Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump did not attend her father’s announcement tonight.
In a statement shared with ABC, she said she will not be involved in politics going forward. Ivanka Trump was deeply involved in her father’s campaign and then his administration. She testified in the congressional investigation into his involvement in the January 6 insurrection, and is facing scrutiny in a tax fraud trial of the Trump Organization.
Wow full statement from Ivanka Trump per @Santucci: https://t.co/deLE0FwzUE pic.twitter.com/YZaUeFWEwv
— Will Steakin (@wsteaks) November 16, 2022
Catch-up
Donald Trump, the first president in US history to be impeached twice, has declared that he is once against running for the office. At his Mar-a-Lago resort, he announced his candidacy in a meandering, hour-long speech.
The former president, who helped incite a deadly attack on the US Capitol nearly two years ago, briefly vowed to unite the country while repeating the same incendiary, divisive rhetoric that defined his previous campaign and presidency.
The ex-president made the announcement amid intense scrutiny from Republican leaders about his ability to help the party win elections, following disappointing performances by Trump-endorsed candidates in the midterms.
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Who’s next? Republicans who might go up against Trump in 2024
Donald Trump’s announcement of a third White House run does not only pose serious questions for the country he divided against itself during his defeat of Hillary Clinton, his four chaotic years in power, his rancorous defeat by Joe Biden and his incitement of the January 6 insurrection.
But Trump’s entrance into the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 also poses existential questions for the Republican party itself. Since last week’s midterm elections failed to produce an expected “red wave”, leaving the Senate in Democratic hands and the House barely under GOP control, the primary landscape has shifted.
Here are seven Republicans who may fancy their chances of beating Trump to set up a White House run – and one who might try to stop him winning again:
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Trump concluded his speech after an hour.
Among his first campaign promises were a number of reforms that he lacked the authority to do, or realistically just can’t do. This includes a vow to pass lifetime bans on lobbying by former members of Congress (something lawmakers wouldn’t approve), a promise to make all drug crimes punishable by death, and another to simply end all homelessness.
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Trump has demanded that all votes get tabulated by election day – as many of his endorsed, election-denying candidates have also done.
Here’s an explainer from my colleagues on why vote counting in the US takes a while:
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Meanwhile, it seems that Facebook will be standing by its policy not to factcheck Trump once he becomes a candidate, CNN reports.
Citing a company memo, CNN writes that while Trump is banned from Facebook, his campaign and political pages will be able to skirt third-party factcheckers.
According to CNN:
Tuesday’s memo from Meta underscores the challenges social media platforms face in deciding how to handle another potential Trump presidential campaign. The former president is widely expected to announce his third presidential bid on Tuesday.
Facebook’s parent company Meta pays third-party factchecking organizations to apply factcheck labels to misinformation across Facebook and Instagram.
The carve-out is not exclusive to Trump and applies to all politicians, but given the rate factcheckers find themselves dealing with claims made by the former president, a manager on Meta’s “news integrity partnership” team emailed factcheckers on Tuesday.
“Some of you have reached out seeking guidance regarding factchecking political speech in anticipation of a potential candidacy announcement from former President Trump,” the Meta staffer wrote.
The company has long had an exception to its factchecking policy for politicians.
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The Democratic National Committee seems eager to see Trump launch his candidacy.
“Today is just the kickoff to what will be a messy Republican primary with candidates competing to be the most extreme Maga Republican in the race,” said DNC chair Jaime Harrison. “The DNC will be ready for them all.”
Many Democrats see Trump as a weaker candidate now than someone like Ron DeSantis. Then again, Democrats thought Trump would be easy to defeat in 2016 as well.
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Major networks, including Fox News, have cut away from the speech, which has now fully evolved into a traditional Trump ramble.
The speech has meandered between a few points about immigration and the southern border wall, evoking the usual rhetoric maligning migrants as “rough people”. Peppered amidst everything are asides about world leaders and pride about his own catchphrases.
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Meanwhile the White House is promoting Biden’s accomplishments, including the $1tn bipartisan infrastructure law – which passed after Trump failed to see through infrastructure legislation.
- Provided over 14 million households with lower cost or free high-speed internet through the Affordable Connectivity Program
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 16, 2022
- Helped bring gas prices down more than $1.20 from summer 2022 peak
Learn more about this Administration’s historic record at: https://t.co/XaleAjX9ak.
Donald Trump failed America. pic.twitter.com/fylyocYcse
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 16, 2022
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The former president appears to have veered quite a bit off script, and into rambles that are difficult to follow.
The speech tonight is strikingly similar to pretty much every other Trump rally speech. But Trump appears to be lagging in his energy – tonight he’s more subdued than he has been in the past.
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While referencing the “China virus” and “Islamic terrorism”, and maligning migrants crossing the southern border, Trump is promising to unify the country.
He followed up with: “We will defeat the radical left Democrats that are trying to destroy our country from within.”
Earlier today, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the extreme rhetoric of Trump-backed candidates in the midterms “frightened independent and moderate voters”.
“Their impression of many of the people in our party in leadership roles is that they are involved in chaos, negativity, excessive attacks,” McConnell told reporters.
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Trump announces 2024 presidential bid
“In order to make America great and glorious again, I tonight am announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump said.
Earlier, the former president referenced “the blood-soaked streets of our once-great cities”, echoing his 2017 inaugural “American carnage” speech.
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Here’s Guardian politics reporter Joan E Greve’s take, after having covered a number of Trump speeches over the years:
So far, Trump's Mar-a-Lago speech is just a slightly toned down version of his typical rally speech where he describes his presidency in the most glowing terms while largely overlooking the devastating pandemic that defined his final year in office. Less swearing though.
