that ladies feel they can speak up for wrongdoings that have been done to them," she said.

Other women blasted the process that led to Ailes departure.

"We still live in a country where you're innocent until proven guilty," said Bilee Dinges, an Idaho alternate delegate, wearing a "Republicans who stay home elect Democrats" pin. She watches Fox News, she said, but believes it has gotten more liberal in recent years.

Elizabeth Nickel from Ohio said she thought that Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, who reportedly told internal investigators that Ailes had sexually harassed her, "should be fired."

Nickel, who said she is on the Trump Train, felt Kelly went too far in challenging Trump for his comments about women.

But she also had problems with the settlement.

"Why should he get $40 million to leave?" she continued. "If you're charged with sexual harassment, who else would get some kind of severance package?"

Louisiana delegate Leslie Tassin said he watches the three-hour primetime Fox News block every day but "if he's guilty, they shouldn't keep him."

"It's tough to really know what happened because no one was there," said James Cogan, a conservative author. "It's an unfortunate situation — if he did it he deserves to go, but if it's unfounded, that's a pretty tough way to be forced out."

Scooping his last bit of mac and cheese, Andrica said despite the final chapter, Ailes leaves a legacy.

"He gets credit for creating Fox News," he said.

Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images

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Dr. Ben Carson said on Thursday that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's political career has been damaged after he refused to endorse Donald Trump during his primetime speech at the Republican convention on Wednesday.

"Well, I was quite disappointed," Carson said on Fox News radio. "I thought it was a splendid opportunity for him to bring significant unity to the party and also to enhance his own political career in the future. He was unable to bring himself to do that unfortunately."

Carson said it would be hard for Cruz to recover.

"I believe it's gonna be a very difficult task for him to recover from this, because of the alienation factor is significant at this point," he said.

Carson said liberals sarcastically tell Republicans they admire their principles, then laugh when they don't vote for their party's nominee.

Jamie Sabau / Getty Images

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Mike Huckabee said on Thursday that instead of dropping the mic in his Wednesday night convention speech, Ted Cruz "dropped his pants."

“I think Ted Cruz thought he was gonna go in there last night and drop the mic. Instead, he went in there last night and dropped his pants," Huckabee said on Imus in the Morning.

Huckabee also likened Cruz's speech, in which the Texas senator refused to endorse Donald Trump, to peeing in the punch bowl at somebody else's party.

“Well, I thought he really embarrassed himself," the former Arkansas governor said. "I thought he really disgraced his opportunity to have a future in the party. And I think we saw that Ted Cruz last night went on that stage not for the future of the country but for the future of Ted Cruz. The irony is that I think what he did was all but commit political suicide. You don’t go to somebody else’s party and then basically pee in the punch bowl and that’s what he did last night.”

Later in the interview, Huckabee argued that Cruz's "unfiltered ambition" may contribute to the destruction of America if Hillary Clinton is elected.

"What Cruz essentially was doing last night was saying, 'Let’s hope Hillary wins so I can run against her in 4 years.' And in 4 years we may have 3 or 4 Supreme Court justices that will forever change America," he said. "May in fact destroy America as we know it. And all because of Ted Cruz’s just unfiltered ambition. And I just find that disgusting. And I’m being blunt about it but I’m just really livid about it.”

Dominick Reuter / AFP / Getty Images

CLEVELAND — The thousands of gas masks, helmets, and sets of body armor that were shipped to Cleveland last week in anticipation of massive, violent protests went unused during the Republican National Convention. And that was just what the media had brought to town.

Instead of the rolling battles among activists from Black Lives Matter, white supremacist bikers, police, and anarchists, the protest scene this week was decidedly low key.

There were the dogged communists, of course, who held daily marches and rallies at Public Square, a sprawling park in downtown that police had designated as a free speech zone. The Westboro Baptist Church was on hand, angering virtually everyone.

A group of plucky young anarchists used their fast feet and police scanner apps to harass the ill-prepared army of law enforcement officials from across the country — leading them on chases throughout downtown — while a handful of “Bikers for Trump” were on hand to provide law enforcement “support.”

There was even a chicken.

