Trump targets disloyal Republicans, hints at 2024 run in speech

This article is more than 12 months old

Mar 02, 2021 06:00 am

WASHINGTON : Former President Donald Trump hinted on Sunday at a possible presidential run in 2024, attacked President Joe Biden and repeated his fraudulent claims he won the 2020 election in his first major appearance since leaving the White House nearly six weeks ago.

Addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, Mr Trump vowed to help Republicans try to regain majorities - lost during his presidency - in the US House of Representatives and Senate in the 2022 congressional elections and dangled himself as a possibility for president in 2024.

"With your help, we will take back the House, we will win the Senate and then a Republican president will make a triumphant return to the White House. I wonder who will that be?" he said, smiling. "Who, who, who will that be, I wonder."

Mr Trump's weeks away from Washington do not appear to have dimmed his anger at Republicans who voted to impeach or convict in a failed congressional effort to hold him responsible for inciting a deadly attack on the US Capitol on Jan 6.

He singled out several Republicans like Senator Mitt Romney and House lawmakers Liz Cheney, and suggested he would support candidates who opposed them in Republican primaries. "Get rid of 'em all," he thundered.

Mr Trump sought to position himself as the lead critic of the new president.