Trump to headline midterm convention

President Trump is counting on his midterm convention to give Republican candidates a boost ahead of the November elections. Everybody is coming to the convention. Everybody wants to come.

But CBS News has found dozens of Republicans in the most competitive races are not coming. They say they'd rather focus on campaigning back home and avoid being seen with an increasingly unpopular president, now polling in the low 30s. Candidates are facing voters frustrated by spiking inflation, high gas prices. The national average today hit $4.22 a gallon, which the president acknowledged won't come down for at least a few months. Right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward.

But to date, he's shown little interest in helping allies in tough races. I don't care about the midterms.

He's only spent a fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars in his campaign coffers for fellow Republicans. So here in Texas, Democrats see an opening. James Talarico, in a tight Senate race with Trump-backed Republican Ken Paxton, spent the day at a food bank near the convention site. Billionaire mega-donors that are partying at the billionaire ball, they're going to spend unlimited amounts of money to try to stop us. That big money is powerful, but it's nothing compared to people with power. Among the Republicans who won't be here, former President George W. Bush, who lives in Dallas. He's hosting an event tonight commemorating the 25 years since the 9/11 attacks. But his absence, a reminder of how much the Republican Party has changed in the last quarter century. Tony. Yeah. Ed, the president on his way there, delayed a bit before taking off this afternoon. What happened? CBS News has learned, Tony, that a member of the Air Force crew accidentally deployed the emergency chute on Air Force One, just as the president was arriving for his flight. He had to wait for about 20 minutes before taking off. This happened on the new Air Force One, gifted to the president by Qatar, that he avoided flying home from Turkey back in July because of security concerns. Tony. I remember. Ed, thank you.