John Stanton/BuzzFeed News

But what didn’t materialize were the sort of violent protests and riots that have become a hallmark of much of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. After months of violence at his campaign rallies, Cleveland officials, the media, and the general public were braced. Many businesses closed for the week, the Cleveland Police Department brought in thousands of officers from other jurisdictions to help, and everyone came into the convention on edge.

There seem to be a variety of reasons for the lack of massive protests or unrest. For one, Black Lives Matter activists decided to stay away from Cleveland this week, preferring to focus on Democrats’ convention in Philadelphia next week, some activists told BuzzFeed News.

Some BLM activists said were also leery of coming to Cleveland given the large police presence, while others told BuzzFeed News were concerned police in the city could be targeted like in Dallas and Baton Rouge and worried what that could mean for the movement.

Cindy Wiesner, the national coordinator of Grassroots Global Justice, is a veteran of political conventions and told BuzzFeed News she has attended eight before this week's in Cleveland.

"This is by far the smallest and most peaceful," she said. "It's the fewest number of protesters I've seen."

Wiesner's group participated in several demonstrations this week, including one that involved erecting a fabric "wall" around the convention entrance. All of the protests ended peacefully, which Wiesner said could have been a result of fear.

"This is an open carry state," she added.

Jeanette Millard also thought fear kept people away. The Massachusetts native arrived in Cleveland Saturday — shortly after her friends promised to bail her out of jail and advised her how to deal with teargas.

"My friends were scared out of their minds that I was here," she said during Thursday's march.

"I think all this press, and the city and the police, scared people away," Millard said. "It had a chilling effect."

The convention’s first day was the most notable for widespread but peaceful demonstrations: while white supremacists rallied at the picturesque Settlers Park on the Cuyahoga River, anti-poverty activists were enjoying a concert by super group Prophets of Rage across town in an empty lot. In Public Square, convention goers and the public mingled with pro- and anti-Trump protesters, while a steady stream of speakers took to a public PA system to air grievances ranging from police brutality to immigration and the environment.

"I think all this press, and the city and the police, scared people away."

Although officials had set up a number of “free speech” zones around town, by Tuesday afternoon the action was centering on Public Square. As hundreds — and occasionally thousands — of police and journalists milled about, competing groups set up shop on opposing sides of the square. As members of Westboro Baptist used bullhorns to lament the nation’s moral state, communists from 30 yards away chanted “America Was Never Great.”

As their ranks swelled, police surrounded the square and scores of police officers used their heavy mountain bikes as battering rams and forced the crowd into smaller groups. With the sun blazing, tempers on both sides flared, and after an hour-long staring contest with police, the communists and a group of anarchists broke off and began marching through downtown.

With dozens of reporters in tow, the march eventually dwindled to a group of a dozen anarchists who happily led police on an hours-long wild goose chase through streets, alleys, and parking garages. It was a largely peaceful if exhausting affair.

Wednesday was the most tense day due to an flag burning by communists at the entrance to the convention. Just after 4 p.m., the group gathered at the entrance and were immediately surrounded by the press corps and police force. As cameras and cell phones rolled, an activist knelt in the street to light the flag. As it went up in flames, police pushed forward, attempting to extinguish it. At one point one of the protesters was also lit on fire — leading police to train their hand held water cannons on him while screaming, “stop moving you’re on fucking fire!”

But within minutes the police, led by Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams, had again used their bikes to push back the media and other gawkers.

Wednesday was also the biggest day for arrests — most of the 18 people taken into custody were arrested during the flag burning protest.

By Thursday, the energy seemed to have been sucked out of the protesters.

The police, apparently bored by the lack of action in the streets, became seemingly obsessed with the movements of individual anarchists, and the police scanner became a running commentary on their hygiene and how long they were in the port-a-potties set up at Public Square. This seemed to prompt the anarchists, who were also monitoring the scanner, to spend increasing time in the bathrooms and take occasional strolls through downtown with their police detail dutifully following along.

As sun set Thursday and Trump prepared to formally accept his party’s nomination, police gathered at East 4th and Prospect, the entrance to the convention where communists had burned the flag Wednesday. Although there were no planned protests, authorities were there for any last minute flare ups.

