Trump teases 2024 run in speech at CPAC
Former President Donald Trump teased that he may run for president in 2024, insisted that the Nov. 3 election was rigged and declared he would not start an alternative political party when he spoke to his most ardent supporters at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, on Sunday.
“I may even decide to beat them for a third time,” Trump told the boisterous crowd, in an apparent but inaccurate assertion that he and not President Joe Biden was the real victor on Nov. 3.
The 90-minute address to the annual conservatives’ Woodstock was Trump’s first speech since he left Washington on Jan. 20.
“In true Trump fashion, he left open the question about whether he will run in 2024, but closed the door on forming a third party,” Republican strategist Alice Stewart told the Review-journal. “In other words, he fed his base just the red meat they are hungry for.”
The event also handed
Trump his first chance to vent against the group of Republicans who supported his second impeachment — without a filter, since Twitter permanently suspended his account after the Jan. 6 riot. And vent he did, as Trump named the 10 House members who voted to impeach him in January and the seven GOP Senators who voted to convict him in February.
Those who voted or spoke against him were dismissed as “establishment Republicans” and “political hacks” whom, he said, could “actually be successful” if they spent as much time attacking Democrats as they attack him.
“Another reason the former President lost: MATH,” tweeted Rep. Ted Lieu, D-calif., as he noted Republicans lost the House, Senate and White House last year.
Biden criticism
Trump singled out Rep. Liz Cheney, R-wyo., whom he predicted might lose re-election, as well as Utah Sen. Mitt Romney for additional scorn, which he also directed at Senate Minority Leader Mitch Mcconnell and the U.S. Supreme Court for not tilting the election in his favor.
At times, the CPAC crowd chanted back, “USA, USA, USA,” “We love you,” and, “You won.”
In a departure with the traditional habit of former presidents to avoid the spotlight to let his successor take the reins from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Trump ridiculed President Joe Biden’s mental acuity and hammered on his immigration policies, his decision to curb fracking and his decision to kill
the Keystone pipeline.
Trump also wove together his criticisms of Biden’s handling of the U.s.-mexico border with Biden’s support for coronavirus school closures.
The Biden administration, Trump said, “is actually bragging about the classroom education they’re providing to migrant children on the border, while at the same time millions of American children are having their futures destroyed by Joe Biden’s anti-science school closure. Think of it, we’re educating students on the border that our own people, children of citizens, citizens themselves are not getting the education that they deserve.”
Trump also took a walk down memory lane when he recalled his 2015 escalator ride in Trump Tower as he announced he was running for president. Notably, Trump accused Mexico of sending criminals to the United States. Trump parroted the rhetoric he used in 2015 when he told CPAC, “They’re not giving us their best and their finest.”
Dan Newman, a former adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris, told the Review-journal: “Trump is Trump. In one sense, it’s extraordinary how little has changed. He’s the same racist who came down the elevator at Trump Tower and the same sore loser who incited the terrorists to storm the capitol.”
Trump took credit for the coronavirus vaccines which experts said could not be done in a year — in time, he noted, for Biden to receive his first dose before the inauguration.
On the issue of election integrity, Trump looked both backward and forward. Trump maintained that Democrats used the coronavirus to “as an excuse to change all the election rules without the approval of their state legislatures, making it all illegal” and shifting the outcome in Biden’s favor.
In Nevada, contrary to Trump’s rhetoric, Democratic state lawmakers in August passed Assembly Bill 4, signed into law by Gov. Steve Sisolak, which provided for a mostly mail-in election. Biden won Nevada by 2.4 points, the same margin by which Hillary Clinton won the state in 2016.
While the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overrode voting rules set by the legislature, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to get involved in the case — to Trump’s clear dissatisfaction. “The Supreme Court and other courts didn’t want to do anything about it,” Trump railed.
Trump also claimed, “In Pennsylvania they had hundreds of thousands of more votes than they had people voting.”
Politifact and the Philadelphia Inquirer rated that assertion false as it was based on a GOP lawmaker’s tweet that wrongly conflated general and primary election vote tallies.
Trump suggested a series of election reforms that included limiting voting to one day, allowing voting for mail only for cause, voter identification protocols, universal signature matching and citizenship verification.
Straw poll results
A key feature of CPAC meetings is a straw poll of attendees to gauge their support for key Republicans. Nearly seven out of ten of those polled said they wanted to see Trump run in 2024.
Trump did not do as well in headto-head polls. This year, CPAC gave participants two options — a field with Trump and a field without Trump. In the first grouping, Trump led the field with 55 percent of the vote. Florida Gov. Ron Desantis came in second with 21 percent of the vote.
