by Sharon Rondeau
(Jun. 6, 2021) — In a widely-covered appearance, 45th President of the United States Donald J. Trump gave the keynote speech at the state convention of the North Carolina Republican Party in Greenville Saturday evening.
Live broadcast coverage was provided by a local Fox station and RSBN.
Taking the stage to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” Trump greeted those gathered with his typical fist-pumps, handclapping and nods, congratulating Michael Whatley on his re-election as state chairman, and responding to a shout of “We love you!” with “I love you, too!”
After taking the podium, Trump launched into a litany of criticism of the Biden White House, including the defunding of police, “wide-open borders” and “illegal immigration,” and rising crime rates. “Our industries are being pillaged by foreign cyber-attacks,” he said. “That’s a lack of respect for our country and for our leaders. Speaking of our leaders, they’re bowing down to China; America is being demeaned on the world stage….”
Trump further opined that “Joe Biden and the socialist Democrats are the most radical left-wing administration in history; even Bernie Sanders can’t believe it…”
Of the 2020 presidential election which Trump has claimed he, and not Biden, won, he said, “More votes than any sitting president in the history of the United States by far. We had a great election; bad things happened, but we had a great election.”
According to NBC News, “it would have taken fewer than 44,000 votes, spread across swing states Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin, to reverse the outcome” of the November 3 election.
In a three-part report issued prior to Biden’s inauguration by then-White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro in his personal capacity, six major factors contributed to Biden’s “win,” including the relaxing of state laws governing absentee ballots, the use of unclean voter rolls, and illegal aliens voting in significant numbers. A report released in December by The Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society reported that hundreds of millions of dollars donated by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to little-known, left-leaning non-profits resulted in the flouting of state and federal election laws in highly-populated, traditionally-Democrat voting areas.
“The Amistad Project began monitoring these activities beginning in the spring of 2019, originally focusing on the digital vulnerabilities of state election systems,” the report states on page 2. “Amistad became aware that states and local election officials failed to maintain the legal right to access computer logs on the machines counting ballots. The first step to engage any computer forensic examination is to gain access to machine logs, yet scores of election officials failed to maintain the right to even review such information, much less establish a method for bipartisan review.”
An ongoing forensic audit of the election processes and results begun April 23 in Maricopa County, AZ is not expected to yield any evidence of deliberate malfeasance, Arizona state senate president Karen Fann said at a hearing May 19, but rather, to assure voters that ballots are cast and counted in accordance with state law.
“The survival of America depends upon our ability to elect Republicans at every level, starting with the midterms next year; we have to get it done,” Trump said on Saturday evening. “We have no choice, actually; we have to get it done…Just take a look at what’s happened.” He decried “cancel culture” and “Critical Race Theory” being taught to schoolchildren, which he claimed Biden supports.
Trump then thanked specific individuals, including North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican serving with Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper.
While North Carolina was considered a “swing” state in the November presidential election, unlike similar states such as Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, its electoral votes were ultimately awarded to Trump based on the reported popular vote of 49.9% for Trump and 48.6% for Biden.
At 12:43 in his address, Trump called upon daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who he reminded the audience was “born in this state,” to address the gathering as he stood to the side.
To the “rumor” that she was or is “considering” running for the U.S. Senate from North Carolina, Lara Trump said she is saying “No for now.” Nevertheless, she said, she will be supporting current U.S. Rep. Ted Budd, who is running for the seat currently held by Sen. Richard Burr.
Later in his remarks, Trump recounted what he considers to be his major accomplishments during his four-year term, including the high employment levels in “every group” and the production of coronavius vaccines in the wake of the declared “pandemic” of early 2020. “We built the economy not once; we built it twice,” he said. “We saved a lot of lives” worldwide, he claimed, as a result of his authorizing the expenditure of “billions and billions” of dollars on vaccine “before we even knew it worked.”
“The Biden administration seems to be putting America last…” he said, stating that “48,000 jobs were lost” when Biden halted construction of the Keystone Pipeline.
“What’s going on on the southern border” is an example of Biden’s “failed policies,” Trump said.
In what was said to be an “analysis” of Trump’s address, CNN published an article Sunday morning titled, “Trump advances dangerous disinformation campaign as more states move to restrict the vote” and accusing Trump of carrying out a “disinformation campaign”:
Donald Trump’s speech before the North Carolina Republican Party Saturday night was a reminder of the danger the former President poses as he undermines America’s election system while attempting to reassert himself as kingmaker on the national stage.
His address to the party faithful was a familiar screed to anyone who tuned in to his 2020 campaign rallies. He attacked President Joe Biden’s foreign policy maneuvers, claimed Biden is destroying the economy, insisted that he deserves more credit for the rapid development of Covid-19 vaccines, and argued that the radical left and “cancel culture” are destroying America’s freedoms. But it was his continuing disinformation campaign about the November presidential contest that was most disturbing — in part because the past few months have proved that Trump’s lies are now accepted as gospel by a majority of Republicans.
Reacting to Trump’s speech on Saturday, The New York Times described him as simultaneously “diminished and dominating.”
“Trump’s speech in Greenville, North Carolina, was his first political appearance outside his new home state of Florida since he left office in January,” ABC News reported. “In late February, he delivered the keynote address at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando where he teased a 2024 comeback bid while promoting the false claim that the November election was ‘rigged’ against him. Since then, the former president has only doubled down on spreading conspiracies about the election, backing so-called ‘audits’ in Arizona and Georgia and calling for others in the battleground states he lost. Official, nonpartisan audits have already taken place in any closely contested state and found no irregularities that would change the results.”
In an article about the Maricopa audit, Yahoo! News termed Trump’s claims of election fraud “discredited.” Farther down, the author states, “The concern among opponents of the audit is that if it produces an inaccurate count alleging fraud, it will be trumpeted in conservative media and by Trump to further undermine confidence in the election system shared by millions.”
As with most in the major media, Yahoo! used the term “baseless(ly)” to refer to claims of election fraud.
In a statement posted on social media Friday, Trump appeared to indicate that he plans to seek re-election to the White House, presumably in 2024.
Here is what is disturbing. With the AZ audit still ongoing, we do not know that election fraud is “baseless”, nor can anyone unequivocally say he is guilty of “misinformation”. There is very little about which DJT has not been correct. I believe that most Americans still agree that there was definite election fraud, and that the 2020 election was indeed stolen from President Trump, and possibly a few candidates down ballot. Why don’t we just wait to see the results?