But as conventioneers entered the security perimeter, the police stopped a young woman and searched her bag. As she exclaimed “what the fuck,” police pulled a jar of pickles from her purse. She was advised she could keep them if she moved on.

youtube.com

Darren Sands contributed to this report.

Dominick Reuter / AFP / Getty Images

CLEVELAND — Donald Trump's takeover of the Republican Party became official on Thursday night as Trump accepted his party's nomination in a speech that codified his break with Republican orthodoxy.

In his remarks, Trump emphasized all the main themes of his campaign: an aggressive, restrictive approach to immigration and trade; less foreign intervention, particularly in the Middle East; and an embrace of authority and return to "law and order."

Those remarks — and Trump's campaign — cuts against many of the policies Republicans have run on in recent decades, like free trade and an active U.S. military presence abroad. Trump won the primary by running on these issues while other candidates hewed to well-worn "establishment" or "conservative" paradigms, and identifying a coalition of Republican primary voters whose hard-line views on immigration combined with economic populism had not found an outlet with the other candidates. Trump's speech on Thursday didn't contain new ideas for him. But the setting in which it was given signified the Republican party's full co-option of his agenda.

On Thursday, Trump gave a dark, foreboding assessment of the state of the country after taking the stage under a huge "TRUMP" projection on the screen above him and amid a dramatic musical score.

"Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation," Trump's speech text reads. "The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country."

"Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims."

"I have a message for all of you: The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end," Trump said. "Beginning on Jan. 20, 2017, safety will be restored."

Trump's speech offers a sharp contrast with that of the last Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, who in his speech criticized President Obama for "disappointing" the nation but offered a more uplifting vision.

"Today the time has come for us to put the disappointments of the last four years behind us," Romney told the convention in August 2012. "To put aside the divisiveness and the recriminations. To forget about what might have been and to look ahead to what can be. Now is the time to restore the Promise of America."

Trump's speech, on the other hand, focuses more on the grievances shared by his voters, casting him as the voice of the "forgotten" and giving a fortress-like vision of America.

"Tonight, I want every American whose demands for immigration security have been denied — and every politician who has denied them — to listen very closely to the words I am about to say," Trump said. "On Jan. 21 of 2017, the day after I take the oath of office, Americans will finally wake up in a country where the laws of the United States are enforced."

And Trump's speech de-emphasized issues that have undergirded modern movement conservatism. Abortion, for example, was not mentioned. Neither was marriage.

Trump's acceptance speech marks the end of a convention that was as fraught as any in recent decades. Thursday — the night of Trump's speech and the last night of the convention — was the only night in which the arena was fully packed. Many top Republicans did not attend, and many of those did hardly mentioned Trump in their speeches, instead focusing on Hillary Clinton. A video about the Republican wave in the 2014 midterm elections shown before RNC Chairman Reince Priebus' speech seemed transported from an alternate reality. And Ted Cruz, the runner-up in the primary who refused to fall in line and support Trump after he suspended his campaign, gave a dramatic speech in prime time on Wednesday refusing to endorse Trump and encouraging Republicans to vote their conscience.

Even before the convention gaveled in, anti-Trump delegates were still trying to find a way to stop his nomination, attempting rules changes that would unbind them from him.

But by the time of Trump's speech on Thursday, the rebellion had faded — rumors of a potential walkout didn't come to fruition — and the convention crowd received the speech with enthusiasm. There were several chants of "build the wall" and "lock her up!" and even one of "help is on the way" — a reference to Dick Cheney's 2000 convention speech.

As the balloons and confetti fell over the Quicken Loans Arena after Trump finished, even the music seemed to acknowledge the party's situation: The Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty Images

CLEVELAND — Donald Trump and his policies are well-known at this point — but what Latino and immigrant groups did not know was exactly how it would feel to see Trump espousing the same policies targeting undocumented immigrants on the stage as the Republican nominee.

They found out quickly, during a speech many Republicans described as dark, and Latino organizations found to be chilling and a sign that the recurring idea of a general election policy pivot is dead.

"He started his campaign a year ago with Mexicans as rapists — he starts his general election campaign with undocumented immigrants as murderers," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice and veteran of immigration legislative battles. "Pure hate and racism."

