(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Although former President Donald Trump’s speaking schedule was booked weeks in advance, one could be forgiven for thinking he was determined to prove that the news of yet another politically motivated criminal indictment would do little to derail him in his mission to regain the White House.
Back-to-back appearances Saturday at two separate state Republican conventions (Georgia and North Carolina) hearkened back somewhat to the final stretch of the 2020 race, when Trump at one point maxed out at five rallies in a single day, going all the way from Florida to Michigan.
Of course, as Trump pointed out in his second rally on Saturday, at the North Carolina Republican Convention in Greensboro, the 2024 campaign season has barely even begun.
Nonetheless, Trump noted massive crowds of supporters at every stop he made along the way.
“You’ve never seen the streets, tremendous crowds at the airport waiting… people all along the roadway, and this is not really the campaign season,” he said at the NCGOP convention.
“People are disgusted by what’s going on in the our country,” he added. “They want America back.”
His speech capped off a busy weekend for the North Carolina Republicans that also featured appearances from two former-allies-turned-rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence—in addition to a party vote to censure RINO Sen. Thom Tillis.
True to form, Trump was both epic and unwieldy, often discursive in his roughly 90-minute talk, ranting on some of his favorite grievances, reminiscing about his first-term accomplishments and outlining a bold agenda that makes up in ambition for what it might, in some instances, lack in feasibility.
Among his proposals, for example, was a mass-deportation initiative on a scale never before seen to correct the open-borders policies of the Biden administration, which Trump estimated will have resulted in more than 15 million illegals by the end of Biden’s third year—more than the population of New York state.
The proposal is likely to see the same resistance, however, from so-called sanctuary cities that Trump’s earlier efforts to enforce immigration law encountered, even if many of those cities themselves now complain bitterly about the migrant situations being forced upon them.
Trump also proposed an executive order that would end birthright citizenship for illegals—something he previously floated during his first term that is, once again, likely to run into legal issues based on the 14th Amendment.
He failed to elaborate on how he would navigate such a plan through the courts.
Like DeSantis and Pence, Trump also promised to crack down on woke cultural affronts, such as the promotion of transgenderism and critical race theory in schools, and the assaults on parents’ rights and women in sports—all of which have emerged as top GOP concerns in the coming election season.
Even as conservatives’ leading champion in cultural warfare, Trump seemed surprised at the speed at which these issues had emerged at the forefront of American politics and the passion that Republicans felt when he brought them up.
“It’s amazing how strong people feel about it. I talk about cutting taxes, people go like that,” he said, mimicking a light applause. “I talk about transgender, everyone goes crazy. Who would’ve thought? Five years ago, you didn’t know what the hell it was.”
Trump also said that he would end the war between Russia and Ukraine within his first 24 hours as president, if it had not already happened by then, and that he was the only leader capable of preventing a full-fledged global war from breaking out due to his diplomatic experience and relationships.
“I’m the only candidate who can make this promise: I will prevent World War III,” he said.
“And we’re much closer than you think, right now, to having it,” he continued. “And at some point, it will happen. I will prevent it. … I know ’em all, I know how to deal with them, I deal with them—and I’m not saying I know how, but I will get it done.”
Trump also appealed to his experience in dealing with politics in the Washington, D.C., swamp, acknowledging what many consider to be one of his greatest first-term mistakes in choosing high-ranking officials who were more loyal to the administrative state than to their duly-elected leader.
He pledged that he would be able to create a far more functional administration early on.
“I’ve been through it. I know the good people, I know the bad people. I know weak people and strong people,” he said. “I know the people that are losers that we don’t want, I know the people that are winners that a lot of people don’t know or understand.”
Having strong allies will be essential to fighting an unprecedented internal threat from the Left, which Trump said he no longer refers to as the “deep state.”
“I’m using Marxist, I’m using fascist, I’m using communist because ‘deep state’ is far too soft,” he said.
He specifically name-checked Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and special counsel Jack Smith (along with his ideologue wife) as being among the most vicious.
However, somewhere between Georgia and North Carolina, Trump’s legal team may have suggested he tone it down some in discussing his ongoing lawsuits and investigations.
During his earlier speech at Georgia’s GOP convention, Trump reportedly had much more to say about the lawfare attacks against him, including a pledge to investigate the corrupt prosecutors themselves if re-elected. But some media outlets, such as the Atlanta Journal–Constitution, speculated that Trump’s remarks might be used against him in his ongoing criminal cases.
Several times when he began to discuss the recent indictments at his North Carolina speech, he abruptly pivoted back into an entirely different subject altogether.
Still, Trump made clear, as he has for the past seven years, that he had no intention of backing down or being muzzled—particularly now, with the stakes as high as they’ve ever been both for him personally and for the country.
“At the end of the day either the communists destroy America or we destroy the communists,” he said.
“…What’s happening to our country is a disgrace,” he continued. “But I promise you this: If you put me back in the White House, their reign will be over and America will be a free nation once again.”
Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.
