With the 2024 presidential election looming, Donald Trump on Saturday warned that he is the only candidate capable of saving the United States from “warmongering” Democrats as well as “big fanatics and idiots” in the Republican Party, during the annual rally rally of the American Conservatives in Washington.
Bringing a nation to its knees, the former president of the United States says Americans are in the midst of “an epic fight to save our country from the people who hate it” on the final day of CPAC, a major conference organized for politics week in suburban Washington.
Donald Trump, who in November formalized his candidacy for next year’s presidential election, has spoken for nearly forty hours, sparing no one, including his own camp.
“We had a Republican party run by whims, neoconservatives, globalists, open borders bigots and freaks,” he said, quoting several prominent figures in the party.
Trump said American voters are tired of “ingrained bipartisan political dynasties, rotting special interests, and China-loving politicians” and proponents of “endless foreign wars”.
“We will wage a third world war if nothing happens soon,” he warned, after explicitly rejecting US aid to Ukraine.
“I am the only candidate who can make this promise: I will prevent World War III,” asserted the former president, who was defeated by Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.
CPAC was until recently the main gathering of conservative leaders in the United States, but it has been swallowed whole by Donald Trump’s far-right “Make America Great Again” movement, with experts now dubbing the event “MAGApalooza.”
Donald Trump told the audience, “We’re going to finish what we started, four more years, four more years!”
The 2023 edition of CPAC featured many speeches from some of the most committed Trumpists in the country, even if several potential 2024 candidates and Republican leaders skipped the convention.
If the importance of this gathering was not so unanimous among conservatives that some interventions were almost deserted, the ranks of the hall were well filled during Donald Trump’s speech.
Essentially, the former president has repeated the same set of conspiracy theories about election fraud and American justice that he got from the “radical left,” he says, which he dusts off at every public appearance.
At CPAC, hats, flags, mugs, and other items were sold. Almost all of the goodies are aimed exclusively at Trump loyalists.
Before Donald Trump spoke, a number of speakers took to the stage to extol their Christian principles and, during their speeches, conspiracy theories and anti-transgender rhetoric.
Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence skipped the event, saving themselves from being booed by admirers of the former president.
But the crowd was repeatedly heckled by her only Republican rival in the White House race, Nikki Haley, during and after her Friday appearance at the convention.
“It will not be a fair election,” Trump conspiracy entrepreneur Mike Lindell told AFP about the 2024 presidential election.
“But when 90% of the people in this country want Donald Trump, he should win anyway, even with a crooked election,” he added.
Before ascending to the podium, Trump said he had won the convention referendum of Republican leaders with 62% of the vote. Far ahead of his rival, Ron DeSantis, who won only 20% of the vote.
“In 2016 I said: I am your voice. Today I add: I am your warrior. I am your righteousness. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your punishment,” Mr. Trump told a packed room.