Sharry was referring to Monday's convention speakers who talked about a family member being killed by an undocumented immigrant, which Trump revisited in his speech.

"Nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records, ordered deported from our country, are tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens," Trump said, during a speech where he often yelled his lines despite having a microphone.

Many Latinos activists found themselves hit with the reality of Trump as Republican nominee and were fearful of the vision he portrayed of America, one they said was of demonizing the other and demagoguery of immigrants.

"Trump is trying to rally a nation around hate towards everyone who is not white," said Yvanna Cancela, political director of the powerful Culinary Union in Las Vegas, which counts 60,000 members, most of whom are immigrants, with more than half of them Latino. "That should be terrifying not only for folks who fall into these marginalized groups but for everyone, because it is not what this country is built on. It's not leadership."

Alida Garcia, a 2012 Obama campaign veteran who has spent years mobilizing Latino voters and now immigrants as director of coalitions and policy for Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us, said Trump left no doubt that he would create a police state to round up immigrants.

"It's clear Donald Trump has no intention to move away from his frightening immigration policies of deporting 11 million people in 18 months and revoking the citizenship of U.S. citizen children, which would tank our economy and create a modern day police state," she said.

Erika Andiola, a national immigration activist and Bernie Sanders' Latino spokesperson, took issue with Trump allegations about immigrants and comments that he would appeal to the Vermont senators supporters because of similarities on trade.

But it wasn't just groups that identify with Democratic policies that blasted Trump, as conservatives inside Quicken Loans Arena said the new Trump was the same as the old one, but now more menacing to immigrants as the official Republican nominee.

"It was disappointing, I was cringing the whole time when he was talking about immigrants," said Daniel Garza, executive director of the LIBRE Initiative who spent the week speaking at Latino events in Cleveland bashing Hillary Clinton but also admonishing Trump for his hardline approach to the issue.

"What disturbs me the most about Trump's rhetoric about immigrants is he makes the criminal element seem like the rule when they’re really the exception," Garza said. "Immigrants contributing to the economy is the norm."

Mario Lopez, president of the conservative Hispanic Leadership Fund, said Trump's speech hewed closer to authoritarianism than it did to the orthodoxy of a party "that claims to love liberty."

Latino advocates contend that Trump was lying to hardworking Americans by placing the blame for their struggles on the lap of immigrants. The damaging argument was not only one centered on immigration, but also on the economic impact of Hispanics, they said.

"Immigrant workers arguably have more at stake in this election than any other group," Cancela said. "They're being attacked on immigration policy that affects their families and also on economic policy, where Trump has a history of not paying certain workers and paying some workers less."

"It's just a fundamental mischaracterization of the economic effect of immigration," Lopez said of Trump's calls to deport immigrants and help American workers. "That doesn’t mean illegal immigration is OK but it does mean you have to understand 'Economics 101' and not just cynically demagogue the community."

During his speech, Trump did speak about Latino poverty and unemployment for black and Hispanic communities, but advocates said he couched too much of the blame for societal ills at the feet of immigrants.

The strategy may not be new, but on this night, it stung more.

"The vast majority work hard, keep their nose to the grindstone and stay under the radar — they're good, decent people," Garza implored. "Maybe us as Latino voters, we have a different sensibility when it comes to immigrants because we’re related to them, so maybe we feel it a little stronger."

And on a night when Republicans, too, had serious questions about the tenor and direction of Trump's speech, it wasn't just Latino groups that were appalled.

Afterwards, during CNN's coverage of the speech, Republican strategist Ana Navarro, who has long disliked Trump got into it with one of his supporters Jeffrey Lord.

Lord, who often makes distasteful racial appeals, told Navarro and Van Jones who is black, to give up on identity politics.

"That's easy for you to say as a white man," Navarro said, cuttingly.

Mike Segar / Reuters

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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was wrong to tell voters during his convention speech to vote their conscience in November.

"Ted Cruz stood on the same stage and made essentially the same comments I did last year and I guess he has to reconcile, did he have his fingers crossed or not," Walker said on WTMJ's Charlie Sykes Show on Thursday.

Walker added that he thought Cruz should not have spoken at the convention if he didn't plan to endorse Trump. The governor said much of his speech was well received, except for the "implied" comment about not voting for Trump.

