WASHINGTON — Donald Trump returns to Washington on Tuesday for the first time since leaving the White House after trying to overturn his election loss to Joe Biden.
Trump, who is increasingly sneered at trying to win back the presidency in 2024, is expected to address the America First Policy Institute, an allies-run think tank.
He will perform in a city marked by weeks of hearings by a Democratic-led House committee during the January 6, 2021 riots, in which Trump supporters stormed Congress in an attempt to prevent confirmation of election results.
The Republican continues to repeatedly propagate his lie in speeches that he was robbed of victory in 2020, but America First Policy Institute spokesman Marc Lotter says Trump will look forward rather than backwards.
“It’s a keynote address that he’s going to give,” he told CNN.
However, Trump is unlikely to stray too far from his typically incendiary mix of right-wing nationalism, anti-immigrant rhetoric and conspiracy theories about the election.
The Capitol Riot hearings, which revealed harrowing details of the attack on Congress and the attempt by Trump’s political supporters to overturn the election by manipulating the complicated US voting system, would have hurt Trump.
Biden, who went out of his way not to even mention Trump’s name at the start of his presidency, launched a fierce campaign Monday over the Republican’s failure to roll back his crowd of supporters.
“Brave law enforcement officers faced medieval hell for three hours, drenched in blood, surrounded by carnage, face to face with the crazed crowd who believed the lies of the defeated president,” Biden told the conference. of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Officials.
“For three hours, the defeated former President of the United States witnessed all of this as he sat in the comfort of the private dining room adjacent to the Oval Office,” he said.
TRUMP IN POLE POSITION
Trump, 76, remains by far the most recognizable name in Republican politics. He is believed to retain a fiercely loyal core of supporters, which puts him in pole position should he decide to seek the party’s nomination.
Potential competitors gain traction as negative publicity mounts.
All eyes are on the advances of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who did not run for president but is gaining prominence on the right.
And a recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed nearly half of Republican primary voters would vote for any Republican other than Trump.
Last week, the right-wing editorial staff of two Murdoch family newspapers, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, harshly criticized Trump’s conduct during the Jan 6 disaster.
Trump has shown he is “unworthy” to be president again, the otherwise friendly Post wrote.
However, Trump and his portrayal of America under attack from the left continue to enjoy support from hugely popular commentators on Murdoch’s Fox News.
“In all of American history, our time is by far the most tense and alarming,” the leaders of the pro-Trump think tank, including its former economic adviser Larry Kudlow, wrote.
- AFP
