Former United States President Donald Trump on Sunday suggested that he would run again for the 2024 presidential polls and repeated his claims that he won the 2020 elections, reported AFP.
“With your help we will take back the House, we will win the Senate, and then a Republican president will make a triumphant return to the White House – and I wonder who that will be?” Trump said at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “Who, who, who will that be? I wonder.”
This was Trump’s first public appearance since he left the presidential office.
Trump also dismissed rumours that he might take his base of support to create a new political party. “I am not starting a new party,” he said. “We have the Republican Party. It’s going to unite and be stronger than ever before.”
Trump also repeated his claims that he won the 2020 presidential polls. He once again alleged that the elections were “rigged”, according to AP. “As you know, they [the Democrats] just lost the White House,” he said. “I may even decide to beat them for a third time, OK.”
The former US president also criticised the Joe Biden administration. “Joe Biden has had the most disastrous first month of any president in modern history,” Trump said. He also launched an attack on immigrants, “cancel culture,” and criticised Biden’s policies on climate change and energy.
Referring to the policies of Democrats as “socialist” agenda, he said the people were struggling for the survival of America. “This is a terrible, terrible, painful struggle,” he said.
The former president then said the “incredible” movement that led him to winning the presidential polls in 2016 was just the beginning, “and in the end, we will win”.
He also publicly named the 10 House and seven senators of the Republicans, who voted to impeach or convict him for inciting the US Capitol riot. He ended by singling out House Representative Liz Cheney, who had faced backlash in Wyoming for saying that Trump should no longer play a role in the party or headline the event.
He insisted that the division in the Republican party was merely a spat “between a handful of Washington DC, establishment political hacks and everybody else, all over the country”. However, he had a message for those who had dared to cross him: “Get rid of ’em all”.
The United States’ Senate had February 13 acquitted Trump in his second impeachment trial, voting that he was not guilty of the charge of inciting the January 6 riots. On January 13, the United States House of Representatives had impeached Trump for his role in inciting the violence at the Capitol, following which the trial began on February 10. Trump had left office on January 20, so the impeachment could not be used to remove him from power. But Democrats had hoped to secure a conviction to hold him responsible for the siege and set the stage for a vote to bar him from serving in public office again.
The Conservative Political Action Conference was held in Orlando instead of Washinton this time to avoid Covid-19 restrictions, and the event had a golden statue resembling Trump on display.
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