Cruz said during his primetime speech that voters should, "Stand and speak and vote your conscience."

"I wish he had chosen different words at the end," said Walker.

"I'll say there shouldn't have been boos, but I also will say that Ted shouldn't have gone out there and said at the end something that was clearly intended to spark controversy," he added. "He was implying people shouldn't vote for Trump."

"Ted was wrong to add that line in the same way that I think people who booed him were wrong," Walker stated.

Timothy A. Clary / AFP / Getty Images

CLEVELAND — "Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation," Donald Trump declared Thursday night as he accepted the Republican presidential nomination. "The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life."

If you didn't believe that before, the GOP did everything it could to convince you this week.

Trump's acceptance speech — a forceful appeal to a frightened electorate that described a country spiraling into dystopian mayhem — capped a four-day Republican convention in which murder and violence often seemed like an inescapable theme. While terrorism and crime have long been central to Trump's campaign message, the onslaught of grisly, tragic stories featured in the convention's programming marked a radical departure from recent precedent.

On Monday night alone, six of the convention speakers were relatives of people who had been killed by undocumented immigrants or foreign terrorists — and each one shared a heart-wrenching story studded with grim details.

Jamiel Shaw, a black Trump supporter, recounted how his teenage son had been shot execution-style by a Latino immigrant in 2008: "I saw the hole in his head and blood everywhere ... The coroner testified while Jazz was on his back, bleeding from a stomach wound, his hands were up and a second bullet went through his hand and into his head."

Mary Ann Mendoza said her son had been taken by a man "who was three times the legal limit drunk, was high on meth, and drove for over 35 miles the wrong way on four different freeways. And he had no business being in this country."

Relating the story of her border patrol brother's murder in 2010, Kelly Terry-Willis said his last words were, "I'm hit. I cannot feel my legs. I think I'm paralyzed." She added, "That will haunt me until the day I take my last breath."

Pat Smith delivered an emotional speech about losing her son in Benghazi. "The last time I talked to Sean, the night before the terrorist attack, he told me, 'Mom, I am going to die.' All security had been pulled from the embassy ... I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son. Personally!"

Several other speakers gave similar talks Monday — all touching on the night's theme, "Make America Safe Again" — and while some were more partisan than others, they all had powerful stories to tell. But the cumulative result of the back-to-back speeches was a markedly darker tone in Cleveland than at other past nominating conventions. Typically, political parties try to use these events to celebrate, and humanize, their chosen standard-bearer, and to cast their agenda in upbeat, patriotic terms.

But rather than seek to calm the country's nerves, Trump used this week's convention to lean into the electorate's fear and anxiety — sentiments that have been inflamed by recent terror attacks and police-killings. This was arguably the one constant in a convention that was widely criticized for its lack of discipline and organization.

In Tuesday's program, which was supposed to be focused on the economy, Sen. Ron Johnson spoke of a "young Yazidi woman I met, who was captured and brutalized by ISIS barbarians, the joy of life hauntingly absent in her eyes."

Following Johnson, NRA executive director Chris Cox launched into a defense of gun rights by laying out a harrowing hypothetical: "Imagine a young mother at home with her baby, when a violent predator kicks the door in. He's a three-time loser who was released from prison early because some politician wanted to show their compassion. What's she going to do? She'll dial 911 and pray."

On Wednesday night, Newt Gingrich devoted much of his primetime speech to cataloguing grisly atrocities recently committed by terrorists around the world.

"Last month, a radical Islamist in Paris stalked a French police officer to his home, where he murdered the officer and tortured his wife to death in front of their three-year-old son, while streaming it all on social media," Gingrich said. "He was pondering whether to kill the three-year-old when the was killed by police."

Trump himself told a story in his acceptance speech Thursday night about a 21-year-old woman in Nebraska who was murdered by a "border crosser" who has since become a fugitive.

"To this administration," Trump said, "their amazing daughter was just one more American life that wasn't worth protecting. ... One more child to sacrifice on the order and on the altar of open borders."

Timothy A. Clary / AFP / Getty Images

The most prominent leader of America’s anti-immigration movement was in a celebratory mood on Thursday night after watching Donald Trump officially accept the Republican party’s nomination, giving him a major party presidential candidate with the kind of hardline immigration stance he has been pushing for years.

