Fresh Mike | Reuters WASHINGTON — After weeks of heightened speculation, former President Donald Trump said Monday he will make a “big announcement” on Nov. 15 at his Mar-a-Lago resort, where he is widely expected to announce the launch of his 2024 presidential campaign . “I’m going to make a very big announcement on Tuesday, November 15 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida,” Trump said at a Save America rally in Vandalia, Ohio on the eve of the midterm elections. Trump was reportedly considering whether to launch his third presidential campaign at the Ohio rally, but Republicans contacted him and urged him to hold off, fearing his announcement could energize Democrats and potentially alienate independent voters. . “We don’t want anything to diminish the importance of tomorrow,” Trump said. Trump’s Nov. 15 speech came at the end of a more than 90-minute speech in which he lashed out at Democrats, judges who have ruled against his family, U.S. airports and, most notably, President Joe Biden. A spokesman for Trump did not respond to CNBC’s request to confirm that his Nov. 15 event will be a campaign launch. But Trump is eager to launch his third presidential campaign, and preparations for campaign infrastructure and staffing talks have ramped up significantly in recent weeks. An early list of potential top contributors is already out. Trump’s speech in Ohio included relatively few references to the Republican candidates he was in the state to promote, although several of them were invited on stage for brief remarks with Trump. An awkward moment occurred when Republican Ohio Governor Mike DeWine was booed by the crowd as he took the stage. DeWine is considered an establishment Republican who did not support one of the animating principles of Trump’s MAGA movement: The false claim that Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election. Instead of focusing on Republicans for the election on Tuesday, Trump’s remarks felt more like a tailored rallying speech for his own upcoming presidential campaign, with strong echoes of his 2016 campaign speeches. Trump has leaned heavily on issues from his successful 2016 presidential campaign, such as illegal immigration and crime. He argued that Democrats have allowed undocumented immigrants to enter the country and commit violent crimes, just as he did six years ago in his first run for public office. To make his point Monday, Trump told an anecdote about the conviction earlier this year of a gang member for the brutal stabbing of a teenager. But the crime Trump accused Democrats of actually happened in 2018, when Trump was in office.
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Read more about CNBC’s political coverage: “These people are animals,” Trump said of those involved in the 2018 killing, before noting that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had previously objected to him calling people “animals.” “Of course, I think she’s an animal, too,” Trump said of Pelosi, pausing to let the crowd cheer his remark. Trump then quickly turned to what the media would surely say, “Oh, what a horrible thing he said about Nancy!” But it was justified, Trump said, because “He impeached me twice over nothing. Nothing!” The Democratic House speaker has long been the target of fierce verbal attacks from Republicans. But those words came into new light two weeks ago, when a conspiracy theorist broke into Pelosi’s San Francisco home and attacked her husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer. The attacker, identified by police as David De Pape, said his aim was to kidnap the Speaker of the House and break her knees. As Trump approaches the official start of the 2024 presidential race, polls show him enjoying unparalleled support among Republican voters. Trump averages more than 20 percentage points over his closest challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSandis, the only other Republican presidential hopeful whose support is consistently in double digits. Trump would also enter the race with more than $60 million in cash held by his leadership PAC, Save America, and a formidable fundraising operation that collects small dollar donations from the Republican base. If Trump seeks and wins the Republican nomination, he will likely face President Joe Biden in a rematch of their 2020 presidential showdown. Biden has yet to officially launch his re-election campaign, but plans for it have reportedly solidified in recent weeks.
