Former President Donald Trump canceled a rally in North Carolina on Saturday due to severe weather.
“We want to keep everyone safe. In a live phone call broadcast to the assembled throng at the rally in Wilmington, Trump stated that ensuring everyone’s safety is the most important thing, adding that they will “just do a raincheck.”
The event was scheduled to take place outside at the Aero Center in Wilmington. Around 30 minutes before Trump’s scheduled stage appearance at 7 p.m. ET, the news broke. The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the region on Saturday evening.
It would have been his first campaign rally since the New York criminal trial began earlier this week. Trump has denied any impropriety in this matter.
On Saturday, he and Melania Trump held competing fundraisers in different states, with the former president raising money for his campaign and the Republican Party in North Carolina in the afternoon before the now-canceled rally and the former first lady raising money for a conservative LGBT group at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach in the evening.
Melania Trump, in particular, made an unusual appearance at a fundraiser event, as she has generally avoided the former president’s campaign trail this election cycle, instead appearing only at private events at his properties.
The last two times she was seen in public were at a large Palm Beach event for Trump and Republicans earlier this month, where they raised more than $50 million, and last month at a Palm Beach voting station, where the former president voted in the Florida Republican primary.
She hosted a fundraiser for Log Cabin Republicans, the largest 501(c)4 nonprofit group for LGBT conservatives in the US.
A number of veteran Donald Trump loyalists and major Republican fundraisers co-hosted the dinner, including Richard Grenell, former US ambassador to Germany and interim director of National Intelligence under the Trump administration. He became the first gay person to hold a cabinet-level position in the United States.
Bill White and his husband Bryan Eure, former president of the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum and prominent fundraisers for the former president, were also co-hosts.
Other notable guests and co-hosts included former Trump-endorsed Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz, who lost to Democratic Sen. John Fetterman in the 2022 general election; Fox News CEO Roger Ailes’ widow Elizabeth Ailes; longtime Republican donor Saul Fox; and Deborah Magowan, the wife of former Giants Chairman Peter Magowan, according to a source and the fundraiser’s invitation.
According to the invitation, each ticket was $10,000.
Before the event on Saturday morning, Grenell wrote on X that Melania Trump “will launch the most aggressive campaign we’ve ever seen from Republicans to win support from gay and lesbian Americans.”
“We have largely achieved equality in America for gays,” Grenell said, praising the United States as a champion of freedom and liberty and endorsing Donald Trump.
“He is the best candidate for our safety, security, and prosperity,” he said. “He sees you as completely equal; it is up to you to be responsible, hardworking, and successful.” Anyone who asserts that you face persecution in America or demands special accommodations due to your sexual orientation is merely attempting to subjugate you. Break free from their patronizing cultish machinations.”
“You can be anything you want to be in America,” he added, predicting that Trump will capture a sizable share of the LGBT vote in 2024.
According to the fundraiser’s organizer, the event sold out in 36 hours and has already earned more than $1 million, with more people donating even if they were unable to attend.
The organizer expected the event to draw about 70 people from across the country, including California, New York, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington, D.C.
“For the first lady to choose this as her first campaign event is an honor to the conservative Republican gay community,” said the event organizer, according to ABC News. “It definitely negates the false narrative that Biden and the Democrats have peddled about the Trump administration.”
“Trump has expanded the Republican base of all types of minorities in ways that no other Republican has,” the organizer added. “The Log Cabin has a clear plan of how this money will be spent to educate voters about President Trump’s record and to help him win with the gay community in swing states.”
Eure, SVP at insurance brokerage business Willis Towers Watson, thanked the former first lady and stated that many homosexual voters are apprehensive about their future after three years under the Biden administration.
“Gay voters are no longer one-issue voters,” Eure explained, noting that he and his partner White have been legally married for nearly 13 years. He added that the 2024 race will be a battle for a second term for both Biden and Trump, saying, “We know what we’re getting with both of these candidates; the only issue is whether you’d be better off with Trump or Biden. We believe President Trump is the only option for us.
Melania Trump has had a longstanding relationship with Log Cabin Republicans, having headlined their annual gala at Mar-a-Lago in 2021 and receiving the group’s Spirit of Lincoln award for her role in “helping children reach their full potential” and “championing a more inclusive Republican Party.” In 2022, Donald Trump headlined the Log Cabin Republicans’ Spirit of Lincoln event at Mar-a-Lago, telling the audience, “We are fighting for the gay community, and we are fighting hard.”
Meanwhile, on Saturday afternoon, Trump held a fundraiser in Charlotte, North Carolina, with Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, who formerly served as chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, and Trump’s daughter-in-law and RNC Co-chair Lara Trump.
The event’s invitation and the organizer projected that the fundraiser, with tickets ranging from $5,000 per person for general admission to $250,000 per couple to be on the host committee, would earn at least $5 million. A photo session with the former president costs $25,000 per pair, while a roundtable will cost $100,000 per couple.
The Trump campaign, Trump’s Save America PAC, which has paid for many of his legal expenses, the RNC, and 40 other state GOP organizations will split the proceeds from this dinner.
The fundraiser’s notable co-hosts included North Carolina’s National Committeeman Ed Broyhill, who served as Trump’s North Carolina Finance Committee chair in 2016, and Army veteran Scott Greenblatt, who owns a veterans claims consulting company.
Poor weather forced a last-minute postponement of Trump’s rally in Wilmington after the fundraiser.
“There appears to be a lot of thunder and lightning, and it’s a very large storm.” So, if you don’t mind, we’ll simply have to do a rain check,” Trump told the audience. “I’m extremely sorry. I’m in North Carolina right now, ready to go in, but they say the weather is getting nasty. It’s really getting bad. So we need to rely on the weather service.”
The North Carolina fundraiser follows Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s statement that President Joe Biden can win the state, despite Trump’s victories in 2016 and 2020. Both Biden and Harris campaigned in North Carolina last month, emphasizing their health-care messages.
Broyhill, one of the co-hosts of the Trump fundraiser, told ABC News that North Carolina is a GOP bastion, citing Republicans’ performance in down-ballot races.
“I don’t know what people talk about when they say this is a purple state,” Broyhill went on to say. “There is no chance in hell that Joe Biden is going to come close to winning North Carolina.”
“There are a large number of top donors flying in, and their expectations will far exceed $5 million,” Broyhill said of the impending gala.
