BRETT: One of the big blockbuster stories moving in the last 48 hours occurred, as I mentioned earlier, right here in the state of North Carolina as President Trump made a trip to give a speech to the North Carolina Republican Party’s convention in Greenville, North Carolina. And he certainly made news as he came out after hearing from Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law, that she will not be seeking the Senate seat being vacated by Richard Burr at the end of this term.

She had been flirting with the idea and sort of thinking about maybe getting involved in that race. But she said, “Look, I have young children. I want to do everything 100% and I want to give my children 100% of my attention right now.” She closed her remarks by saying, “This is not ‘no’ forever. This is ‘no’ for now.” At that point, President Trump came out to the stage and endorsed Congressman Ted Budd. Here’s what it sounded like.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Ted Budd, please come up.

CROWD: (cheers and applause)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Please come up.

CROWD: (cheers and applause)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Please come up, Ted. I am giving him my complete and total endorsement. We’re gonna work with him. We’re gonna campaign with him. You can’t pick people that have already lost two races. You can’t pick people that have already lost two races and that do not stand for our values.

BRETT: That was an endorsement of Congressman Ted Budd. But also a refusal to support the candidacy of Pat McCrory, Governor Pat McCrory, the former governor of the state of North Carolina, a seven-term mayor in the city of Charlotte, and a man who attempted to run for the Senate earlier on in his career, and also tried to run for reelection and was defeated at the hands of a Roy Cooper here in North Carolina.

So a back-and-forth sort of ensued between President Trump and Governor McCrory who responded and reacted saying, “Listen, I have supported your efforts. I’ve been supportive of the border and a number of your policies.” So now we wait to see what’s going to happen here in the state of North Carolina. Former Congressman Walker is still a part of this mix; as I mentioned, Governor McCrory is part of this mix; and, of course, Congressman Ted Budd.

And then you have a series of candidates over on the Democrat side of the aisle looking to pick up that seat when Senator Burr moves on down the road. One of the big things that people were looking at in this regard also, it should be noted, is the power of this endorsement. Because what’s curious is Mark Walker, the former congressman from North Carolina, won the straw poll among the delegates assembled there at the convention.

So it’s very early on. We’ll see what the impact of this endorsement from the president, former president, is going to carry there into the election cycle. That’ll be moving on down the road, obviously, once we make that turn from Christmas into New Year’s and we get into the next year of 2022.

One other moment that I thought was absolutely spot-on was the way the president decided he was going to make a series of comments regarding the Wuhan Virology Lab, the role of Dr. Anthony Fauci and all that has gone on to transpire in this covid-19 world in which we live in for about 14 months. Here’s the president talking about Wuhan and Tony Fauci.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: What I first said thirteen months ago, “The evidence demonstrates that the virus originated in a Chinese government lab,” you couldn’t say it.

CROWD: (applause starts)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: You couldn’t say it, and Dr. Fauci — who I actually got along with. He’s a nice guy. He’s a great promoter you know?

CROWD: (laughter)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Not a great doctor, but he’s a hell of a promoter.

BRETT: Brutal shot. But who has been on TV more than Anthony Fauci, and who has held more positions while on television and in radio interviews (laughing) than Dr. Anthony Fauci? In fact, the president talked about Dr. Fauci’s deep-seated, deep-rooted love of masking. Go.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Fauci said powerfully at the beginning, “No masks!” You remember that? “No, masks don’t work. Masks don’t work.” and then he went into masks, and then he became a radical masker!

CROWD: (laughing)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I would call it, “If you have three, if you have four — get a pair of goggles also, ideally — and let’s wear them for another five or six years.”

CROWD: (laughing)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: But Fauci has perhaps never been more wrong than when he denied the virus and where it came from.

BRETT: So, that is, I think, from President Trump vintage strong Trump. Because what he’s doing is what he did so well at live rallies, and that was to go with the energy in the room talking about Fauci. We all know he loves masks. We all know he’s been talkin’ about masks from day one.

But then to turn it into, “Get a pair of goggles; wear three masks,” I mean, it’s incredible bit of comedy, that he’s able to do, because it has — as Rush always pointed out — the ring of truth. But then the president pivoted and made a very bold demand of Xi Jinping and the People’s Republic of China.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: The time has come for America and the world to demand reparations and accountability from the Communist Party of China.

CROWD: (applause)

BRETT: He goes on to say he wants $10 trillion in reparations coming from China to the United States, and really to the world. In fact, earlier today, he was doing an interview with Stuart Varney over on Fox News and he reiterated it again. And this is a game-changer of a position to take, because now the White House will go to White House Spokesperson Jen Psaki, and the sound will reverberate around the world.

“Does President Joe Biden support reparations coming from China?” What is she going to say? She’s going to dodge the question. She’s going to say, “We haven’t drawn a conclusion yet, but we’ll let you know once we meet with the intelligence community in 90 days and da, da, da.” Some reporter (in between asking President Biden whether or not he’s enjoying ice cream) will say, “Do you think we should get reparations from China?”

Biden will somehow ditch or pivot it back like he doesn’t hear what’s being said, but President Trump has laid down a marker. That is an ultimate America First position to say, “Listen, China did this. We need to be remunerated for the damage that China did.” There has to be a rehabilitation here for China — and if it’s going to come for us, it will come for the rest of the world.”

The only fear I would have is if we find out that American tax dollars did go to this research via Tony Fauci, and somehow we end up alongside the hook alongside the Chinese, because we funded the gain-of-function research experiments. That’s a very risky play, but it does put Trump in a very interesting position, because he did say, “I don’t want to fund any of this stuff going on in that Wuhan Virology Lab.”

He told Mark Meadows he didn’t want any money going over there, wanted to make sure we were not connected to that scheme at all, and so now? So now we wait and see. This is a president who is still not on social media. This is a president who is still kind of out there ginning up his own interest in his own ways. He took a shot at Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Zuckerberg broke the law, spending millions of dollars. Don’t you think he broke the law?

CROWD: Yes!

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Millions of dollars to Get Out the Vote efforts in highly Democrat areas. You know he used to come to the White House. He’d call. “Can I have dinner with you, sir?” Sure. “Can I bring my wife?” Oh Absolutely.” He actually walked into the office one day in front of numerous people. “Congratulations, sir!” Why? He said, “You’re number one on Facebook.” He said to me, “You’re number one on Facebook.” I said, “Thank you very much. I appreciate it.” We had a nice dinner. The day I was out, he became, eh, rather… Well I guess it’s human nature. But we can’t let our country be run by that kind of human nature, now can we?