OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former President Donald Trump dropped his biggest tease yet that he’ll be running again for the White House in 2024 during his keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., on Saturday.
In a well-received speech, Trump fired verbal salvos at President Joe Biden and his administration amid a growing crisis in Ukraine following an invasion late last week by tens of thousands of Russian troops, while promising to help restore Republicans to power in the November midterms and in 2024.
“The socialists, globalists, Marxists, and communists who are attacking our civilization have no idea of the sleeping giant they have awoken,” Trump said Saturday evening.
“But they’re going to find out the hard way, starting on Nov. 8, and then again, even more so in November 2024, they will find out like never before. We did it twice and we’ll do it again. We’re going to be doing it again a third time,” he vowed.
The Washington Examiner adds:
Trump, over the course of 90 minutes, covered the litany of his greatest rhetorical hits to a raucous and enthusiastic hotel ballroom of approximately 6,000 conservative activists, who showered their political hero with chants of “USA!” and “four more years!”
…[T]he former president devoted considerable attention to Republican bids to win congressional majorities in the 2022 midterm elections and recapture White House two years later. Trump framed the forthcoming campaigns as all-hands-on-deck Republican efforts. But crucially, the 45th president placed himself out front and in charge — both of the party’s agenda and its political activity, stopping short only of declaring himself a 2024 candidate.
“The radical Left has tried to replace American democracy with woke tyranny,” Trump said. “Our mission in 2022 and in 2024 is to take on this radical and power-hungry ruling class and to deliver them an electoral defeat.”
“We are praying for the proud people of Ukraine; God bless them all. They are indeed brave,” Trump also said at another point. “This horrific disaster would never have happened if our election was not rigged and I was president.”
No substantiated evidence has been presented thus far indicating a “rigged” election, though the former president mentions it often.
“I have no doubt that President Putin made his decision to ruthlessly attack Ukraine only after watching the pathetic [United States military] withdrawal from Afghanistan,” Trump added.
“Yesterday, reporters asked me if I thought President Putin was smart. I said: ‘Of course he’s smart.’ … “The problem is not that Putin is smart, which of course he’s smart. But the real problem is that our leaders are dumb,” he said.
Trump’s comments about Afghanistan dovetail with those he made during a Fox News Digital interview on the sidelines of CPAC ahead of his speech.
“Getting out was a good thing. I had it down to two thousand soldiers,” Trump said, referring to his decision while president to reduce the U.S. presence in the southwest Asian country. “We were going to get out with strength and dignity, but to take the soldiers, the great Army out first— we took our Army and Marines—we took them out first to do that and leave the Americans behind, leave other people behind, leave $85 billion worth of equipment behind.”
“We had 13 young people that were killed, many that were very badly hurt in the bombing and a couple of other things the way they got out,” Trump said, making reference to the Marines, U.S. Army soldier and Navy corpsman killed by a suicide bomber a few days before the final pullout. In addition, 18 other U.S. military members were wounded and 150 Afghanis were killed.
“I really think that was the most embarrassing—one of the lowest points in the history of our country,” Trump said. “And President Xi and Putin, they watched that, and I think they probably came up with ideas that they didn’t have before seeing it, because it was grossly incompetent.”
