(NewsNation) — Former President Donald Trump used a victory speech Tuesday night after winning the Nevada presidential caucuses to rail against the current administration and emphasize the importance the state will have in the general election.
“You need leadership, and this country does not have leadership. It’s lost its way,” Trump said at a campaign watch party in Las Vegas.
He is projected to win the Nevada caucus after he was the only major candidate to compete.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, his last major rival still in the race, skipped the caucuses even though they are the only contest in Nevada that counts toward the GOP nomination. Haley cited what she considered an unfair process favoring Trump and instead ran in Nevada’s symbolic state-run presidential primary Tuesday, when she finished behind the “none of these candidates” option.
Trump’s victory came on the same day of the release of a report by the Justice Department special counsel investigating President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents. The prosecutor, Robert Hur, concluded Biden willfully retained documents after leaving the White House in 2017 but should not face criminal charges.
Hur said a jury would likely view Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory” who made an innocent mistake and didn’t have an intent to break the law. Hur also cited Biden’s cooperation in the investigation, including a five-hour interview over two days in October of last year.
During his speech in Nevada, Trump did not comment specifically on the special counsel report and only referred to Biden directly a few times, once calling him “crooked Joe.”
““We’re gonna bring the world back to normalcy,” Trump told his crowd of supporters.
Trump’s victory in Nevada also came on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Colorado lawsuit over whether he is qualified to be on the primary ballot there. The state Supreme Court ruled he is disqualified under the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists from holding office.
The U.S. Supreme Court appeared skeptical of the state’s argument.
“This was a great day,” Trump said. “We have to preserve our democracy. It was a very beautiful sight to watch.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
