Donald Trump has offered one of his strongest suggestions yet that he plans to run for president again in 2024, referring to his past cam...
Donald Trump has offered one of his strongest suggestions yet that he plans to run for president again in 2024, referring to his past campaigns and saying 'we may have to do it again.'
Trump made the remarks while addressing a boisterous rally in Prescott Valley, Arizona on Friday, where he repeated his unproven claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.s
'I ran twice, I won twice, and did much better the second time than I did the first, getting millions. more votes in 2020 than we got in 2016,' Trump claimed. 'And likewise, getting more votes than any sitting president in the history of our country by far.'
'And now, we may have to do it again,' he continued. 'I mean, look at, look at what has happened to our country in less than two years. Our country is like a different -- it's like a different place. It's so sad to see.'
Trump was in Arizona to stump for former television anchor Kari Lake, a GOP candidate for governor who supports his discredited election claims.
In a sign of the party's growing rifts, his former vice president Mike Pence held a dueling rally in Arizona on the same day, supporting rival Republican gubernatorial candidate Karrin Taylor Robson.
Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Arizona on Friday, where he again strongly suggested that he plans to run for president in 2024
Trump was in Arizona to stump for former television anchor Kari Lake, a GOP candidate for governor who supports his discredited election claims
Supporters of former President Donald Trump cheer on Kari Lake, who is running for the Republican nomination for Arizona governor, during her speech on Friday
Trump has squeezed attention and headlines from his frequent hints and suggestions that he plans to seek the White House again, and many observers believe his bid may be inevitable.
Earlier this month, Trump told New York Magazine that he had already made up his mind about a run, and that the question he was now mulling was whether he'd pull the trigger before or after the November midterm elections.
'Do I go before or after? That will be my big decision,' he said.
Some Republican strategists fear that if Trump throws his hat in the ring before the midterms, it could upset the GOP's chances of winning back majorities in the House and the Senate.
'Of all the selfish things he does every minute of every day, it would probably be the most,' one GOP strategist told the Washington Post this month.
'Everything we are doing that is not talking about the economy is going to be a disaster.'
Trump appeared to suggest on Friday that he would wait to announce until after the midterms, saying: 'But first we have to win a historic victory for the Republican Party. this November when we retake Congress.'
In a sign of the party's growing rifts, Mike Pence held a dueling rally in Arizona on the same day, supporting rival Republican gubernatorial candidate Karrin Taylor Robson
Robson (above) is a lawyer and housing developer who is locking up support from mainstream GOP figures growing increasingly comfortable with breaking from Trump
Prior to their dueling rallies, Pence, who is also considered likely to seek the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, took swipes at Trump in a sign of the party's hardening battle lines.
'Democrats would love nothing more than for Republicans to take our eye off the ball and focus on days gone by,' Pence tweeted prior to his rally.
'If the Republican Party allows itself to become consumed by yesterday's grievances, we will lose,' he added.
Trump, who like Pence is considering running for president in 2024, has savaged his former vice president for what he describes as a failure to block the certification of the 2020 election results.
Such a plan had been cooked up by Trump aides who supported his discredited theory that the election was stolen, but Pence ultimately decided that the action would be illegal.
In Arizona, Trump continued to tout claims that the election was stolen from him and said that despite receiving a 'record number of votes,' he has been the most 'persecuted person' in America.
'A friend of mine recently said that I was the most persecuted person in the history of our country,' Trump said. 'I thought about it, and I felt, you know, he may very well be right.'
Trump, who has stepped up his attacks on GOP officials he views as disloyal, also took aim at two Arizona Republicans who refused to go along with his efforts to remain in office after losing to Biden.
He said state House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who testified last month to the House January 6 committee, 'participated against the Republican Party.'
He said Governor Doug Ducey, whom Trump has long excoriated after he narrowly lost in Arizona in 2020, has failed to secure the border with Mexico.
