Trump hints at 2024 presidential bid in Washington address
Former US President Donald Trump gave a strong hint he might run for president again in a speech on Tuesday.
The 76-year-old businessman returned to Washington this week for the first time since he left the White House.
There, he spoke at the America First Policy Institute — a right-wing organization set up in 2017 after Trump’s inauguration.
“I always say I ran the first time and I won, then I ran a second time and I did much better,” Trump said.
Trump garnered 10 million more votes in 2020 than he did four years before, but lost out to Joe Biden due to a higher turnout.
“We may just have to do it again. We have to straighten out our country. I look forward to laying out many more details in the weeks and months to come.”
Trump repeats election fraud claims
Trump also used his speech to repeat the false election fraud claims that sparked the January 6 Capitol Hill insurrection.
“If I renounced my beliefs, if I agreed to stay silent, if I stayed at home and just took it easy, the persecution of Donald Trump would stop immediately,” he said. “But that’s not what I will do. I can’t do that.”
He added: “It was a catastrophe, that election.”
The comments come a day after President Biden slammed Trump for watching on as his supporters ransacked the Capitol Building.
“For three hours, the defeated former president of the United States watched it all happen as he sat in the comfort of the private dining room next to the Oval Office,” Biden said on Monday.
Pence strikes a different tone
Trump’s Tuesday address coincided with a speech given former Vice President Mike Pence, who was once a loyal ally but has since danced himself from the former president’s debunked election fraud claims.
Pence addressed Young America’s Foundation, an influential conservative student group.
“Some people may choose to focus on the past, but elections are about the future,” he said.
Trump remains popular among conservatives in the US while Pence and other Republican stalwarts all trail far behind.
