Greensboro was the center of the GOP world last weekend when the North Carolina Republican Party held its state convention at the Koury Convention Center.

Three of the top contenders for the Republican presidential nomination spoke at the convention. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spoke Friday evening, June 9, former Vice President Mike Pence spoke Saturday afternoon, June 10, and former President Donald Trump spoke Saturday evening.

Trump is well ahead in the polls, with the latest CBS News poll showing Trump with 61 percent, DeSantis with 23 percent and Pence with 6 percent.

When Trump spoke, he was quick to announce that he would be endorsing North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson for governor.  Trump said, “I’m going to endorse Mark, but I’m not going to talk about it tonight.  We’ll save it for another time.”

If anyone thought that the recent indictment of Trump for retaining 31 classified documents after he was no longer president would cause Trump to be more careful with his rhetoric, they were wrong.

Trump did not seem overly worried about the indictment when he spoke in Greensboro. Trump said that it was no accident that the day he was indicted was the same day the FBI was releasing information from an informant accusing President Joe Biden of taking a $5 million bribe from Ukraine.

Trump said, “This vicious persecution is a travesty of justice. You’re watching Joe Biden try to jail his leading political opponent. Think of it.  This is like third world countries. He tries to put his opponent, who is leading him by a lot, and he wants to put him in jail over following a civil act. This is a simple thing, the Presidential Records Act. It’s all under the Presidential Records Act, as it should be.”

Trump had started his prepared remarks saying, “For seven years we’ve been engaged in an epic struggle to rescue our country from the sinister forces who actually hate it and want to destroy it.  I really believe they want to destroy it.”

And to make sure nobody misunderstood what he was talking about, Trump said, “On Nov. 5, 2024, I’m going to evict a totally corrupt president named Joe Biden from the White House.”

Trump, as usual, also went after the “fake news” media. He noted that there is no scandal without the press and said, “The media is so important. They could straighten things out so quickly.” He added, “If they were honest, the country would be in such great shape.”