[ 2021-03-01 ]

Trump teases supporters with hint of new presidential run

Please use the sharing tools found via the share
button at the top or side of articles. Copying
articles to share with others is a breach of
FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email
licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights.
Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per
month using the gift article service. More
information can be found at
https://www.ft.com/tour.
https://www.ft.com/content/b3238c3c-9fa2-4024-8a69-94600edf3bac?segmentId=b0d7e653-3467-12ab-c0f0-77e4424cdb4c

Donald Trump said he might run for president
again, delighting his supporters at a speech to
the Conservative Political Action Conference —
his first public appearance since leaving the
White House last month.

The former president sent audience members at the
Cpac event in Florida into raptures with a
typically combative speech, much of which repeated
material he used on the campaign stump last year.

He promised not to divide the Republican party by
setting up his own political movement, and
suggested he could seek the party’s nomination
for president again in 2024.

Trump said: “Biden has failed in his number one
duty as chief executive enforcing America’s
laws. This alone should be reason enough for
Democrats to suffer withering losses in the
midterms and to lose the White House decisively
four years from now.”

In a reference to his false claims that last
November’s election was rigged, he added:
“Actually, as you know they just lost one of
those things.”

And in a comment that brought a standing ovation
from the crowd, he said: “But who knows, I may
even decide to beat them for a third time.”

Trump has been absent from the public eye since
January 20, when he left the White House hours
before the inauguration of his successor Joe
Biden. He has also lost his favoured form of
communication after being banned from Twitter.

However, his support among Republican activists
has shown few signs of wavering. A straw poll at
the conference, conducted before Trump’s speech,
found he was the most popular potential Republican
candidate for 2024, enjoying 55 per cent support
among those present. That was far ahead of his
nearest rival, the Republican governor of Florida
Ron DeSantis, who polled 21 per cent.

However, while 95 per cent of those at the event
said they wanted Trump’s policies to continue,
far fewer — 68 per cent — said they wanted the
former president to run again himself.

As the GOP squabbles over the way forward
following its loss of both Congress and the White
House, the Cpac event was an illustration of
Trump’s enduring grass roots dominance.
Conference goers repeatedly broke out into chants
of “You won. You won” during the former
president’s speech, much of which was devoted to
false claims that the election was stolen from
him. The most important issue facing the country
according to those who responded in the straw poll
was “election integrity”.

In his speech, Trump ran through a long list of
party members in the House and Senate whom he
accused of being insufficiently loyal to his Make
America Great Again movement. He said he planned
to “actively support” particular candidates in
a bid to win back Congress in the 2022 midterm
elections.

After confidently predicting a sweep of Congress
next year, Trump said the winner of the next
presidential election would be a Republican.

“Who will it be?” He asked to cheers. “I
wonder.”

Source - FT, UK

... go Back