Ducey, who is term limited, is backing housing developer Karrin Taylor Robson as his replacement, the candidate that Mike Pence is also supporting.
Robson is a lawyer and housing developer who is locking up support from mainstream GOP figures growing increasingly comfortable with breaking from Trump.
Her main rival is Trump's preferred candidate, Kari Lake, who has embraced Trump's unsubstantiated election claims along with his combative approach to his political enemies and the media.
'No one understands better than Kari how to fight back against the fake news media and the radical left,' Trump said on Friday.
Telegenic and already well-known from her decades anchoring the evening news in Phoenix, Lake has energized Trump's most ardent supporters in Arizona.
But she faces a potentially close contest with Robson, whose family's vast fortune has allowed her to vastly outspend Lake with early voting underway.
'As your governor I want to bring those America First Trump policies here to Arizona' Lake said. 'We´re going to secure that border. We are going to restore honesty and faith in our elections.'
Pence highlighted Lake's past support for Barack Obama's presidential campaign and a 'not my president' meme the then-news anchor posted as Trump prepared for his 2017 inauguration.
'You need a governor that's supported every conservative cause from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump,' Pence said of Robson, who worked in the Reagan administration and raised money for Trump's campaign along with her husband, housing developer Ed Robson, one of Arizona's wealthiest residents.
Robson has also donated to Democrats.
Trump and Pence have occasionally taken different sides in primaries this year, but this is the first time that they will have appeared in the same state on the same day to rally for their preferred candidates.
The split-screen moment marks a more confrontational phase in their relationship as they both consider running for president in 2024.
It also comes just a day after the House Jan. 6 committee revealed new details about the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that fractured the relationship between the two men.
The committee recounted how Trump refused to call off the mob attacking the Capitol as Pence, just feet away from rioters, was whisked to safety.
The committee played audio from an unidentified White House security official who said Pence´s Secret Service agents 'started to fear for their own lives' at the Capitol and left messages for their loved ones in case they didn't survive.
Shortly afterward, at 2:24 p.m. on January 6, 2021, Trump tweeted that Pence didn´t have the 'courage' to block or delay the election results as Congress was certifying Biden´s victory.
'Mike Pence let me down,' an unidentified White House employee testified Trump telling him at the end of the day on January 6.
Once running mates, Pence and Trump's relationship has broken down following the deadly January 6 Capitol riot, where some rioters chanted, 'Hang Mike Pence'
Republican candidate for governor Kari Lake supports Trump's false claim that the election was stolen. Her primary rival was backed by Pence on Friday
During his speech, Trump yelled: 'The election was rigged and stolen and now our country is being systematically destroyed because of it!' he shouted, with the crowd roaring in response
Trump did not talk about Pence Friday night, but did push back against earlier testimony by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who said she saw a White House valet cleaning up a mess after an angry Trump smashed a plate and the remains of his lunch on a wall.
'They have me throwing food,' Trump said. 'I don´t throw food in the White House. I don´t throw food anywhere. I eat the food.'
Trump and Pence will again cross paths next week as the former president returns to the nation's capital for the first time since leaving the White House.
The Arizona primary on August 2 is among Trump's last opportunities to settle scores and install allies to lead states that may prove decisive if he decides to run again in 2024.
Trump and Pence were also at odds in the primary for Georgia governor, where the Pence-backed incumbent Brian Kemp easily defeated former U.S. Senator David Perdue, who had Trump's support.
Arizona, a longtime Republican stronghold whose move toward the center accelerated during Trump's presidency, was central Trump's push to remain in power despite his loss.
Trump pressed state officials to block the certification of Biden's victory and, when he failed, his allies in Congress objected to counting the state's 11 electoral votes.
Since the election, Trump supporters have recounted ballots and analyzed vote-counting machines in an attempt to prove something was amiss.
Federal and state election officials and Trump's own attorney general have said there is no credible evidence the election was tainted.
Trump's allegations of fraud were also roundly rejected by courts over and over, including by judges Trump appointed.
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