GREENSBORO, N.C. − In his first set of public speeches since his second indictment, Donald Trump on Saturday told followers in Georgia and North Carolina that he will keep running for president in 2024 despite all the investigations against him.
“I will never yield, I will never be deterred, I will never stop fighting for you – never,” Trump told delegates Saturday night at the North Carolina Republican Party convention.
In an earlier appearance at the Georgia Republican convention in Columbus, Ga., Trump told backers to vote for him in order to get back at “deep state” enemies who are trying to wreck his candidacy.
“Either they win or we win,” Trump said.
In both states, Trump voiced more lengthy and error-filled diatribes about indictments, trials and pending investigations in Washington, D.C., New York City and Atlanta.
Trump denounced this week’s indictment over classified documents as “a demented persecution” and pledged to “smash” the system behind a series of investigations; he described the 2024 election as “the final battle.”
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The second indictment
Trump’s escalated attacks on law enforcement came two days after he announced that he had been indicted on charges of improperly taking sensitive classified documents from the White House. The indictment unsealed on Friday also accused him of illegally obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them.
Trump is charged “with felony violations of our national security laws as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice,” Special Counsel Jack Smith said on Friday.
In his speeches to Republicans in North Carolina and Georgia, Trump launched a litany of complaints about past investigations of him, including Russian election interference in 2016 and his request that the government of Ukraine investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Denouncing the indictment as a “political hit job,” Trump gave meandering and misleading accounts of his handling of classified documents and the subsequent investigations. He gave similar accounts of cases involving President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Both speeches lasted about 90 minutes.
Other investigations
In North Carolina and Georgia, the 2024 Republican frontrunner interspersed various economic and foreign policy proposals with lengthy denunciations of the many investigations of his conduct.
Trump’s first indictment came in late March in New York state court, charges that arose from hush money payments to an ex-mistress.
Two investigations of Trump are still going on, including one in Georgia.
In extended remarks to the Georgia GOP, Trump went on another lengthy complaint about the investigation in that state, including a number of debunked conspiracy theories. Trump said he had the right to complain about an election he claimed was “rigged.”
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has signaled a decision regarding a new indictment of Trump could come sometime between July 11 and Sept. 1.
In the meantime, Special Counsel Smith – who headed up the documents investigation – is also looking at Trump’s actions leading up to the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.
Other Republicans
Most of Trump’s Republican opponents have defended him over the latest indictment, to the dismay of party members who are urging the party to move on.
Two Trump opponents, Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence, denounced the latest indictment during their speeches to the North Carolina Republican Party convention.
That didn’t stop Trump from attacking his opponents in his Saturday speeches.
Trump mocked DeSantis in North Carolina, saying the Florida governor can’t win because “he’s got no personality.”
In Georgia, Trump said he still likes Pence, but his vice president has started to criticize him on other issues like the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. “He’s a nice person,” Trump said of Pence. “He’s trying to get nasty, though, so we may have to fight a different way.”
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Alyssa Farah Griffin, who was a communications director for the Trump White House, said on social media that she is “feeling sad for our nation” and that “watching many of my fellow Republicans tie themselves into knots to try to defend clearly wrong actions is heartbreaking.”
“We don’t have to do this again,” she tweeted. “We have a qualified field we can rally behind & leave Trump & his baggage behind.”