In a field without Trump, 43 percent chose Desantis, who used CPAC’S venue — Orlando because CPAC could not hold its annual meeting in National Harbor, Maryland, where such gatherings are banned — as a means to tout the Sunshine State’s coronavirus polices.
Addressing the crowd Friday, Desantis boasted that Florida is “an oasis of freedom in a nation that’s suffering from the yoke of oppressive lockdowns,” when he addressed the socially distanced but not necessarily masked crowd.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a strong Trump supporter, came in second with 11 percent of the vote in a Trump-less field. Donald Trump Jr. came in third place at 8 percent.
TONY DAVICH’S voice carried over the great distance, filling all of Allegiant Stadium. “I’ve got two tickets, to paradise!” the Santa Fe & The Fat City Horns singer called out. “Won’t you back your bags, we’ll leave tonight!”
It was paradise, but no tickets Sunday at the Las Vegas Raiders’ home facility. Nonetheless, Santa Fe performed the first show ever at Allegiant Stadium, months before Garth Brooks’ formal, sold-out lid-lifter on July 10. The band called out after the show, “We are the first!”
Forget that there were more players onstage and in the band’s support team than watching from the stands. One of those spectators was the lord of this manor, Raiders owner Mark Davis, keeping a keen eye and ear on the performance.
“I’m very impressed,” said Davis, who watched and listened from several vantage points in the stadium, including the end zone opposite the band’s stage under the stadium’s peristyle and the Al Davis Memorial Torch. “When I was listening, I almost had tears in my eyes. Everything is looking great, it’s working great, but you never know until you actually have a band playing.”
Davis became aware of Santa Fe and its sterling reputation during one of his visits to Bootlegger Bistro, which is a few cartwheels from the Copa Room, Santa Fe’s home venue for its Monday night shows. But the team owner and
Vegas scenester had not seen the band live until Sunday.
Suffice to say the owner’s interest in the Vegas institution runs a bit deeper than a one-off showcase. The Raiders are looking for a house band to play the eight home games (not including preseason or playoffs) for the upcoming season. Raiders fans of a bygone era remember Del Courtney’s band playing at Frank Youell Field beginning in 1963 and later the Oakland Coliseum.
“We are looking at options for something like that — a house band to play before and after the game and during commercial breaks,” Davis said. “Something like what Paul Shaffer’s band was with David Letterman.”
Of the performance, Davis couched his enthusiasm, saying, “I’m very impressed, it’s still a process to figure it out.”
Davis beamed through the showcase, as Santa Fe tore through many of their fan favorites over the years, including its Earth, Wind & Fire medley and “Rosanna” by Toto. Raiders officials asked the band to stray off-script,
too, with the ZZ Top cover of “Viva Las Vegas,” sliding into “Enter Sandman” by Metallica. Santa Fe also took a run at the Raiders theme, “The Autumn Wind.”
Band leader Jerry Lopez said afterward, “For us, we hit a home run. It was fun to play Earth, Wind & Fire and Metallica in a really beautiful facility.”
Regardless of where it all leads, the Raiders have found a bona fide Las Vegas act, whose history dates more than 45 years.
The band has for decades referred to their shows as “The Healing.” The promise has been, you walk out feeling better than when you walked in. Lopez christened the gigs with that name as he was about to take the stage one night at Palace Station. He’d had a horrible day, and said, “’You know what? Let the healing begin.’ The band started playing, and all the pain was gone.”
The title has stuck, over myriad Vegas venues.
Many band members have either attended the UNLV Jazz Studies program or have taught music at the university. The entire lineup was inducted into the UNLV College of Fine Arts Hall of Fame in 2019. The musicians have effectively created a path from the university to Vegas lounges — all the way to a Las Vegas Strip superstar residency production.
One night in January 2019, Lady Gaga’s friend and bandleader Brian Newman caught the band at the Copa Room. The next day, he emailed contract offers to the whole horn section to play Gaga’s “Jazz + Piano” production.
Four months later, leading to his “After Dark” debut at Nomad Restaurant, Newman said, “I’d already known about the Santa Fe boys when we came in to Las Vegas. I got here a few days early to meet with them, not really as an audition, but to be around them and see how tight they were together.”
Over the years, Chicago; Earth, Wind & Fire; James Taylor’s backing players (notably sax great “Blue Lou” Marini in July 2019); Tower of Power; and Elton John’s and Gwen Stefani’s bands have hit Santa Fe’s shows. Kenny Loggins and Christopher Cross have made unbilled appearances, too, in the days the band played The Lounge at the Palms.
None of those places rivals the spectacle that is Allegiant Stadium, of course.
After the band’s closing crescendo, Davis turned to the group in the owner’s suite and said, “This is a great little place we have here.”