— Joan Greve (@joanegreve) November 16, 2022
Just a few minutes into his speech, Trump has undercut the 2020 election results, suggesting without evidence that China interfered on Biden’s behalf.
The former president has said a number of false or misleading statements and exaggerations about his record as president and the state of affairs under Biden.
“Two years ago, when I left office, the United States stood ready for its golden age,” he said, listing off highly disputed accomplishments, including his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Trump files paperwork to run
Donald Trump has taken the stage for his announcement now. In the meantime, it seems he’s filed the federal paperwork declaring his 2024 candidacy for president.
“My fellow citizens, America’s comeback starts right now,” Trump began.
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With Trump about to take the stage, Joe Biden is speaking as well, from Bali.
I’m discussing a meeting with world leaders on the loss of life in Eastern Poland and the United States’ commitment to support Poland’s investigation. https://t.co/duaAT0lEoZ
— President Biden (@POTUS) November 16, 2022
While Donald Trump builds up to a presidential campaign announcement, Joe Biden is holding an emergency meeting with world leaders in Bali, after an explosion in Poland killed two people.
Poland’s foreign ministry said the explosion in the village of Przewodów was caused by a “Russian-made missile”. In a call with Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, Biden reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to Nato as officials investigate the explosion.
According to CNN:
Biden and leaders from the G7 and NATO are meeting in Bali to discuss the explosion in Poland that killed two people, multiple officials familiar with the meeting said. The meeting includes Biden and leaders from Canada, the European Union, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Netherlands and Japan, the officials said.
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Trump v DeSantis: Republicans split over 2024 run and predict ‘blood on the floor’
Terri Burl was an early member of Women for Trump. As chair of her local Republican party branch in northern Wisconsin, she twice campaigned vigorously for his election in the key swing state. By the time Trump left office, Burl rated him the greatest president since Ronald Reagan. Maybe even better.
But now Burl has had enough.
She views the prospect of Trump announcing another run for the presidency – as he is expected to do in Florida on Tuesday evening – with trepidation. Burl predicts “a lot of blood on the floor” if it comes to a fight with rightwing Florida governor Ron DeSantis for the Republican nomination, and defeat in the 2024 election if the former US president is the candidate.
“I will back whoever the Republicans choose to run in 2024. That’s a given. But I want them to go through the primaries and I hope it’s not Trump. He has too much baggage now. We need new blood because it’s obvious that he can’t get to business now without doing things to make people angry. His behavior hasn’t changed,” she said.
Burl, a substitute teacher, is not alone.
The Republicans’ failure to deliver the much promised “red wave” in the midterms was a significant blow to Trump’s claim to be the voice of his party’s voters, not least because of the defeat of key candidates endorsed by him. But backing from the grassroots, which gave him a tight grip on the Republican party for years and kept its hostile leadership at bay, has been eroding for months.
Republican county chairs and activists say support for the former president has diminished as a result of his continued pushing of election conspiracy theories, the investigations into his businesses and political actions, and his attacks on his most threatening challenger, DeSantis. Above all, there is a deepening fear that Trump is now even more divisive than he was two years ago when he lost the popular vote to Joe Biden by more than 7m votes, and is therefore unelectable.
But local Republican leaders also say that Trump retains a substantial and virulently loyal following within the party that will fight to the last and could still decide the primaries.
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Rupert Murdoch has reportedly warned Donald Trump that his media empire will not back any attempt he makes to return to the White House, as former supporters turn to Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
After the Republican party’s disappointing performance in the US midterm elections, in particular the poor showing by candidates backed by Trump, Murdoch’s rightwing media empire appears to be seeking a clean break from the former president’s damaged reputation and perceived waning political power.
Last week, Murdoch’s influential media empire, including right-leaning Fox News, his flagship paper the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, each rounded on Trump, calling him a loser and a flop responsible for dragging the Republicans into “one political fiasco after another”.
“We have been clear with Donald. There have been conversations between them during which Rupert made it clear to Donald that we cannot back another run for the White House,” a senior News Corp source told the i newspaper.
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Republicans who rejected and sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election results – including Trump-backed candidates who amplified his election lies – lost nearly every statewide race in which they sought to take control over how elections are run, a result hailed as a significant victory for free and fair elections in the US.
Voters rejected election deniers who sought to become the top election officials in Arizona, Nevada and Michigan – all key battleground states – as well as in Minnesota and New Mexico. In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, a state senator who has been among the most prominent spreaders of election misinformation, lost his bid to be the state’s top election official. Kari Lake, a Republican who built her campaign around election denialism, also is projected to lose her bid for governor in Arizona.
“We see the voters clearly saying trying to delegitimize democracy is not a winning strategy,” said Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who defeated Kristina Karamo, a Republican who spread baseless misinformation about the 2020 election results, to win a second term last week. “But we still have a presidential election now under two years away in which we anticipate a lot of the same challenges.”
In Michigan, Democrats defeated election deniers in the governor’s and attorney general’s race as well, beating back what many feared could be an election denialism trifecta in a key battleground state.
In 94 statewide races this fall, just five non-incumbent election deniers won their elections as of Monday afternoon, according to States United Action, a group that has been tracking election deniers running in the midterms. Those candidates won in Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas and Wyoming.
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Trump expected to announce presidential bid
Donald Trump is expected to announce his 2024 presidential bid tonight at his Mar-a-Lago residence and resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
The big announcement that the former president has been teasing since before the midterm elections will come as he faces intense scrutiny from within his own party. After a number of far-right, Trump-endorsed candidates lost their elections, advisers had urged the ex-president to delay announcing a 2024 candidacy.
Meanwhile, Trump is facing a deluge of legal troubles and investigations. Today, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, testified in the tax-fraud trial of Trump’s family business. Prosecutors are also investigating whether he criminally retained national security documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Follow along for live coverage.
