Former President Donald Trump declared Tuesday night that he will run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. He hopes to become the second commander-in-chief to be elected to two non-consecutive terms.
Trump addressed a throng assembled at Mar-a-Lago, his seaside resort in Florida, where his campaign will be based, “I am announcing my candidacy for President of the United States tonight to make America great and glorious again.”
Trump gave a very understated speech while surrounded by supporters, advisers, and influential conservatives. The speech was full of untrue and inflated statements about his four years in power. Trump attempted to arouse nostalgia for his time in office, despite a historically polarizing presidency and his own role in inciting an attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. He did this by frequently drawing comparisons between his first-term accomplishments and the Biden administration’s policies and the current economic situation. Many of those perceived successes, such as the stringent immigration policies, business tax cuts, and religious freedom programs, continue to this day to be extremely divisive.
To the delight of aides and allies who have long advised him to mount a forward-looking campaign, he spent only a fraction of his remarks repeating his lies about the 2020 election. Though he advocated for the use of paper ballots and likened America’s election system to that of “third world countries,” Trump also tried at times to broaden his grievances – lamenting the “massive corruption” and “entrenched interests” that in his view have consumed Washington. Many of Trump’s top advisers have expressed concern that his fixation on promoting conspiracies about the last presidential election would make it harder for him to win a national election in 2024.
