Former President Donald Trump said in the ‘last battle’ to return to the White House

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Former President Donald Trump presented himself on Saturday as the only Republican candidate who could build on his legacy in the White House but refrained from directly criticizing his potential rivals, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Trump, giving the headlining address at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, told a cheering crowd that he was engaged in his “last fight” as he tries to return to the White House.

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“We will finish what we started,” he said. “We will finish the mission. We will see this fight to the ultimate victory.”

Although DeSantis, seen as Trump’s biggest potential rival, has often been a subject of name-calling and other attacks in Trump’s social media posts and in interviews, he has not been mentioned directly in Trump’s address before conservative activists, who earlier in the day cheered when an old video clip of the Florida governor was shown in a montage.

Although CPAC is once a must-stop for candidates mulling Republican presidential runs, DeSantis and other likely contenders skipped this year’s gathering amid scandal and as the group became increasingly aligned with Trump .

The former president’s enduring popularity with this segment of the electorate was on display throughout this week’s conference. Some attendees wore Trump-themed outfits, with “MAGA” hats and sequined jackets.

Members of his family and his presidential administration crowded the aisles like celebrities and dominated the list of speakers. Several other potential and declared candidates not named by Trump who spoke received only warm applause.

And the annual CPAC straw poll, an unscientific survey of attendees, found Trump to be the top choice to be the party’s nominee, with 62 percent support, followed by DeSantis at 20 percent and businessman Perry Johnson, who announced his long shot bid at the conference, with 5 percent.

Almost everyone — 95 percent of respondents — said they approved of Trump’s performance as president.

Before his speech, Trump told reporters that he would continue his third presidential campaign despite being impeached. He is under investigation by prosecutors examining his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia and the US Justice Department, as well as his handling of classified documents, among other issues. .

He condemned all politically motivated investigations and vowed not to bar criminal charges.

“Oh, really, I wouldn’t think about leaving,” he told reporters, adding that “probably, it would improve my numbers, but it’s a very bad thing for America. It’s very bad for country.”

“This is an audience that supports President Trump,” said Rep. Elise Stefanik, RN.Y., the No. 3 House Republican, who endorsed Trump days before he officially launched his 2024 campaign.

The only member of House leadership to attend the conference, Stefanik told The Associated Press that Trump continues to be the leader of the party.

“President Trump is in a very strong position and I think he will be the Republican nominee,” he said.

While Trump has not launched broadsides against his potential challengers for the White House, many of them have positioned themselves among conservative donors near his Florida home this week, he repeatedly criticized the old guard of the Republican Party, eager to get past him. .

“We had a Republican Party led by freaks, neo-cons, globalists, open borders zealots and fools. But we are not going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove and Jeb Bush,” he said.

He only took a veiled jab at DeSantis, calling out those who have proposed raising the age for Social Security or privatizing Medicare — positions DeSantis has expressed support for in the past, but has since abandoned. “We’re not going to screw up Social Security as Republicans,” DeSantis said recently.

Trump told the crowd, “If that’s what they originally thought, that’s what they always come back to.”

Trump broke up his speech with grievances related to his term in office and outlined his agenda in a second, including restrictions on gender-affirming care and transgender athletes, drawing some of the loudest cheers from in the room and a recurring theme in the speeches at the four-day conference.

Although many top Republicans avoided the conference, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a potential candidate, and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who declared her candidacy last month, both spoke on Friday and made veiled criticisms of Trump.

Their refusal to call him by his name underscores the dangers facing challengers seeking an alternative in a party where Trump remains the dominant force.

“There’s nobody in that field that I want as my president other than Donald J. Trump,” said Waverly Woods, a Republican activist and marketer from Virginia Beach, Virginia, who said she likes DeSantis but Trump has first-choice. in the hearts of many at the conference.

That included Woods’ one-time partner in local GOP races, Kim Shourds, whose car had a “TRUMP WON” license plate.

DeSantis? He likes her, he says, but not enough. He wants the governor to sit down “and let my guy come in and run this country,” Shourds said.

But not everyone at CPAC was on board.

E. Payne Kilbourn, a retired Navy submarine captain from Neavitt, Maryland, who now writes and advocates for carbon dioxide, said he was “very, very” happy with Trump’s presidency, but now thinks that it’s time for the party to move on.

“I think Donald Trump is too toxic for most of the country,” said Kilbourn, 69, an independent who voted for Republicans in the general election and wants Trump to “bow down and be the guy behind the scenes .”

Strategically, he sees DeSantis as better positioned to eventually win the White House.

“I think he will have a better chance of being elected,” he said.

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