ORLANDO, Florida — Former President Donald Trump teased a 2024 White House bid and relitigated unfounded claims that the November election was stolen, initiating act two of his political career with a rousing speech to adoring supporters at the Conservative Political Action Conference that aimed to solidify his command of the Republican Party.
The address lasted more than one hour, during which Trump twice suggested he was planning a third presidential campaign and several times declared he won reelection in 2020 only to watch the Democrats steal his victory and illegitimately install President Biden. The CPAC crowd of approximately 1,400 that packed a hotel ballroom for Trump’s first public speech since leaving the White House applauded those comments more than any other, alternately chanting, “We love you,” and “You won.”
“Actually, as you know, they just lost the White House,” Trump said early in his remarks, referring to Biden and the Democrats. “But who knows, who knows; I may even decide to beat them for a third time.”
Trump’s address was billed as a statement of his unchallenged leadership of the Republican Party. The former president’s political team also signaled that the speech would offer a blueprint for a GOP comeback in the 2022 midterm elections and beyond. Trump fulfilled the former, name-checking congressional Republicans who supported his second impeachment and promising to chase them out of office. On the latter, the 45th president was light on fresh details, pointing mostly to the agenda from his two campaigns.
Instead, Trump played the hits, delivering another version of his 2020 stump speech. The former president recited a laundry list of accomplishments from his term in office, discussing at length Operation Warp Speed that facilitated the development of COVID-19 vaccines, lauding wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border, and economic growth he presided over pre-pandemic.
More CPAC attendees showed up for Trump than for any other prominent Republican to speak on the main stage at this year’s conference. And they were louder, too, with many of them standing for the balance of Trump’s address. What made Trump’s remarks unusual was the extent to which he chose to attack Biden barely 40 days into his tenure. Former presidents usually let more time pass before criticizing their successor.
Trump declared Biden a threat to U.S. prosperity and warned that the “left-wing lunacy” pushed by his White House threatens to unravel society unless he and grassroots conservatives step into the breach. Trump placed special emphasis on immigration and exhorting Biden to push back against the teachers’ unions and reopen public schools, issues Republicans believe can help them recapture the House and Senate next year.
“We all knew that the Biden administration was going to be bad. But none of us even imagined just how bad they would be and how far left he would go,” Trump said.
“By recklessly eliminating our border security measures, controls — all of the things that we put into place, Joe Biden has triggered a massive flood of illegal immigration into our country the likes of which we have never seen before,” Trump continued, adding, “Millions of American children are having their futures destroyed by Joe Biden’s anti-science school closures.”
CPAC CELEBRATES TRUMP AS IF HE DIDN’T LOSE IN 2020
Trump spent the last five-plus weeks out of the limelight and, because of bans imposed after the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters, off of social media platforms. But the former president appeared thoroughly at home onstage in Orlando. He walked on just as Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” began to blare.
Trump seemed to be enjoying himself and at times bantered with the audience. During his riff on Biden’s reversal of his immigration policies, Trump joked that Democrats only oppose the border wall because he supports it, saying it is possible he erred in making construction of the barrier the centerpiece of his agenda. “I should have said: ‘We will not have a wall.’ And then they would have said, ‘Let’s build a wall.’ I made a big mistake,” Trump quipped.
Trump peppered his remarks with talk about the future. He issued calls to action to oppose Biden and the Democrats in Congress, and he urged Republican unity (around his “America First” agenda) in coming elections. The former president even pitched his website and new political action committee to voters in the crowd and those watching on television or online. But the emphasis and time Trump devoted to “election integrity” during his speech revealed a politician still preoccupied with his defeat.
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The former president blamed his loss on manufactured ballots, dead people voting, illegal immigrants voting, and state and local officials using the pandemic to break election laws to benefit Biden. And he said the only reason the Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority, did not do anything about it is because the justices lacked the courage to do what they knew was right.
“This election was rigged, and the Supreme Court and other courts didn’t want to do anything about it,” Trump said. “Had we had a fair election, the results would have been much different.”
