Donald Trump fulfilled his threat and announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential elections. He did so at his residence and private club in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, a few hours after the Republican Party members of Congress threw the junk in the lead in his first struggles for power, between crosses of accusations for his defeat in the Senate and his pyrrhic victory in the House of Representatives.
The ex-president, as always at his leisure, ignored the voices that blame him for the bad results of the party due to his efforts and that of his candidates in basing the campaign on the tiresome denunciation of an alleged fraud in the 2024 elections.
Trump also ignored the advisers who had asked him to delay his announcement at least until the vote count confirmed and specified the tight Republican majority in the Lower House - confirmation that should arrive in the next few hours - and even until the December 6 the second round of the struggle for the senator position still in contention in Georgia is held. The Democrats already secured control of the Upper House by the minimum when Catherine Cortez Masto, of Nevada, conquered the 50th seat of that body on Saturday. But one more position in the hands of the senator and candidate for re-election in the southern state, Raphael Warnock, would give Joe Biden and his team some slack in the voting.
The former president made the announcement of his candidacy after having formally registered it in writing while Republicans in Congress argued among themselves as few times before.
First, the conservative leader in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, conceded 31 negative votes, within the group, to his candidacy to preside over the body. That did not prevent him from obtaining the majority approval of the formation, by 188 favorable votes. But McCarthy received a "notice" there from the Trump sector led there by Andy Biggs, who presented himself as an alternative candidate. Along with his supporters, Biggs will sell his support for McCarty dearly in the final vote to elect the new House president in January, where he will need 218 votes.
In the Upper House it was worse. There, the dispute between Republican factions during a meeting prior to the internal votes scheduled for this Wednesday escalated after Senator Rick Scott, with the support of Trump, announced his intention to challenge the party leader in this parliamentary body from In 2015, Mitch McConnell: a politician whom the former president, and since yesterday again a candidate for re-election, has called a "silly son of a bitch" in addition to saying of him that "he must wish to die."
Scott and McConnell were the protagonists of a discussion in several voices, at times raised, which according to the account of one of those present to The Hill newspaper "began tense and ended up being bitter", with personal reproaches about the errors that would have led to the party to fail in its attempt to win a majority in the Senate.
At the same time, Florida Governor and top-ranked Republican to challenge Trump's 2024 candidacy, Ron DeSantis, called his party's midterm showing "hugely disappointing," in which he won his re-election by nearly points. ahead of his Democratic rival, Charlie Crist.
The former president had expressed his dislike for DeSantis days before the election, when he called him De Sanctimonious, that is, meapilas, during a rally in Pennsylvania.
Getting ahead of DeSantis and other possible party candidates may be one of the reasons that prompted Trump to rush his announcement of the 2024 candidacy with two years to go before the call. Among those other candidates is former Vice President Mike Pence, whom the former president considers a traitor for refusing to suspend the confirmation of the election results on January 6, 2021, the day of the assault on the Capitol.
The other great motivation of the Republican leader would be to make his formal accusation more difficult in relation to one or more of the crimes that justice attributes to him: for the concealment of secret documents in his Florida home; for his attempt to falsify the 2020 elections; for his role in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, or for the deceptions and attempts of tax fraud in his business accounts
But the dramatic image of infighting between Republicans over poor midterm results, with mounting criticism of Trump for his responsibility in it, is a striking snapshot of the moment that should not lead to hasty conclusions about the party's prospects. Republican.
The Grand Old Party already experienced a similar moment after the bloody assault on the Capitol, but then the vast support of the bases for its populist leader made some recoil and the vast majority put aside their rebellious instincts and their vocation of service to the country to remain silent. or even join the Trump bandwagon.
The ultra-conservative Fox network, which along with other outlets from the Murdoch group has highlighted Trump's strategic mistakes in recent days and suggested that he should give up a new presidential race, was the only major television to broadcast the leader's speech live last night. And he did it with guests who agreed with him in everything he said. That was not little although the majority had already repeated it a thousand times.
The former president stated, for example, that Biden "is leading us to a nuclear war" in a conflict, that of Ukraine, that would never have started with him in command.
Internally, Trump drew a country "in decline" after two years of rising inflation, increased crime, invasion of immigrants, "pain, despair"... And all this after "the best four years in history of the United States", naturally those of his presidency between 2017 and 2020. For this reason, to "recover the American dream" and "the glory of our country", he has decided to run for president again, he explained.
Hundreds of people chanted each phrase that the former president uttered. But important people were missing from the huge room at Mar-a-Lago where the event was held. The most notorious absence, beyond longtime advisers and supporters that the local media missed, was that of his daughter and former adviser Ivanka Trump.
She explained it in a letter she made public shortly before the Mar-a-Lago event: "Although I will always love and support my father, from now on I will do so from outside the political arena," she wrote,
The full return of Donald Trump to that arena looks bumpy and difficult. For him and for everyone.
