D. Trump: ‘Flirting’ with a new candidacy for the presidency in 2024

Donald Trump returned to Washington on Tuesday for the first time since his tumultuous 2021 exit from the White House and delivered a speech worthy of a presidential candidate, once again publicly flirting with the idea of ​​seeking another term in the November 2024 election. .

Invited by the America First Policy Institute, a think tank founded by his allies, the 76-year-old billionaire presented an action plan for the “Republican president who will win back the White House in 2024.”

For more than an hour and a half, he pounded on the issues he prefers to highlight — immigration, crime — while unleashing furious attacks on his Democratic successor, Joe Biden, whom he accused of bringing “America to its knees.”

After sketching a painting of the country that referenced the Apocalypse, he quipped: “History is far from over” and “we are preparing for an incredible comeback, we have no choice.”

In January 2021, the real estate tycoon was leaving power with his head down, two weeks after the Capitol was attacked by a mob of his followers.

He has not set foot in the federal capital since, but is the focus of a special House of Representatives inquiry tasked with shedding more light on his role in the attack that shocked the world.

The commission is currently holding public hearings, which bring together the spotlight, exposing his maneuvers to stay in power.

Asked about it yesterday by NBC News, Attorney General Merrick Garland did not rule out the possibility of indicting Donald Trump.

“We intend to hold accountable whoever is criminally responsible for the events of January 6 (2021), for any attempt to prevent the lawful transfer of power from one government to another,” he said.

According to a report by the Washington Post, the US Department of Justice is already studying evidence against Mr. Trump as part of a criminal investigation into the January 6 attack.

“Third time”;

The House investigative committee is made up of “vulgar people and pirates,” Mr. Trump countered yesterday, belligerently. “They want to hurt me so that I am no longer able to serve you, but I don’t think they will,” he added with a smile.

“Four more years,” the audience chanted back, referring to the length of his eventual second term.

Coincidentally, his former vice president, Mike Pence, was also in Washington yesterday and, during a speech to an audience of conservative youth, took the opportunity to point out how different he is from Donald Trump.

“We don’t agree on priorities,” he said, presenting a program centered on the fight against abortion, the protection of gun rights and religious freedom.

“It is absolutely necessary (…) not to succumb to the temptation to look back” but “to look to the future,” said Mr Pence, a Christian-right politician who accuses the former president of devoting too much time to challenging the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Donald Trump has never conceded defeat. Invoking, without presenting any evidence, “massive electoral fraud”, he has devoted most of his public interventions for the past two years to denouncing the “theft” of the elections.

Yesterday, however, he preferred a more suggestive tone. “I’ve always said that I ran once and won, then I ran a second time and won even more votes.” Before adding: “I might have to do it a third time!”, promising “details” in the coming weeks.

“old fashioned”

Donald Trump is still central to the Republican camp. He seems to have retained a core of devoted followers and would be almost automatically in pole position if he decided to seek the GOP nomination again.

But his image has been tarnished, and potential opponents — such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSandis — are gaining ground.

Nearly half of Republicans would prefer a candidate other than Donald Trump, a recent poll by Siena College and The New York Times suggests.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, newspapers owned by the ever-influential Murdoch family group, published op-eds criticizing Mr. Trump’s behavior on January 6, 2021.

However, his speech yesterday was watched at the highest level. “Call me old fashioned, but I don’t think inciting a mob to attack police officers shows ‘respect for the law,'” President Joe Biden tweeted. “You can’t be pro-insurgency and pro-police, or pro-democracy, or pro-America,” added the 79-year-old president, who has already announced he will run for a second term in 2024.