Trump’s Hold on Republican Party on Display as Conservatives Gather
Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican Party will be on full display as an annual gathering of prominent U.S. conservatives starts in earnest on Friday, with a key question being whether the former president will run…
Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican Party will be on full display as an annual gathering of prominent U.S. conservatives starts in earnest on Friday, with a key question being whether the former president will run again in four years.
Prominent congressional conservatives including Senators Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley, and Representatives Steve Scalise and Matt Gaetz are among the Trump loyalists expected to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, which Trump will address on Sunday.
Trump’s tumultuous final weeks in office saw his supporters launch a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in an attempt to block Congress from certifying Democratic President Joe Biden’s election victory, a win that Trump falsely claimed was tainted by widespread fraud.
A total of 17 members of his party in Congress voted to impeach or convict him for inciting insurrection, although the Senate vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict. Some prominent Republicans including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell blasted Trump for his role in sparking the conflagration, but more members still voice support for him.
Trump also faces legal challenges, with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office conducting a criminal investigation of his family-run Trump Organization.
Some advisers say they want Trump not to use his speech to relitigate the election at length but instead offer a road map to Republicans’ taking back control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in the 2022 congressional elections.
“Obviously he will talk about his belief that the election had major problems in it,” said one Trump adviser. “However, I believe and I hope that he pivots to how we fight Biden’s socialist agenda for America and hope that it will be about the future, not the past.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, told reporters in the Capitol that he expected Trump to talk about his policy achievements, the drawbacks of Biden’s approach to immigration and energy and to lay out a hopeful future for his “America First” agenda.