Trump Will Accept Republican Nomination in North Carolina

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said Monday night that he will accept the Republican presidential nomination in Charlotte, N.C., two months after throwing the convention process into chaos over a spat with North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

Trump, who visited a coronavirus vaccine development site in Morrisville, N.C., on Monday, said an announcement on details of his acceptance speech will be released by the end of the week or possibly early next week.

“All I know is I’ll be in North Carolina, and that’s a very big deal because we have a lot of the delegates there, and that will be a nomination process,” the president told WRAL radio.

“That’s essentially where the nomination, where it’s formalized, and I’m really honored to do it in North Carolina,” Trump said.

Preparations were well under way for the Republican National Convention to be held in Charlotte this year, when the president pressed North Carolina officials for a commitment to allowing a full-scale political convention with tens of thousands of attendees.

Gov. Cooper balked, citing the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and said rules on attendance size, social distancing and other matters could only be decided based on prevailing health conditions.

With that Trump yanked the convention from Charlotte and eventually settled on Jacksonville, Fla., for his acceptance speech and other pomp and circumstance.

North Carolina was left with a consolation prize of being the site for a convention business meeting on Monday, Aug. 24 attended by 336 of the party’s 2,550 delegates – six each from each state and territory.

But a surge in the virus in Florida made the Jacksonville event impossible.

“I think we did the right thing,” Trump said of the Florida cancellation while visiting the Fujifilm Diosynth, a biotech manufacturing facility in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park.

“I am really happy that we are going to be having a piece of it, at least, and a very important piece, in North Carolina,” he said.