“I’m surprised it’s taken this long,” said Roy Beck, the president of NumbersUSA, an organization that seeks a dramatic reduction in both legal and illegal immigration. “But because it’s taken this long then I guess it becomes a little more surprising.”

For Beck, who has been accused of playing “footsie with extremists” by officials at the Southern Poverty Law Center and whose group has been cited as a leading obstacle to immigration reform by immigration activists, Thursday night marked the culmination of a tumultuous but successful four years. While Latino and immigration groups decried Trump’s nomination, Beck told BuzzFeed News that Trump’s speech was a “real peak” for his movement.

“There’s no question there was a very dark period in November and December of 2012, and January 2013,” Beck said of the period after President Obama’s reelection. “I mean, you just had the only voices that spoke on this in the media talked about ‘inevitability.’ It’s inevitable that the comprehensive amnesty was gonna pass. And you had the top Republican leaders saying it.”

The turning point came when the 2013 immigration bill that passed the Senate stalled in the House. But Beck said it wasn’t until this election cycle that Republican leaders and almost the entire Republican presidential field shifted into his camp, opposing proposals like a pathway to citizenship or legal status for undocumented immigrants.

“It wasn’t just Trump. I mean, Scott Walker was the one that really got it going and shot up in the polls when he said, I believe that immigration policy ought to, first of all, be what’s good for American workers,” Beck said. “Then Trump came in and he certainly raised it to another level.”

Beck added that he got the most pleasure on Thursday night from hearing the Republican National Committee chairman toe Trump’s line on immigration.

“I’ll say the most gratifying thing tonight was hearing Reince Priebus and his comment basically aligning the party with the workers on the immigration issue,” he said. “It’s like, okay, it’s not just about the country club.”

Beck, who was initially critical of Trump’s claims that he would let some undocumented immigrants return to the country based on “merit,” still says that he wishes Trump would stop talking about a “wall” and instead refer to the more realistic possibility of building “triple-layer fencing” along the Mexican border. And though he believes that as president Trump would continue to support his current immigration platform, which calls for the deportation of all 11 million undocumented immigrants, he hopes that Trump doesn’t try to overhaul the immigration system without the approval of Congress.

But on the whole, he is far more bullish on the GOP nominee than one prominent anti-immigration peer, Mark Krikorian, who told BuzzFeed News on Friday that, though he plans to vote for Trump, he views his nomination as a “double-edged sword.”

“It’s the first time anybody’s aired these issues so I’m glad of that, but it would be nice if we had a different messenger,” said Krikorian, who is on vacation in France and didn’t watch Trump’s speech.

Krikorian plans to vote for Trump because he thinks the alternative, Hillary Clinton, could be “really, really bad for a really long time.”

Beck, on the other hand, is so optimistic that he even has hope for Clinton, who supports a pathway to citizenship and an expansion of Obama’s executive action on undocumented immigrants.

“I still have hopes that in some ways she’s just saying things, that she doesn’t really mean everything she’s been saying,” he said. “I know that’s kind of wishful thinking, but I just know that politicians often will say things in the heat of campaigns.”

Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images

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Iowa Rep. Steve King said on Thursday that Ted Cruz should have said he was voting for Donald Trump in his speech on Wednesday night.

When host Simon Conway said on Iowa's 1040 WHO radio that Cruz should have honored his pledge to support the Republican nominee and said he was voting for Trump, King agreed.

“Well, I do hear that," said King, who was one of Cruz's top surrogates during the Republican primary. "And I will say what I think he should have done is what you said. And I would have said it this way, now this is the Monday Morning quarterbacking for me and I want to confess that first. But when he got to the point when he said, ‘Vote your conscience, vote it up and down the ticket.’ Then, he needed to say, ‘My conscience tells me to vote for Donald Trump. I’ll be doing that. And I’m asking you to vote your conscience.”

Cruz told the audience on Wednesday to "Stand and speak and vote your conscience," garnering boos for his refusal to endorse the party's nominee.

King also said that he wished the crowd had reacted differently, adding that the resulting situation had damaged both the Trump campaign and the Texas senator.

