2024
ELECTIONS
Trump teases 2024 run in CPAC remarks, as he
looks to keep his grip on GOP
The former president renewed old grievances in his
first formal speech since leaving the White House.
By DAVID
SIDERS
02/28/2021
07:09 PM EST
Updated:
02/28/2021 09:17 PM EST
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/28/trump-cpac-2024-biden-471869
Donald
Trump still has grievances to air — and a Republican Party eager to bask in his
indignation.
In his
first major address since leaving office, Trump on Sunday laced into his
Democratic successor, Joe Biden, chided “establishment political hacks” from
his own party and pressed his false claim that he won the November election,
which he lost decisively.
And to an
explosion of applause, he suggested he may run again in 2024.
“Who
knows?” Trump said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando,
Fla. “I may even decide to beat them for a third time.”
The speech
served as formal notice of his continued dominance over the Republican Party —
and a return to campaign form for the former president. The rapturous reception
Trump received at the country's most prominent annual conservative gathering
signaled the totality of the Republican base’s embrace, as well as the peril
facing less Trumpian elements of the party.
In the
annual CPAC presidential straw poll released shortly before Trump spoke, 95
percent of conference attendees said the GOP should continue to embrace Trump’s
issues and policy ideas, and 68 percent of attendees said Trump should run
again in 2024.
In a
crowded field of potential presidential primary contenders, Trump ran miles
ahead with 55 percent support, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, at 21
percent. Every other GOP politician polled registered in single digits.
Still, for
all the current energy surrounding Trump, CPAC is also a reminder of how
quickly fortunes can change. In 2016, it was Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) who won
the CPAC straw poll, followed by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — both of them
ultimately vanquished by Trump. In 2013, the year after the last presidential
election won by a Democrat, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was the toast of CPAC,
before seeing his own presidential ambitions fade.
For the
former president, irrelevancy would be the ultimate defeat. So on Sunday, he
brushed aside yet another American political tradition — that of former
presidents avoiding partisan politics for a period of months immediately after
leaving office — and took direct aim at his opponents, past and present.
Defeated in
November and twice impeached, Trump’s list of targets was long. For roughly 90
minutes, the former president chastised “top establishment Republicans,”
“RINO’s” and other Republicans who have criticized him.
Banned from
Twitter, he said Big Tech companies “should be punished with major sanctions
whenever they silence conservative voices.” And in a wide-ranging critique of
Biden’s first month in office, he lit into the Democratic president for his
handling of everything from the coronavirus vaccine distribution to
immigration, education and protections for people who are transgender.
“None of us
even imagined just how bad they would be and how far left they would go,” Trump
said, calling the Biden administration “anti-jobs, anti-family, anti-borders,
anti-energy, anti-women and anti-science.”
“In just
one short month, we have gone from ‘America First’ to ‘America Last,’” he said.
His own
accomplishments, Trump said, were superior both in terms of government and
politics. Trump credited himself with his party’s down-ballot successes in
November, despite many down-ballot Republicans over-performing him in their
districts.
He
predicted the Democratic Party would suffer “withering losses” in the midterm
elections and that in four years, “A Republican president will make a
triumphant return to the White House.”
He added,
“And I wonder who that will be?”
If Trump is
teasing another run in 2024, however, he is far from over his last defeat. In
an extended riff on the November election, he perpetuated the false claim —
rejected by elections experts and administrators and by courts across the
country — that the election was stolen.
When he
said, “This election was rigged,” the crowd chanted, “You won!”
Trump’s
comparison of his own presidency to Biden’s belied his successor’s relatively
high public approval ratings — and Trump’s poor ones. But CPAC is an
accommodating crowd.
“We love
you! We love you!” the audience chanted at one point during his speech.
Even before
Sunday, Trump loomed over the 2022 midterm elections and — whether he runs
again or not — the presidential primary in 2024. He is preparing to stand up a
super PAC. On Friday, he endorsed Max Miller, a former White House aide, in his
campaign to unseat Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, one of 10 House Republicans
who voted for Trump’s impeachment.
Trump’s
aides had urged him before speaking Sunday to focus his ire on Biden and the
Democratic Party, while limiting mentions of his disputes with Republican
lawmakers who have criticized him. Instead, he blistered by name the
Republicans who supported his second impeachment, including “grandstanders”
like Sens. Mitt Romney and “Little Ben Sasse” and the “warmonger” Rep. Liz
Cheney of Wyoming.
“Get rid of
them all,” Trump said.
Still,
Trump described the dispute within the Republican Party as a limited one: “The
only division is between a handful of Washington, D.C. establishment political
hacks and everybody else all over the country," he said, adding, “I think
we have tremendous unity.”
Trump also
ruled out starting a third party, calling “fake news” an idea he had once floated
himself.
But his
rhetoric about the election — and about his Republican critics — appears likely
to further the civil war between traditionalist Republicans and the more
populist base. While establishment-minded Republicans recoiled at Trump's
sustained claims about voter fraud, CPAC devoted seven panels to “election
integrity." Asked in the straw poll to name the most important issue
facing the country, 62 percent of CPAC attendees named election integrity, by
far their highest-ranking concern.
“Donald
Trump remains the leader of the populist wing of the party, which he grew into
a dominant force in Republican primaries, although never a majority force in
the country,” said Whit Ayres, the longtime Republican pollster. “But because
Trump dominates the populist wing, the folks who are members of that wing are
going to continue to promote whatever he wants to promote at the time. That
means they’re still hanging on to this myth that the election was stolen.”
Banned from
Twitter and relegated from the White House, the former president reveled in the
praise lavished on him at CPAC.
Taking the
stage at CPAC, he said, “Do you miss me yet?”
The
audience erupted, at times chanting, “USA! USA!.”
It was a
fitting finale to an event that included a gilded statue of Trump and a roster
of Republicans all promoting him. Cruz, himself a potential 2024 presidential
contender, said during the conference that “Donald J. Trump ain’t going
anywhere.” And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed, “We cannot, we will not, go
back to the days of the failed Republican establishment of yesteryear.”
The straw
poll was in line with the sentiment of the broader Republican electorate, a
majority of whom say they would pick Trump over any other Republican if the
2024 primary were held today. On Sunday, Rep. Jim Jordan said he hopes Trump
runs again in 2024 and, “If he does, he will win.”
It's
unclear if Trump will launch a comeback bid. But either way, there's utility in
suggesting that he might.
“If he
wants to be relevant from a policy perspective ongoing, it was smart to tease
that he may be around and may run for president again,” said Sean Walsh, a
Republican strategist who worked in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush
White Houses.
In
addition, Walsh said, “having that mystery there … allows him to raise money”
more effectively for his political causes than if he was a former president
with no prospect of making a return.
