OXON HILL (US), March 5 (AP): Former US president Donald Trump cast himself on Saturday as the only Republican candidate who can build on his White House legacy but shied away from directly critiquing his potential rivals, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Trump, giving the headlining address at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, told a cheering crowd that he was engaged in his “final battle” as he tries to return to the White House.
“We are going to finish what we started,” he said. “We are going to complete the mission. We are going to see this battle through to ultimate victory.”
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Though DeSantis, seen as Trump’s biggest potential rival, is frequently a subject of name-calling and other attacks in Trump’s social media posts and interviews, he was not mentioned directly in Trump’s address before conservative activists, who earlier in the day applauded when an old video clip of the Florida governor was shown in a montage.
While CPAC was once a must-stop for candidates mulling Republican presidential runs, DeSantis and other major likely contenders skipped this year’s gathering amid scandal and as the group has increasingly become aligned with Trump.
The former president’s enduring popularity with this segment of voters was on display throughout the conference this week. Some attendees wore Trump-themed outfits, with “MAGA” hats and sequined jackets.
Members of his family and his presidential administration were swarmed like celebrities in the hallways and dominated the list of speakers. The handful of other potential and declared candidates not named Trump who spoke received only tepid applause.
And the annual CPAC straw poll, an unscientific survey of attendees, found Trump the top choice to be the party’s nominee, with 62 per cent support, trailing by DeSantis at 20 per cent and businessman Perry Johnson, who announced his long shot bid at the conference, with 5 per cent.
Nearly all — 95 per cent of the respondents — said they approved of Trump’s performance as president.
Ahead of his speech, Trump told reporters that he would continue his third presidential campaign even if indicted. He is under investigation by prosecutors probing his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia and by the US Justice Department, as well as his handling of classified documents, among other issues.
Trump condemned all the probes as politically motivated and vowed that criminal charges would not deter him.
“Oh, absolutely, I won’t even think about leaving,” he told reporters, adding that “probably, it will enhance my numbers, but it is a very bad thing for America. It is very bad for the country.”
“This is an audience that supports President Trump,” said Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, the No. 3 House Republican, who endorsed Trump days before he officially launched his 2024 campaign.
The only member of House leadership to attend the conference, Stefanik told The Associated Press that Trump continued to be the party’s leader.
“President Trump is in a very strong position and I think he will be the Republican nominee,” she said.
While Trump did not launch broadsides against his potential challengers for the White House, many of whom were pitching themselves to conservative donors near his Florida home this week, he did repeatedly criticise the old guard of the Republican Party, which is eager to move past him.
“We had a Republican Party that was ruled by freaks, neo-cons, globalists, open borders zealots and fools. But we are never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove and Jeb Bush,” he said.
He took only a veiled jab at DeSantis, calling out those who have proposed raising the age for Social Security or privatising Medicare — positions DeSantis has expressed support for in the past, but has since abandoned. “We are not going to mess with Social Security as Republicans,” DeSantis recently said.
Trump told the crowd, “If that is their original thought, that is what they always come back to.”
Trump threaded his speech with grievances related to his term in office and outlined his agenda for a second, including restrictions on gender-affirming care and transgender athletes, which drew some of the strongest applause from the room and was a recurrent theme in speeches at the four-day conference.
While many top Republicans steered clear of the conference, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, a potential candidate, and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, who declared her candidacy last month, both spoke on Friday and made shrouded critiques of Trump. Their refusal to call him out by name underscored the risks faced by challengers looking to offer an alternative in a party in which Trump remains the dominant force.
“There is no one in that field I want as my president other than Donald J Trump,” said Waverly Woods, a Republican activist and marketer from Virginia Beach, Virginia, who said she likes DeSantis but that Trump has first claim on the hearts of many at the conference.
That includes Woods’ sometimes partner in local GOP races, Kim Shourds, whose car bears a “TRUMP WON” licence plate.
DeSantis? She likes him, she said, but not enough. She wants the governor to sit down “and let my man come in and run this country,” Shourds said.
But not everyone at CPAC was on board.
E Payne Kilbourn, a retired Navy submarine captain from Neavitt, Maryland, who now writes and advocates for carbon dioxide, said he was “very, very” happy with Trump’s presidency, but now thinks it is time for the party to move on.
“I think Donald Trump is just too toxic for most of the country,” said Kilbourn, 69, an independent who votes for Republicans in general elections and wishes Trump would “bow out and just be the guy behind the scenes”.
Strategically, he sees DeSantis as better positioned to eventually win the White House.
“I think he would have a better chance of getting elected,” he said.
