PALM BEACH, Fla. – Donald Trump officially declared to night that he is running to retake the White House in 2024.
The announcement at his Florida Mar-a-Lago Club came in a moment of political vulnerability for Trump as voters rejected his endorsed candidates in last week’s midterm elections. Since then, elected Republicans have been unusually forthright in blaming Trump for the party’s underperformance and potential rivals are already openly plotting challenging Trump for the nomination.
Trump has been eager to reclaim the spotlight and pressure Republicans to line up behind him, inviting prominent party leaders to his launch event and keeping track of who attended. Advisers spent much of the year lobbying Trump to hold off announcing until after the midterms, arguing that he might motivate Democratic voters or get drowned out by election news. He finally agreed to promise a “very big announcement” for tonight, and stuck with that plan despite further efforts to convince him to wait until after next month’s runoff for a Georgia Senate seat.
“This comeback starts right now,” Trump said Tuesday night at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Trump’s attorneys filed paperwork tonight with the Federal Election Commission for a newly named “Donald J. Trump for President 2024” committee. The filing said the new campaign would coordinate with an existing Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, allowing him to potentially raise money at the same time for other political efforts.
A defeated former president running for election again while facing potential criminal indictment is unprecedented in U.S. history. Trump becomes the first former president to run again since Theodore Roosevelt, and the first since Grover Cleveland do so after losing reelection. He is the only president to be impeached twice, and the only one impeached by a bipartisan vote.
The GOP’s disappointing midterm results have heightened efforts within the party to move on from Trump. On Monday, David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth, said the group’s research showed Trump’s attacks on other Republicans are taking a toll on his support and joined calls for him to delay his announcement until after the Georgia runoff. Many of the party’s top donors, who were often not Trump’s biggest fans to begin with, have begun private conversations about how best to sideline him for a new generation of leaders, according to people in touch with them.
“He’s doing it from a place of defensiveness, of his own self-opportunity and weakness,” New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R), fresh from a 16-point win in the first presidential primary state, said in an interview earlier Tuesday outside the Republican Governors Association meeting in Orlando. “So he’s announcing he’s going to run for president at a low point in his political career. I don’t know how that’s going to work out, man.”
Trump is plowing ahead amid a broader reckoning for the party’s leadership after last week’s disappointments. In the House, Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) handily won a party leadership election Tuesday but still needs to line up enough votes for an outright majority of the chamber in January. In the Senate, several Republicans have called for postponing leadership elections until after the Georgia runoff, and Sen. Rick Scott of Florida announced a challenge to longtime leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Several challenges have also been floated to Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, though her position appears to remain secure.
Trump’s candidacy also increases the likelihood that President Biden runs for reelection, setting up a rematch of the 2020 campaign, according to the president’s advisers. Trump, born on June 14, 1946, would be the oldest president to enter the White House at the age of 78 and about seven months in January 2025. Biden, born on Nov. 20, 1942, entered office in January 2021 at the age of 78 and about two months.
Despite his vulnerabilities, Trump’s enters the presidential race with clear advantages. He has amassed a roughly $69 million war chest that he will be legally barred from using to fund his campaign but could route to a super PAC to support his candidacy without direct coordination. He can also benefit from the massive database of donors that his old group built up and he remains the party’s best fundraiser, frequently appearing in solicitations for other candidates and committees. He is also the party’s biggest draw for rallies, routinely packing events with thousands of fans, and his endorsements proved decisive in many primaries, even if many of those candidates went on to lose in November. In the AP VoteCast exit polls, 66 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they considered themselves to be supporters of the Make America Great Again movement.
Trump has already begun attacking his likely GOP rivals, including DeSantis and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Trump views DeSantis especially as a threat, according to his advisers, even before the governor’s landslide reelection last Tuesday buttressed his esteem with many of the party’s top donors and campaign professionals. DeSantis is scheduled to speak this week at meetings of the Republican Governors Association and the Republican Jewish Coalition.
DeSantis brushed back at Trump’s swipes earlier on Tuesday, saying at a news conference, “I would just tell people to go check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night.”
