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Trump announced his intention to run for president of the United States seven years ago on a golden escalator that descended the atrium of Trump Tower in New York. On Tuesday night, Trump announced his intention to run again.
Just moments before entering the gilded “great ballroom” of his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida, with his wife Melania by his side, Trump filed the papers necessary to run for president for the third time. The loudspeakers blared the song “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from the musical Les Misérables before the music unexpectedly switched to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.”
Trump was announced as the next US president in a lavish chamber with 15 crystal chandeliers before ascending to a stage with more than a dozen American flags and signs with his original campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
Trump, 76, declared that he was running for the government once more in order to “make America great and magnificent again” while speaking to hundreds of his followers and a much larger number of members of the national and international media.
Trump is correct on Biden’s failures, but his self-indulging message promoting anger has not changed. It didn’t work in 2022 and won’t work in 2024. There are better choices.
— Gov. Asa Hutchinson (@AsaHutchinson) November 16, 2022
A “really elegant night” at “a very elegant place” was how he described the occasion. The marble-lined room was a who’s who of Trump’s most vociferous supporters, including former aides like Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka, as well as Roger Stone, who was pardoned by Trump at the conclusion of his presidency for his convictions related to the Mueller probe.
Additionally present were Richard Grenell, a former ambassador to Germany for Trump, Devin Nunes, a former congressman who is now the CEO of Trump’s struggling media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, and Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow who gained notoriety by endorsing Trump’s unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” and “stolen” from him.
Who wasn’t there was equally noteworthy nevertheless. It appears that the only other member of Congress present was outgoing North Carolina congressman Madison Cawthorn, who was defeated in the Republican primary earlier this year and lost his campaign for reelection. Despite bright skies in Palm Beach and pleasant temperatures reaching the mid-80s Fahrenheit, Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman, canceled on Tuesday afternoon. He cited the weather as his excuse.
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The president’s younger daughter Tiffany, who had just married at Mar-a-Lago two days earlier, his son Donald Jr., who was reportedly on a hunting trip out of state, and his eldest daughter Ivanka, who served in a senior advisory capacity in her father’s White House but has tried to stay away from politics since the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, were also conspicuously absent.
After her father’s address, Ivanka, whose husband Jared Kushner was present, released a statement declaring that although she “love[d]” him “very much,” she did “not plan to be active in politics,” including his upcoming presidential campaign.
In a statement shared on her social media accounts, she stated, “This time, I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are developing as a family.” While I will always support my father, I will do so moving forward outside of politics.
Her absence demonstrated how many people in Trump’s closest circle are leery about his third run for the White House, especially in light of the escalating legal difficulties he is facing and the Republican Party’s dismal showing in last week’s midterm elections.
The results of the midterm elections, which saw Republicans hand-picked by Trump lose their bids across the board and the Democrats maintain control of the Senate, were downplayed by Trump in a rambling hour-long speech on Tuesday night. Republicans were on track to take control of the House of Representatives as of Tuesday night, but by a considerably narrower margin than anticipated. Votes were still being tallied.
The Republican presidential race between Ron and Don has already started. About 180 miles away, in Orlando, Florida, several Republican governors expressed doubts about Trump’s choice to run for president once more and expressed fears about his ongoing power over the party.
“He’s acting defensively and taking advantage of his own vulnerability and opportunity. He is not currently in a good place. On the eve of a meeting of the Republican Governors Association, Chris Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire, told the Washington Post that the president “is at a low moment.” “At a low point in his political career, he’s declaring his intention to run for president. Man, I have no idea how that will turn out.
After last week’s midterm elections, numerous national Republicans and prominent donors urged Trump to step aside in favor of a fresher, younger candidate: Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who this month won reelection by a 19-point margin in a state that Trump won by just 3.4 points two years ago.
Since the midterm elections, a number of surveys have been taken, and while a sizable portion of Republican voters continues to back Trump, DeSantis’s popularity among the party’s grassroots has increased. Trump has been open in his criticism of DeSantis, whom he has now dubbed “Ron DeSanctimonious.” But DeSantis, who hasn’t formally announced his campaign, has so far shied away from answering questions about the former president’s criticisms.
“One of the things I’ve learned in this job is that you accept incoming fire when you’re leading and getting things done. Simply prior to Trump’s statement on Tuesday, DeSantis spoke to reporters in Fort Walton Beach, Florida’s panhandle, and said: “That’s just the nature of it. He continued, “We’ve concentrated on results and leadership. The scoreboard from last Tuesday night is all I would advise folks to look at at the end of the day.
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