Trump repeated his false claim during a speech in Washington that he won the 2020 election.
Washington:
Donald Trump returned to Washington on Tuesday for the first time since leaving the White House 18 months ago, delivering a fiery speech with strong hints that he could run for president again in 2024.
Trump, 76, no longer announced his candidacy, but laid out what he believes should be a priority for “the next Republican president.”
“I always say I ran the first time and I won, then I ran the second time and I did much better,” Trump said. “We might have to do it again. We have to get rid of our country.
“I look forward to releasing more details in the coming weeks and months.”
Hours before Trump took the stage at America’s First Policy Institute, his former vice president, Mike Pence, who is also considering running for the White House in 2024, addressed a group of audiences. other pseudo-conservatives in Washington.
Speaking at the Young America Foundation conference, Pence said that Americans must look to the future, not the past, and reduce differences with Trump.
“Elections are about the future,” Pence said. “I came today not to look back, but to look forward.
“I didn’t know that the president and I differed on issues,” he said. “But we may differ in focus.”
Trump’s 90-minute speech to the conservative America First Policy Institute echoed many of the themes of his 2016 winning campaign, including illegal immigration and crime.
Trump repeated his false claims that he won the 2020 election and denounced the House committee investigation into the January 6 attack on the US Capitol as being works of “political attacks and thugs.”
“If I give up my beliefs, if I agree to remain silent, if I stay home and just give up my beliefs, Donald Trump’s persecution will stop immediately,” he said. “But that’s not what I’m going to do. I can’t do it.
“They really want to spoil me so I can no longer go back to work for you,” he said.
“And I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he added, prompting the crowd to chant “Four more years!”
– ‘Cesspool of Crime’ –
Trump repeatedly attacked Democratic President Joe Biden, blaming him for the evils of the country.
“We are a nation in decline,” he said. “We are a failed nation.”
“Inflation is the highest in 49 years,” Trump said. “Gasoline prices have reached their highest level in the history of our country.”
He accused Biden of allowing an “invasion” of millions of migrants across the southern border.
“Other countries are happy to bring all their criminals across our open border into the United States,” he said.
“The next Republican president must immediately implement every aspect of Trump’s agenda to achieve the safest border in history,” he said.
Trump says the US is “now a bunch of criminals.”
“We have blood, death and suffering on an unimaginable scale,” he said. “Cities run by Democrats are setting all-time murder records.”
He accused Biden of “surrendering in Afghanistan” and allowing Russia to invade Ukraine.
“That would never, never happen if I were your commander-in-chief,” he said.
Since making his final Air Force One flight from Washington to Florida on January 20 of last year, Trump has remained the country’s most polarizing figure, continuing his unprecedented campaign to sow doubts that he will lose to Biden in the 2020 election.
For weeks, Washington has been marked by congressional hearings about a Trump mob attack on the Capitol on January 6 and his efforts to overturn the election.
With Biden’s approval rating now below 40% and Democrats forecast to lose control of Congress in the midterm elections in November, Trump is clearly optimistic that he can lead the Republican wave. to the White House in 2024.
On the Democratic side, anger toward Trump is also fueling the run-up to midterms.
House committee hearings have produced evidence that Trump oversees nothing more than an attempt to disrupt US democracy, first through trying to rigorously post-election procedures. school and finally encouraged a mob to attack the legislators attesting to his loss.
Faced with rumors that at 79 he’s too old to think about seeking a second term in 2024, Biden says the specter of another Trump candidate is one His main motivation for re-election.
The president took aim at his predecessor after Trump’s speech, tweeting: “Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think inciting a mob to attack the police is ‘respecting the law.'”
“You can’t be pro-insurgency and pro-police – or pro-democracy, or pro-American,” Biden added.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