In a close-door speech at the governors’ meeting, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, once a close Trump adviser, criticized the ex-president and other divisive candidates, saying the party would lose if it kept nominating unelectable people and emphasizing that voters “rejected crazy,” according to attendees. More surprising than Christie’s remarks, they said, were the rounds of ovation they received.
Trump has made clear that former vice president Mike Pence would not return as his running mate. According to testimony to the House committee investigating the so-called Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, Trump profanely lambasted Pence for refusing to overturn the electoral college results, sympathized with rioters chanting for Pence’s hanging and never called Pence to check on his well-being. At recent rallies, Trump has mocked Pence’s single-digit standing in early primary polls.
“I really do believe we’ll have better choices,” Pence told a TV interviewer Tuesday when asked if he’d support Trump in 2024.
In Pence’s place, Trump’s inner circle believes an ideal No. 2 would embody at least some of Pence’s attributes – absolute subservience and a willingness to spout the Trump line, both publicly and privately, no matter how outrageous. Trump has made complimentary remarks recently about Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R).
Trump’s campaign will be led by Florida operative Susie Wiles, veteran strategist Chris LaCivita, and former White House political aide Brian Jack. His son Donald Trump Jr. is increasingly involved in the political operation, whereas daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner have drifted away since leaving the White House. Donald Trump also frequently speaks with loyalist Boris Epshteyn, but many of Trump’s other advisers, lawyers and consultants say they talk to him less often than they once did.
A recent NBC News poll found that more Republicans identified themselves with the party over Trump than ever before, and found 47 percent of Americans have a very negative view of him. Multiple polls have shown that a majority of Americans believe he should be charged with a crime for his role in encouraging supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, leading to a riot that injured more than 100 police officers and disrupted the ceremonial counting of electoral votes. Even as his popularity remains high among Republicans, there is a hushed but notable sense among both political professionals and base voters that the party might be better off with someone new in 2024.
Among the changes in Trump’s life since leaving office is that the lifelong New Yorker changed his voter registration to Florida, an increasingly GOP-leaning state, and lists his Mar-a-Lago Club as his primary residence rather than Trump Tower in Manhattan.
The packed ballroom at Mar-a-Lago Tuesday night was a mash-up of a Trump rally and a glitzy gala, with superfans sporting costumes such as a brick-printed suit (“Build the Wall”), Bikers for Trump in leather vests and about a dozen members of the “Front Row Joes,” who travel around to every Trump rally. The hundreds of attendees included alumni of the Trump White House such as former Office of Management and Budget head Russ Vought, speechwriter Stephen Miller, former acting intelligence director Ric Grenell, former acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker, former Pentagon aide Kash Patel and former aide Sebastian Gorka.
(c) The Washington Post
This was an incredibly amazing speech, and of-course President Donald Trump שליט”א is having my vote. I agreed with every single word he said, and it is דבר פשוט that no-one else would be anywhere near capable of this lofty mighty task to fix up all the terrible damage taht has been inflicted by sleepy joe.
im confused… is the voting system rigid… or not….
Yes, he should keep running……….in Mar-a-Lago. As he ages he needs to keep doing exercise. It’s time for a real true conservative Republican to take over the leadership of this country. Pompeo DeSantis Pence Cruz, Tim Scott, etc…. would make great choices. Nikki Haley, however, is NOT a conservative. She is a typical female Rino looking for her 15 minutes of fame on Faux news and the like.
I like this post. Well written.
Instead of being furious at doctors who killed or injured your loved ones and duped you with a fake virus for almost 3 years, persuading you to inject yourself with fatal chemicals; and at the media and politicians for being accomplices in these crimes, deceiving you with fake reports, a phony president, fraudulent election results, you follow the mainstream media propaganda and their lies and gang up on the greatest President the US has ever had, AN HONEST AND G-D FEARING PERSON, namely Donald Trump, YORUM HODO.
