Two UFC fighters, an indicted anti-trans doctor, and a string of embattled candidates are among the speakers who will attempt to rally the Republican base when “Trump-a-palooza” kicks off on Wednesday evening.
The president will take the stage after a lineup that looks less like a traditional party gathering and more like a Trump-era variety show, featuring politicians, activists, B-grade celebrities, athletes, and figures from some of the culture-war battles that have defined the movement.
Among the more unconventional speakers are Eithan Haim, the Texas surgeon who became a conservative poster child after blowing the whistle on his former hospital’s pediatric gender-care program.
Haim was charged with four federal felonies in 2024 related to accessing the medical records of children not in his care and sharing them with a reporter, but the case was dismissed in January 2025. He will appear alongside Vanessa Sivadge, a former pediatric nurse who has alleged that Texas Children’s Hospital improperly billed Medicaid for gender-transition treatments. She lost her job in 2024 and went on to establish Protecting Texas Children.
Then there are the fighters. UFC stars Justin Gaethje and Bo Nickal, who fought at Trump’s White House cage fight earlier this year, have been given a 10-minute slot before the president, with two promotional videos scheduled as part of the segment.
Georgia Senate candidate Mike Collins—whose race against Democrat star Jon Ossoff has been dogged by scandals over Nazi and Ku Klux Klan imagery—will also appear with the family of Laken Riley, the nursing student whose killing became a major immigration flashpoint for the GOP.
Comedian and radio personality Adam Carolla, meanwhile, gets eight minutes to rail against “progressive insanity”, while embattled Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton will also make an appearance along with Trump cabinet officials such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, and Attorney General Todd Blanche.
The eclectic lineup comes as Trump insists Republicans have no shortage of enthusiasm for the event.
“Everybody wants to be there,” Trump insisted on Truth Social on Tuesday night, despite several Republicans in competitive races opting to stay away.
Organizers have been pulling all stops to pack the arena, including opening up a lottery for the public with the promise of VIP treatment, urging GOP operatives to give away passes to the two-day event, and blasting out unsolicited text messages screaming “FREE TICKETS” with links to the convention’s registration page.
But as the Daily Beast’s political newsletter The Swamp revealed today, about 180 hotels around downtown Dallas still had rooms available and numerous restaurants around the American Airlines Center when the gathering takes place still had reservations across both days.
Outside, there will be no shortage of protests and counter programming, including an Epstein BookMobile and an Epstein Reading Room with millions of microprinted Justice Department files.
“Why did we bring all 3.5M Epstein Files to Dallas?” Miles Taylor, a former Trump adviser who now runs Defiance.org wrote on X. “Because the survivors aren’t afraid to confront Trump. Because you need to see the weight of the corruption to grasp it. Because the defiance in this country is growing. And this guy will not shut us up.”
The two-day event is expected to cost more than $40 million and is being held at the 20,000-seat American Airlines Center.
Trump is scheduled to speak on Wednesday night for 45 minutes, followed by Christopher Macchio singing “Hallelujah.” He will return for another appearance Thursday alongside Vice President JD Vance, ensuring that even a convention supposedly designed to rally Republicans for the midterms remains overwhelmingly centered on the president.
