(CN) - Donald Trump will make what is likely the most important speech of his presidential campaign Thursday night, his last best hope of convincing GOP skeptics and the American public that he has the goods and the temperament to be the 45th president of the United States.
10:21 p.m.
CLEVELAND (CN) - Ivanka Trump introduced her father Thursday night in a highly anticipated speech where she painted the Republican nominee as a compassionate man and caring father.
"For more than a year Donald Trump has been the people's champion and tonight he is the people's nominee," Ivanka Trump said.
On Sunday Trump campaign head Paul Manafort told reporters one focus of the convention was going to be presenting a more complete picture of Trump as a man and Ivanka Trump's speech followed that plan.
She cast Trump as a man of the people who will fight for disadvantaged people and fix the problems that ail the country.
"This is the fighter, the doer that you have chosen as your nominee," Ivanka Trump said after detailing her father's success in business.
She also spent a large portion of the address on equal pay and gender discrimination issues, saying her father would be a champion of women and mothers in the workplace.
"He is color blind and gender neutral" Ivanka Trump said of her father's practices in business.
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9:38 p.m.
CLEVELAND (CN) - PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel told the Republican National Convention Thursday he is "proud to be gay," drawing a loud cheer from the audience.
"I don't pretend to agree with every plank of our party's platform but fake culture wars only distract us from our economic decline," Thiel said.
Thiel is the first openly gay man to speak at a Republican National Convention.
He used his speech Thursday to lament the decline of innovation in the United States and called the government and economy "broken."
He also took on Wall Street for "building bubbles" and preventing average people from being able to attain the American dream. - Tim Ryan
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9:23 p.m.
CLEVELAND (CN) - Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus Thursday night painted the Republican party as the "party of the open door" and held up Donald Trump as the only option to defeat Hillary Clinton.
"We are the party of new ideas in a changing and faster world than ever before," Priebus told a cheering Republican National Convention audience Thursday night.
One night after Texas Sen. Ted Cruz declined to endorse Trump for president, Priebus called for Republicans to fall behind Trump to stop Clinton from being able to stack the Supreme Court with "activist" judges.
He also took played to the crowd and bashed Clinton for her foreign policy choices as secretary of state and for the Clinton Foundation's suspect ties to foreign governments, both of which have been major points of criticism for a party laser focused on defeating her.
"For Hillary Clinton the Oval Office is just another cash cow," Priebus said.
The RNC head told delegates that Clinton "lied" and cast Trump as an outsider who would bring about a government new government free of special interests.
"This election is our chance to stop it and Donald Trump is the right man to lead the charge," Priebus said.
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