Trump to speak at political conservatives summit

WASHINGTON: Former US president Donald Trump will give a speech later this month to a gathering of political conservatives in Orlando, Florida, a source familiar with the plans said, his first extended public address since leaving the White House on Jan 20.

The appearance is scheduled for Feb 28 at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), one of the country’s largest annual gatherings of political conservatives.

Trump will be “talking about the future of the Republican Party and the conservative movement,” the source said on Saturday.

He is also expected to challenge the “disastrous amnesty and border policies” of his successor, President Joe Biden, the source added.

Trump, who was impeached for an unprecedented second time for his role in fomenting the Jan 6 assault on the US Capitol, remains a potent force in US politics.

Three-quarters of Republicans want Trump to play a prominent role in the party, according to a poll from Quinnipiac University this week.

Since reluctantly departing the White House on Jan 20 and ceding to Biden – despite his constant but unsubstantiated claims that the election had been stolen – Trump has largely kept to himself at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Stripped of his Twitter megaphone, he called into friendly cable TV news programmes this week after the death of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, musing on far-right channel Newsmax about the possibility of a future political run.

“I won’t say yet but we have tremendous support. And I’m looking at poll numbers that are through the roof,” he said.

Biden, who is trying to steer the United States through the Covid-19 pandemic and an economic crisis, has tried to avoid discussing Trump, at one point calling him “the former guy.”

Lawmakers from his Democratic Party have unveiled legislation to create a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, reversing Trump’s hardline policies.

Small numbers of asylum seekers have also begun crossing into the US as their cases are processed. — AFP