Have you forgotten the enormous amounts of achievements President Trump accomplished in his first 4 years in office — the strongest US economy ever, the lowest unemployment, tax cuts, immigration, healthcare, restored law and order, brought G-d back to the country, destroyed nuclear plants, no wars had started in his tenure, elevated the United States’ image to the entire world to its unique glory and peak heights where people all over had admired the President of America and its citizens, plus dozens of other huge fulfillments, unlike any other President before him or after him? He even continued his achievements after officially leaving office with the Draining of the Swamp, the invisible enemy, cleansing the planet, destroying DUMBs and tunnels globally, and rescuing millions of children. Has so-called-president Biden accomplished any of this? Do you think DeSantis or anyone else can accomplish any of this? Think logically, use your brains for a change instead of waiting to be spoonfed with lies and deception by the fake media, the true enemy of the people.
The media and politicians act like the Germans who brainwashed and misled the naive yidden, telling them they’ll be resettled, with the askonim and machers – who sold their neshomos to the Satan – helping their bluff and unfortunately were very successful with fooling the people. We all know what happened to the yidden – they ended up in Auschwitz. Unfortunately history repeats itself and the sleepers have yet to wake up. What else do I have to show you and remind you to wake up? We’ve suffered enough from your apathy that caused the above atrocities by those who feel they’re above the law and can continue their evil deeds without opposition. If only I can shake you up and snap you out of your deep reverie…
EITHER YOU’RE FOR TRUMP or A BRAINWASHED GULLIBLE SHEEPLE. THERE IS NO IN BETWEEN.
Couldn’t say it any better.
Rage. The good man.
Nothing in USA is classy today. The degenerates fill our halls and fear of the Almighty is rare.
Greatly, Donald thinks he gets it. His break in told a new dream. Some really did make America great again by a classical look. But the clever times have not returned.
Grown hard times. Why not look to Lincoln for an example. Men of his era could rule by grave drive.
We are a fast lost visor of good world on a seat of vintage hate.
What did you just say? You are either Biden, Kamelhairis or Fetterman. Dumb, dumber and dumbest.
Love your description of the 3 political actors.
Well, not if your croc gets stuck in a tomato patch. Can’t keep gardening if my toe is swollen.
If he gets indicted, he will automatically fall away! No?
He did NOT say “to retake the White House in 2024.” That’s the fake news media twisting and adding words. He said, ”I am announcing my candidacy for president of the United States…”. He’s not retaking the White House because he’s already there in the real White House (unlike “Biden” who is in Castle Rock’s White House). He’s the Commander in Chief of the military, the only one currently using Air Force One and the only one getting to speak with the seal of the President of the United States. He’s announcing his candidacy as President officially, which means, he can be back any day now. He also said that America can’t take two more years until 2024 and added, “We’re going to have our President and real elections back.”
It’s amazing come people forget how good we were doing two years ago. I really feel bad for the suffering mosdos not getting the donations they need. I’m having such a hard time paying my children’s tuition last year and this year, something that I really didn’t have a problem with under the Trump presidency.
Trump announced yesterday evening he’s running for President. He filed as the 19th President under the United States of America REPUBLIC, not the USA we know. This brilliant leader is changing the world for the good. There was reason for the 19 flags with the Art of the War Spear, referring to ‘returning to the Republic.’
The USA is not a country. It is, in fact, a Corporation under the Act of 1871 for which Ulysses S. Grant was its first President in 1871, while Donald J. Trump, the 45th president, was the last president. (President Pretend Biden, the illegitimate “President,” is the CEO of the defunct US Corporation.)
The USA Corporation is owned by the corrupt Deep State and controlled by the Vatican, England and the global banking elites (all of whom were taken care of…). The US government is their last stronghold which needs to go too.
So Trump will be inaugurated as the 19th President of the Original American Republic and all illegal laws since 1871 will be nullified. There will be an overall change in the government. Congressmen, Senators, Governors, etc. as well as the 3-letter agencies; the FBI, CIA, GSA, NSA, IMF, etc. will all be removed. It will run according to the Constitution as before 1871.
His speech was amazing. If you listened carefully you were able to hear many interesting points. Like, he spoke about child trafficking and other stuff that need to be handled. But do you think he’ll wait until Jan 2025 to fix all this? No way. I’m telling you he’s coming back back very soon. He said some things like, ‘We dealt with Joe Biden for a little bit, we can’t wait for much longer.’ He even said that Biden is out of office, he isn’t even there. He also said ‘We fired Nancy.’ ‘Twas very interesting speech. Those who understood, understood.