Lara and Eric Trump spoke to Republicans at the North Carolina Republican Convention, touting reform of the Republican National Committee and returning former President Donald Trump to the White House.
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Speaking to Republicans from across North Carolina on Friday, former President Donald Trump slammed the Biden administration and vowed to win the state for a third time — all while his son, Eric Trump, called him onstage and on speakerphone.
“I want to thank the people of North Carolina, your support has been incredible and it's never wavering,” Donald Trump said, to cheers from a crowd of several hundred.
The four-minute call kicked off keynote speeches by Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump and her husband Eric Trump at the Republican National Convention in Greensboro, North Carolina. The couple touted the significant changes they will bring to the national Republican Party under Lara Trump's leadership and made the case for returning Trump to the presidency.
“What's going on in this country right now isn't Republican versus Democrat or left versus right,” Lara Trump, a Wilmington, North Carolina, native, said during the couple's roughly 40-minute speech. “It's good versus evil.”
Lara and Eric Trump's speech came a year after Trump addressed North Carolina Republicans as the keynote speaker at the 2023 Republican National Convention. It was one of Trump's first public comments and came days after a grand jury handed down the first criminal indictment against him for improperly handling classified federal documents.
But much has changed in both the state and the party since President Trump visited the convention in June, including his daughter-in-law's rapid rise through the ranks within the Republican National Committee.
Lara Trump became co-chair of the Republican National Committee and the party's chief fundraising officer in March and serves as No. 2 to Michael Whatley, the former chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party and the new chairman of the Republican National Committee. Whatley is scheduled to speak at the NCGOP convention on Saturday. Both Whatley and Lara Trump have taken on leadership roles to revitalize the party and ensure Trump's victory in November.
In the weeks since they took office, the RNC has undergone major personnel turnover and a much-needed boost in fundraising to cover mounting legal costs as Trump faces multiple civil and criminal trials.
While Lara Trump has only recently taken on the role of party chair, Nancy Murray, a Republican representative from Charlotte, said she has high hopes for what Trump's daughter-in-law will bring to the party's leadership.
Murray also said Lara Trump may be a significant improvement over longtime Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, whom Murray considers a RINO, a derogatory term for conservatives who are Republican in name only.
Emily Bourgeois, another Charlotte delegate under McDaniel, said the party has struggled with financial problems and lost too many elections across the country.
“I'm hopeful that Lara Trump will bring this back,” Bourgeois said before the speech.
Lara Trump told the crowd that the Republican National Committee's policy shifts are necessary to win the 2024 election, including a focus on getting Republicans to vote in large numbers in November. She urged the crowd to vote as soon as possible, including by mail, something Republicans like Trump have previously warned against, and to get others to vote too so the election is “so big it can't be rigged.”
“Vote however you can as soon as you can and get your vote counted,” Lara Trump said.
The couple harshly criticized the Biden administration, including over the immigration crisis 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 are determined to lead the Trump campaign to victory in November.
“We're going to make America great again, and we're going to do it together, and we're going to start in North Carolina,” Eric Trump said.
Other prominent conservatives scheduled to speak at the Greensboro rally this weekend include former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson.
