Trump cpac speech
Trump didn’t target anyone in the Republican Party save for Mitch McConnell, and I actually felt that this was one of his more unifying speeches. Trump successfully outlined a Republican platform for the midterms and 2024, and I thought he seemed very comfortable and tempered over the course of the speech. Eventually, one of these men turned to his colleague, said, “I can’t take it anymore,” and walked out of the room. While most of the reporters and cameramen found this amusing and good-naturedly laughed along with the gag (many were from conservative outlets), at several moments two Washington Post reporters in front of us looked as if they were about to break down in tears. Pointing towards the media section in which we at The Dartmouth Review were standing, he made on multiple occasions such humorous asides as “that’s a lot of fake news, look at all of those cameras!” At these moments, we found it hilarious when many in the crowd stood up, faced our section, and loudly booed. On a side note, I found Trump’s frequent castigation of the media particularly entertaining. This is a sentiment that is broadly shared by the general public, according to a poll released Friday by the Harvard Center for American Political Studies (CAPS) / Harris, which found that 62 percent of Americans believe Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump were president. Trump left no doubt in any attendee’s mind that, were he the president, Putin would not have invaded Ukraine. “I stand as the only president of the 21st century on whose watch Russia did not invade another country,” Trump added, to deafening cheers and applause. Addressing the most current of these problems, Trump compellingly declared that Putin was inspired to invade Ukraine because of the weakness which he saw in President Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan last August. He emphasized that the first step in rectifying these myriad problems would be electing Republican majorities to the House and Senate in 2022. Trump spent much time discussing the host of current problems which plague the country and world, and he proved a cogent and convincing orator as he reiterated that blame lies squarely at the feet of the Biden administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress. Moreover, taking back Congress is not a distraction but rather an essential step towards winning the White House in 2024, should Trump decide to run.
Take this article from ABC, for instance, which at least nominally suggests that Trump did not mention 2022.) I imagine that the former president has been receiving excellent guidance from informed and intelligent advisors, who recognize that reclaiming Congress in the midterms is critical to halting the Biden agenda-something which all Republicans support. (Note, though, that most media avoid this and instead emphasize divisions in the Republican Party. To this end, Trump’s promotion of the importance that Republicans reclaim Congress in 2022, and in effect his refusal to subordinate the Republican Party to his own political interests, was to my mind the hallmark of his speech, easily displacing lamentations about 2020 or teases of 2024. While he did go on to stress that the 2020 election was “rigged,” his evocation of a commitment to the party remained a central element to his roughly 1½-hour speech.
In so doing, he evinced a clear commitment to the party as a whole, departing from the self-centered approach he has taken in previous high-profile speeches.
Once the initial cheering had subsided, Trump began his speech by acknowledging and thanking various Republicans who had spoken at CPAC in the preceding days. CPAC has long been considered a portal that offers a clear glimpse into the hearts and minds of the Republican base, and Trump’s monumental reception at the conference only further indicated that he remains the dominating force in the party as it heads into the 2022 midterms. Yesterday evening at 7:10pm, former President Donald Trump sauntered out onto the CPAC stage, where he was greeted by an eruption of cheering and bellowing that demonstrated, beyond any shadow of a doubt, his continuing, immense popularity in the Grand Old Party.
TRUMP CPAC SPEECH SERIES
This is the second in a series of articles in which senior staff of The Dartmouth Review comment on their visit to CPAC in Orlando as members of the media.