GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — To a room full of Republicans from across North Carolina on Friday, former President Donald Trump criticized the Biden administration and vowed to win the state for a third time — all on a speakerphone after your son Eric Trump called him on stage.
“I just want to thank all the people of North Carolina. The support has been great and has never wavered,” said Donald Trump, greeted by applause from hundreds of people in the crowd.
The four-minute phone call kicked off the RNC co-chair’s keynote addresses Lara Trump and her husband, Eric Trump, at the North Carolina Republican Party Convention in Greensboro. The couple praised important changes in the national Republican Party under Lara Trump’s leadership and insisted on the need to bring Trump back to office.
“What we have going on in this country right now is not Republican versus Democrat or left versus right,” Lara Trump, a native of Wilmington, North Carolina, said during the couple’s nearly 40-minute speech.
Lara and Eric Trump’s speech comes a year after Trump addressed North Carolina Republicans as keynote speaker at the party’s 2023 convention — one of his first public appearances just days after his first criminal charge claim that he mishandled confidential federal documents was handed down by a grand jury.
But much has changed in the state and national party since Trump’s convention visit in June — including the meteoric rise of his daughter-in-law within the Republican National Committee.
Lara Trump became co-chair of the RNC, the party’s top fundraising official, in March and serves as No. 2 to Michael Whatley, the new RNC chairman and former chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, who is expected to speak at the NCGOP Convention on Saturday. Both Whatley and Lara Trump assumed their leadership positions seeking revive the party and guarantee Trump’s victory in November.
In the weeks since his ascension, the RNC has seen major personnel changes and a surge in fundraising — the latter badly needed to finance Trump’s mounting legal fees as he faces multiple civil and criminal trials.
Although Lara Trump is early in her role, Nancy Murray, a Republican Party delegate from Charlotte, said she has high hopes for what Trump’s daughter-in-law will bring to the party’s leadership.
She also said Lara Trump could be a big improvement over former RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who Murray believes is a RINO — a derogatory term for conservatives that means Republican in name only.
Under McDaniel, Emily Bourgeois, another Charlotte delegate, said the party suffered financial problems and lost many races across the country.
“I’m hopeful that Lara Trump can bring this back,” Bourgeois said before the speech.
Lara Trump pitched the RNC’s changes to the crowd as changes necessary to win the 2024 election, which included an emphasis on getting Republicans to turn out en masse in November. She urged the crowd to vote as early as possible — including through mail-in ballots, which Republicans like Trump have previously warned against — and to get others to vote to ensure the election was “too big to be rigged.”
“Any way you can vote and as soon as you can vote, your vote will be counted,” said Lara Trump.
The couple made significant criticisms of the Biden administration, which included concerns about immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border and inflation. As a way to return to the country’s “guiding principles,” Eric Trump told the crowd that he and Lara Trump were committed to leading Trump’s campaign to victory by November.
“We’re going to make America great again, we’re going to do it together, and we’re going to start in North Carolina,” said Eric Trump.
Other prominent conservatives are scheduled to speak at the Greensboro convention over the weekend, including former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Republican North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson.
