Mark Robinson endorses Ted Budd as Trump praises his favored NC candidates
Former President Donald Trump held a rally Saturday in the Johnston County town of Selma where he shared the stage with several of his favored candidates who are facing competitive Republican primary elections.
The rally was notable for a new endorsement in one of those races, but not from Trump: Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson backed Rep. Ted Budd for Senate.
Trump has endorsed Budd as well as Rep. Madison Cawthorn and political newcomer Bo Hines, who both spoke at the rally.
Below are updates from the rally. And check out our other coverage:
Three weeks to build the wall? Fact checking claims from Trump’s NC rally
Will Donald Trump run for president in 2024? He teases NC crowd during rally
Madison Cawthorn says Trump backers would send Anthony Fauci to jail and impeach Biden
Ahead of NC visit, some Republicans say Trump made wrong endorsement in Johnston race.
- Everything you need to know about the rally.
- Our weekly Under the Dome newsletter previews the rally.
Trump’s speech
Update 8:30 p.m.: Former President Donald Trump has finished his typically meandering speech, in which he jumped among topics like sanctuary cities, security at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack on Congress, what he called environmental alarmism, and claims that President Joe Biden is corrupt and that public education has replaced “reading and math with pronouns and gender study.”
One of the first things he’d do as president with a Republican majority in Congress, Trump said, would be to end “every last COVID mandate. They’re still around.” In North Carolina, most mandates have expired. None of North Carolina’s 115 school districts have mask mandates in place, for example.
“I think I’m the most honest human being, perhaps, that God ever created,” Trump said.
Trump falsely claims 2020 win
Update 7:50 p.m.: Trump revisited his usual claim to have won the 2020 presidential election by a greater margin than he did in 2016. In fact, Trump lost the election with 232 electoral votes to Joe Biden’s 306 and lost the popular vote by more than 4 percentage points. He had lost the popular vote by a smaller amount in 2016 while winning that election.
After asking the crowd if it would like to see him run again, Trump supporters responded with the loudest cheer of the day.
Trump says Bo Hines has his endorsement
Update 7:40 p.m.: Former President Donald Trump invited Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson to the stage for an encore speech. Robinson said that he has gone from working in a factory to “standing on stage ... with the president of the United States of America,” and that is proof of the American dream.
Trump doubled down in his support of congressional candidate Bo Hines.
“And you know, Bo, you have my complete and total endorsement,” Trump said.
Hines is running for the 13th Congressional District, which includes Johnston County. Some local Republicans have bucked Trump’s endorsement of the 26-year-old former N.C. State football player.
Trump on stage
Update 7:10 p.m.: Former President Donald Trump started his speech with calls for voters to support Ted Budd in his Senate race. He quickly shifted to a sweeping denunciation of Democratic politicians.
“Up and down the ballot you will go,” he said of the crowd voting during 2022’s primary elections, “and together we will end crazy Nancy Pelosi’s career.”
“That’s a lot of people back there,” he said to reporters on the staging platform. “Welcome, fake media, welcome.”
Trump crowd size
Update 7:05 p.m.: Former President Donald Trump is taking the stage at The Farm in Selma in front of what appears to be roughly 1,000 to 2,000 people — substantially fewer than the 15,000 who attended his rally at the same venue in the days before 2016’s presidential election.
Trump is making his entrance, lingering among the crowd. “God Bless The USA” by Lee Greenwood plays in the background.
A rally’s music
Update 5:30 p.m.: All of the speakers who had been announced prior to the rally were done about two hours before Trump was scheduled to walk out and begin his remarks.
Right after U.S. Senate candidate Ted Budd exited the stage, the 1969 Creedence Clearwater Revival song “Fortunate Son” began playing on the speakers. The band’s lead singer and guitarist John Fogerty has long objected to the song being played at Trump rallies, saying in October 2020 that his words and voice were being used to “portray a message that I do not endorse.”
Cawthorn: Impeach Biden, send Fauci to jail
Update 5:25 p.m.: U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn took the stage at the rally and spoke about the car accident that paralyzed him.
“I was destined to never walk again,” Cawthorn said. A moment later, two aides helped him to his feet and he stood before the lectern resting on a walker. “(God) has given me the strength to stand before today so do not lecture me on what’s impossible.”
Cawthorn threatened to help impeach the president and jail a top public health official if he and like-minded Republicans take power.
“If you put America First patriots in power in Washington, D.C., if we put Donald Trump back in command in the White House, my friends, we will embrace the spirit of our Founding Fathers,” Cawthorn said. “We will investigate Anthony Fauci and send him to jail for lying to Congress. We will restore the Second Amendment by repealing the National Firearms Act. We will secure our borders and finally my friends, we will impeach Joe Biden for his dereliction of duty.”
Some past claims that Fauci lied to Congress have cited the official’s denial that the United States funded what is known as gain-of-function research in China before the coronavirus pandemic. But FactCheck.org wrote that, “There’s no evidence that Fauci lied to Congress ... given that the (National Institutes of Health) unequivocally backs up Fauci’s statement that the grant-backed research ‘was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain-of-function.’” The Washington Post took a look at similar claims in its own fact check and said there is “a split in the scientific community over what constitutes gain-of-function research.”
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Budd says Robinson is ‘next governor’
Update 4:55 p.m.: Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who has come under fire for comments he made to churchgoers last year when he referred to being transgender as “filth,” returned to that topic Saturday on the rally stage.
