If President Joe Biden and the Democrats thought that the indictment of President Donald Trump was going to slow down Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, they were wrong.
Over the weekend, the Washington Examiner reports that Trump gave energetic speeches at both the Georgia and the North Carolina state GOP conventions.
Both speeches took place on Saturday, which was the day after the indictment that Biden's Department of Justice (DOJ) filed against Trump was unsealed. The indictment accuses Trump of 37 crimes stemming from his alleged mishandling of confidential information.
Trump's first stop on Saturday was Georgia.
The speech that Trump gave in Georgia was his first speech since the indictment, although Trump released several statements in between the two events.
During his speech, Trump railed against the indictment, saying:
They took one charge, and they made it 36 different times. And, we have a thug [special counsel Jack Smith] who is in charge. This is a political hit job, Republicans are treated far differently at the Justice Department than Democrats.
Trump went on to accuse President Joe Biden of "trying to jail his leading political opponent - an opponent that's beating him by a lot in the polls - just like they do in Stalinist Russia or communist China."
Trump summed the situation up as follows:
Either we have a deep state or we have a democracy. We're going to have one or the other. And we're right at the tipping point. And either they win or we win. It's very simple. They win or we win.
During his North Carolina speech, Trump hit on many of the same themes as he did in Georgia.
Trump said:
They launched witch hunt after witch hunt, and they just try to stop our movement. They want to do anything they can to thwart the will of the American people. It's called election interference. That's what they're doing now. And we've never seen it on a scale like this. The other side is downright crooked.
Trump also addressed the question of why he continues to put up with this - of why he does not just ride off into the sunset.
Trump said:
In a sick way I sort of enjoy it, because it exposes them. It exposes them for what they are. And, it's also lifted the poll numbers to even higher legs.
During the trip from Georgia to North Carolina, Trump told reporters that he'll "never leave" the 2024 presidential race.
Contrary to what Biden and the Democrats surely hoped, it certainly appears that the indictment has only made Trump stronger.