“By the way, I have to say though that the Trump supporters in that crowd were not very gracious about this either," he said. "And that made it a lot worse. If they’d have just sat there and let that happen—there’s damage done to the Trump campaign and to Cruz.”

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Speaking the Republican National Convention on Thursday night, Trump called the North American Free Trade Agreement "one of the worst economic deals ever made by our country or, frankly, any other country."

His running mate, Mike Pence, however, has been a major advocate for NAFTA, and pushed for similar trade agreements to be arranged between the U.S. and other countries in the 2000s.

"America wins when we trade and export and import," Pence said in comments to The Republic local news on expanding NAFTA in 2003. "And the world wins."

CAFTA, passed in 2004, expanded trade agreements with several Central American countries. In 2002, Pence argued trade deals had created 20 million jobs in the United States.

When running for his seat in 2000, Pence listed on his campaign website a plethora of pro-trade agreement policy statements.

"Congress should continue to support NAFTA and GATT," his page read. "Congress should renew fast track trading authority with the new Administration. Congress should press the Administration to negotiate lower trade barriers across a broad range of sectors of the economy. Congress should support efforts to continue to pursue opening of markets to China but should grant Normal Trade Relations status on a year to year basis."

"Congress should pursue free trade agreements with England and the European Union. Congress should pursue a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas."

Pence's support for NAFTA goes back to its inception. In 1995 he railed against what he called NAFTA conspiracy theorists who were saying it would implement a one-world government.

Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images

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Former Trump aide Michael Caputo says former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski did a terrible job and hurt campaign chairman Paul Manafort at every turn.

"Corey Lewandowski was an inexperienced, horrible campaign manager," Caputo said on Kilmeade and Friends on Friday morning. "The worst decision Donald Trump ever made was hiring him. The best decision he ever made was getting rid of him. When he hired Paul Manafort 12 weeks ago — Paul Manafort's a volunteer by the way, completely volunteer — Paul Manafort came in to make the changes. Corey was stopping him. Basically sabotaging everything that Paul Manafort was doing for weeks and weeks and weeks."

Caputo, who earlier this year resigned from the campaign after celebrating Lewandowski’s ouster on Twitter, continued, saying "I know, I was there, I was right there watching him screw Paul Manafort, every day and therefore, screwing his own candidate.

"So once he was able to shove Corey out of the way, fire him, summarily, everything started changing more rapidly. Corey Lewandowski was saying, ‘Mr. Trump, you be yourself.’ You can’t win an election just being yourself. I don’t care who you are."

Caputo said Trump being himself was enough to win the primary, but not the general.

"Gloves are off my friend," Caputo said when asked about Lewandowski saying Manafort should resign for the plagiarism scandal over Melania Trump's convention speech.

"Corey Lewandowski needs to go away," he concluded.

What do we know about the modern GOP from the primetime speeches at the Republican National Convention? No One Knows Anything, BuzzFeed’s politics podcast, investigates.

CLEVELAND — A national political convention is, for most Americans, an hour of speeches on television every night for four days once every four years. Though delegates to the Republican convention here this week had a lot of party business throughout day, the real action — the part party leaders really cared about — was in primetime.

On the latest episode of No One Knows Anything, BuzzFeed's politics podcast, we meet the Republican Party the GOP broadcast to America live from Cleveland.

Subscribe on iTunes.

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WASHINGTON — The Virginia Supreme Court held that the state's governor lacked the authority to issue an order automatically allowing people convicted of a felony who completed their sentence to register to vote.

The April order from Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe would have allowed more than 200,000 people to register to vote in the upcoming presidential election in November.

Under the state's Constitution, "No person who has been convicted of a felony shall be qualified to vote unless his civil rights have been restored by the Governor or other appropriate authority."

The court's 4-3 majority ruling on Friday, however, asserted that McAuliffe's order "effectively reframes Article II, Section 1 to say: 'No person who has been convicted of a felony shall be disqualified to vote unless the convicted felon is incarcerated or serving a sentence of supervised release.'"

The main question before the court, the majority states, is whether McAuliffe's order "'suspends' a general principle of voter disqualification and replaces it with a new principle of voter qualification that has not received the 'consent of the representatives of the people'" — a limit on government power found elsewhere in the state's constitution.

