TRUMP: IT'S ME OR IT'S HELL!
Apocalypse now? Dark knight warns GOP
Former President Trump savaged Bush-era Republicans, globalists and GOP “warmongers” at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday as he made his case for another shot at the White House.
“We are never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove and Jeb Bush,” he vowed. “If those opposing us succeed, our once beautiful USA will be a failed country that nobody will even recognize, an open-borders, lawless, filthy, communist nightmare.”
The markedly sedate audience of about 1,000 people filled about 80% of the hall, far from the standing-room-only CPAC crowds that Trump in the past had seen.
“When we win in 2024, we will do it again even stronger, faster, better because now I am experienced and now I know the people of Washington,” Trump said — as he swore to “totally obliterate the deep state” if he wins another presidential term.
“For those of you who have been wronged or betrayed, I am your retribution,” he promised. “I will fire the unelected and shadow forces who have weaponized our justice system.”
Trump won CPAC’s annual straw poll by a wide margin — proof, his supporters said, that he remains the GOP’s formidable front-runner.
Trump was the preferred candidate of 62% of attendees inside the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Md., who voted in CPAC’s annual poll.
As he has in past years, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came in second place with 20% support.
Michigan businessman Perry Johnson, who ran a Super Bowl ad for his long-shot campaign for the GOP nomination, came in third with 5% of the vote.
Two other declared GOP candidates, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, garnered 3% and 1% percent of the vote respectively.
Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas, along with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, each had 1%.
“President Trump is the leader of the party. He has momentum that no other candidate in the GOP has,” Republican consultant Alex Bruesewitz said as the results were announced. “CPAC is more proof of that: the GOP is the Trump party now.”
Joseph Belnome, a New Jersey building inspector, said he cast his ballot for Trump.
“I already know [Trump] knows what he’s doing and when he gets in there, he doesn’t have to have on-the-job training. He’s going to know exactly what to do,” Belnome, 47, told The Post.
The annual convention has been markedly diminished this year. Major sponsors and speakers withdrew in recent weeks in the wake of allegations that CPAC boss Matt Schlapp groped a male staffer who was working on the GOP senate campaign of Herschel Walker in Georgia.
Schlapp, who has denied the allegation, was later served with a lawsuit from the anonymous accuser.