“Two plus two does not equal transgender. It equals four,” Robinson said, arguing educators have abdicated their responsibility to teach facts.
“Let me shut up before I get in trouble,” he said soon after.
Robinson was condemned by several LGBTQ organizations and Democratic figures for his previous comments, but has suggested in subsequent remarks that he doesn’t regret making them.
“Ladies and gentlemen, our next governor of North Carolina, Mark Robinson,” Rep. Ted Budd said to begin his own speech.
Robinson indicated this week he was about “98%” sure he’d run to replace Gov. Roy Cooper when his term expires in two years, the Hickory Record reported.
Hines blasts ‘RINOs’
Update 4:50 p.m.: Bo Hines, the 26-year-old political newcomer who won Trump’s endorsement after filing to run in the newly redrawn 13th Congressional District, spoke for a few minutes after U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn.
Hines said he’s running for Congress because he won’t stand for “Marxists” on the left and “cowardly RINOs” who are undermining Trump’s America First movement.
He said the GOP must oust “RINOs” — Republicans in name only — the way God “vomits lukewarm Christians out of his mouth.”
Legislative, judicial races are key, Foxx says
Update 4:20 p.m.: U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx urged the rally attendees in a video speech to help Republicans retake the majority on the N.C. Supreme Court and to expand their majority in the General Assembly.
She also said the GOP needs to retake Congress to fight the “scorched earth, Marxist playbook” being used by Democrats.
“We must return to the successful policies of President Trump and the America First movement and reject the divisive agenda of the ‘woke left.’” Foxx said.
Mark Robinson endorses Ted Budd
Update 4 p.m.: Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson endorsed Ted Budd for Senate as both prepared to appear at the rally.
Just weeks ago, another candidate in the GOP race, Mark Walker, highlighted Robinson’s support in an Instagram post and video although Robinson stopped short of an endorsement.
That post said: “Breaking: Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson announces pledge to help U.S. Senate candidate Mark Walker in joint appearance: ‘Congressman Mark Walker is a fighter. From the very beginning, he came running… I honor this man. I love this man. Go all the way to the top, brother. You know you will, you know God‘s got your back and what little I can do, I am going to do for you as well.’”
But on Saturday, Robinson’s campaign wrote that polls show the primary has shifted from a race between Budd, Walker and Pat McCrory to a two-person race between Budd and McCrory, and that Robinson decided he had an obligation to back a conservative who could beat Democrat Cheri Beasley.
The release quotes Robinson’s political consultant, Conrad Pogorzelski III, saying Robinson is “without a doubt the most popular elected Republican in North Carolina with Republican primary voters. This endorsement marks a commitment to them to ensure that North Carolina elects a conservative who will win the general election. It also marks the end of this race.”
Democrats respond
Update 3:50 p.m.: Democrats are issuing statements and holding events ahead of former President Donald Trump’s rally.
The North Carolina Democratic Party said in a news release Saturday that Trump’s arrival would ramp up the “chaos” in the Republican contest for Senate where Trump has endorsed Ted Budd over Pat McCrory, saying, “Trump is only going to intensify this nightmare of a primary for North Carolina Republicans.”
And North Carolina Democratic Party First Vice Chair Floyd McKissick said Friday: “As the Republicans’ toxic agenda continues to unravel, the choice could not be more clear: Republicans’ health care and economic plan is gutting the health care North Carolinians count on, raising premiums, and hiking taxes. Budd and the rest of Trump’s handpicked candidates will be a rubber stamp to the GOP’s agenda of tax hikes and raised premiums if Republicans win control of Congress.”
Smaller crowd so far than in 2016
Update 3:30 p.m.: With people still entering, the crowd in Selma is substantially smaller than the 15,000 people who attended then-candidate Donald Trump’s rally in the days before 2016’s presidential election.
Four sets of bleachers have scant population, but a dense crowd of at least 500 is gathered in the grass beneath the podium where Trump will speak at 7 p.m.
In between rounds of country music, montages of news clips with critical coverage of the Biden administration’s handling of inflation and illegal immigration are playing on giant screens set up on either side of the stage where Trump and others will speak. Videos from the campaigns of U.S. Senate candidate Ted Budd and U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn have also been played on the screens.
Bo Hines calls Trump ‘greatest president in American history’
Update 2:50 p.m.: “We love President Trump,” congressional candidate Bo Hines said in an interview broadcast Saturday at the rally by the Right Side Broadcasting Network.
“You’re exactly right when you say he is the greatest president in American history,” the Trump-endorsed Republican told the interviewer. “We need to make sure he gets back there in ‘24.”
Hines said he would have an “America First” message at the rally that includes no restrictions on 2nd Amendment gun rights.
Club for Growth cheers Trump rally
Updated 2:30 p.m.: The Club for Growth PAC, the conservative group that is spending millions of dollars on behalf of Senate candidate Ted Budd while also endorsing Bo Hines in the 13th Congressional District and Dan Bishop in the 9th district, issued a statement Saturday.
“Poll after poll shows that Republicans respect President Trump and don’t want RINO’s representing them — that will be no different this year in North Carolina,” Club for Growth PAC President David McIntosh said in the statement.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at https://campsite.bio/underthedome or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published April 9, 2022 at 3:03 PM.