The court decided that McAuliffe's order did suspend the "general principle" and, as such, is unconstitutional. "The unprecedented scope, magnitude, and
categorical nature of Governor McAuliffe’s Executive Order crosses that forbidden line," the court held.

In addition to striking down the executive order, the court accordingly barred all election officials in the state from enforcing those orders.

McAuliffe still has the authority to restore voting rights on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with the constitutional provision.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

TAMPA, Fla. — Five small words from Donald Trump’s 75-minute acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention shot out, leaving Hillary Clinton "shocked."

I alone can fix it.

The phrase, so Clinton argued to a crowd of 3,600 here on Friday in Tampa, encapsulated Trump's vision of an isolationist, divided America, driven by hate and fear, and led by an authoritarian president who "talks trash about America."

"‘I alone can fix it,'" Clinton said, repeating the line with a raised brow. "Now, just think about that for a minute, because it’s really important. His vision of America is one where we Americans are kind of helpless — where we need to be rescued. I can’t really imagine him on a white horse, but that seems to be what he’s telling us: ‘I alone can fix it.' Well, he doesn’t understand that Americans — we Americans — we are strong, big-hearted, results-oriented, generous people in America.”

"That’s not a democracy, my friends," she said, adding in stark terms that could very well be found in a conservative pitch for small government, "We had a revolution to make sure we didn’t have someone who said, I can fix it alone."

The rally at the Florida State Fairgrounds, part of a two-day swing through the crucial battleground state, offered voters Clinton's first full rebuttal to this week's convention in Cleveland, where chants of "Lock Her Up!" were commonplace.

Clinton briefly acknowledged the at times vitriolic attacks ("It’s hard to believe they spent so much time talking about me," but no solutions, she said) but argued that Trump himself had taken a "dark and divisive vision" to "a whole new level."

The appearance in Florida came as Clinton is expected to reveal her vice presidential selection, an announcement that appeared to be delayed Friday in the wake of a terrorist attack in Munich, another in a string of European attacks.

Earlier on Friday, Clinton hosted a small campaign roundtable in Orlando with people affected by the deadly attack on the gay nightclub Pulse, including leaders from the LGBT community, first responders, and family members of the victims.

She recounted for the crowd here that the participants had spoken about the virtues of being "on a team" and "doing his or her part" in the shooting's aftermath.

"I didn’t meet any one of them who said, ‘Hey, I can fix it alone,’" Clinton said, moving back to Trump. "I’ve never heard of an American leader, or at least someone who wants to be an American leader claiming that he’s all we need."

Trump's speech on Thursday followed Ted Cruz's Wednesday speech, in which the Texas senator refused to endorse Trump — a fact that only slowly dawned on the Republican convention audience, but produced a firestorm of boos and jeers, especially when Cruz told viewers to vote their conscience in November. That, too, garnered Clinton's attention on Friday. "Something has gone terribly wrong when one speaker says ‘vote your conscience’ and gets booed," she said. "I mean, I never thought I would say these words, but, Ted Cruz was right!"

The Democratic National Convention is set to begin on Monday in Philadelphia. There, Clinton said, voters can expect to see a vastly different gathering: no "scary speeches," no people "yelling at us at the top of their lungs like they did all week."

"We will choose to be 'Stronger Together,'" she said, flanked by two signs bearing the phrase, a feel-good motto that her aides have put front and center this summer.

Her approach to the high-profile shootings and terrorist attacks, and toward the sense of voter frustration and anger, over the past year is multi-faceted: a call for safety and stability, and an appeal to collaboration and respect. "Now you can’t really put this into laws, what I’m about to say — but we need more love and kindness in this country, we need more respect between and among our fellow Americans."

With that message comes an acknowledgment of that voter frustration as legitimate. "I know there are people who are feeling insecure and anxious about their lives, about their futures... I know that there’s a lot of angst about all the changes that are happening in the world — technology, globalization — I understand all that."

But, Clinton, said, "I've never known us to basically retreat into the kind of isolationism that was being advertised at their convention. That is not who we are. Those are not the values that made this a great country."