HE’S STILL HERE
TRUMP PUSHES FRAUD CLAIMS AT CPAC
Former President Donald Trump clung to delusions he won the November election and teased a future presidential run as he tried to assert his control of the GOP at his first public appearance since leaving the White House less than six weeks ago.
“This election was rigged. And the Supreme Court and other courts didn’t want to do anything about it,” Trump raved at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando on Sunday.
“They should be ashamed of themselves for what they’ve done to our country,” he continued, repeating disproved allegations of fraud in the November election.
The stunning comments came after similar remarks incited fervent supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, leading to five deaths and his second impeachment.
During his speech, Trump dismissed recent speculation he might start a new political party.
“They kept saying, ‘He’s going to start a brand-new party,’ ” he mockingly said. “We have the Republican Party.”
“I am not starting a new party.
That was fake news,” he added.
The ex-president also said he might run again.
“I may even decide to beat them for a third time,” Trump said of Democrats, grasping at the fantasy that he really won the 2020 contest.
The ex-president indicated he’s not letting go of his role as top Republican in the land even as some GOP leaders try to shift the party away from the divisive approach that cost them the White House and Senate in the 2020 elections.
The debate has prompted speculation Trump would start his own party, though a recent poll showed a large core of Republican voters still support the ex-president in spite of his two impeachments and his role inciting the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“For the next four years, the brave Republicans in this room will be at the heart of this effort to oppose the radical Democrats,” Trump ranted. “I’m going to continue to fight right by your side.”
The rest of the roughly hour-and-a-half-long remarks took the form of one of his rambling stump speeches, with Trump lashing out at everything from COVID safety measures to big tech companies.
After leading a ham-fisted pandemic response that contributed to more than 500,000 American deaths, Trump criticized the current White House’s approach.
He mocked a recent suggestion from Dr. Anthony Fauci — the country’s top infectious disease expert, with whom Trump had a testy relationship — for saying Americans should wear two masks at a time when possible.
Trump also accused President Biden of “cruelly keeping our children locked in their homes, no reason for it whatsoever,” an apparent call to reopen schools nationwide. Biden has announced plans to get schools open by the spring.
Meanwhile, the ex-president took credit for saving “not only the country, but a large portion of the world” by ordering federal officials to take an expedited approach to vaccine development through “Operation Warp Speed.”
“I didn’t like them at all, but once we got it done, I said, ‘We now love you very much,’ ” he said to laughs from the adoring crowd while discussing officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“Joe Biden is only implementing the plan that we put in place,” Trump claimed.
He whined about Biden’s steps to reverse Trump’s legacy, from rejoining the World Health Organization to ending the ban on travel from several predominantly Muslim countries.
Biden has led “the most disastrous first month of any president in modern history,” Trump raged.
The ex-president also took up the cause of ending tech monopolies, a call that has gained currency among conservatives since social media companies kicked Trump off their platforms following the attack on the Capitol.
“Big-tech giants like Twitter, Google and Facebook should be punished with major sanctions whenever they silence conservative voices,” Trump said.
Political scientist Larry Sabato took a grim view of the scene in Orlando. “Trump continues his #BigLie drumbeat about having really WON the election,” tweeted Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “And these #CPAC cultists cheer him loudly. Beyond hopeless.”