(USA Features) Former President Donald Trump teased another White House run again Saturday ahead of an address to the North Carolina Republican Party Convention in which he claimed the party was surging in response to President Joe Biden’s leftist agenda.
“We’re going to take back the Senate, we’re going to take back the House, and we’re going to take back the White House sooner than you think,” Trump said in a video circulating on Twitter before his speech.
“It’s going to be really something special. But the love and the affection and the respect you’ve given all of us, it’s really important,” he added. “The Republican Party is strong than it’s ever been, and it’s going to be a lot strong than it is right now.
“We’re going to turn it around; we’re going to turn it around fast,” he pledged.
In his speech, Trump pushed back on claims by Democrats and some Republicans that his opposition to the way the 2020 election turned out was not an attempt to destroy democracy.
“Remember, I am not the one trying to undermine American democracy. I’m the one that’s trying to save it. Please remember that,” he said, going on to call for additional election integrity measures like those being considered or have already passed.
“We all know what happened with the election, and we can never, ever let that happen again,” the former president said.
“We’re not going to have a country if you don’t have election integrity, and if you don’t have strong borders, our country can be run like a dictatorship, and that’s what they’d like to do,” Trump added. “I don’t even think Biden is the dictator.
Trump went on to predict GOP electoral success next year.
“And we’re going to have a tremendous 2022 just like we did – frankly 2020 think of it: 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,” he said.
At one point, Trump shared the stage with his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, who announced that, despite rumors and reports, she won’t run for retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr’s seat.
“Because of the values my parents instilled to me, they taught me that when you do something, you give 100%; that is the only way to operate,” Lara Trump said. “And because of my two kids, who are very young – 1 and 3, Carolina and Luke – it is going to be very hard for me to enter this Senate race right now.
“But I am saying no for now, not no forever,” she added. Both she and her former president father-in-law threw their support for the seat behind Rep. Ted Budd, R-N.C., who also appeared on stage briefly.
“Mr. President, Laura, this means the world to me, thank you,” Budd said. “We got a lot of hard work ahead, so let’s win this together, and let’s get back to making America Great Again.”