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Rebecca Blackwell/PA Images

Donald Trump launches 2024 bid to return to the White House

The announcement comes just a week after an underwhelming midterm showing for Republicans.

FORMER US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has said he will officially mount a third campaign for the White House, launching an early start to the 2024 contest.

The announcement comes just a week after an underwhelming midterm showing for Republicans and will force the party to decide whether to embrace a candidate whose refusal to accept defeat in 2020 pushed American democracy to the brink.

“In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump said to an audience of several hundred supporters, club members and gathered press in a chandeliered ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

He was flanked by more than 30 American flags and banners that read: “Make America Great Again.”

“America’s comeback starts right now,” he said, formally beginning the 2024 Republican primary.

Another campaign is a remarkable turn for any former president, much less one who made history as the first to be impeached twice and whose term ended with his supporters violently storming the US Capitol in a deadly bid to halt the peaceful transition of power on 6 January 2021.

Trump enters the race in a moment of political vulnerability. He hoped to launch his campaign in the wake of resounding GOP midterm victories, fuelled by candidates he elevated during this year’s primaries.

Instead, many of those candidates lost, allowing Democrats to keep the Senate and leaving the GOP with a path to only a bare majority in the House.

Far from the undisputed leader of the party, Trump is now facing criticism from some of his own allies who say it is time for Republicans to look to the future, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis emerging as an early favourite White House contender.

Still, the former president remains deeply popular with the GOP base, even as Mr DeSantis and other Republicans, including former vice president Mike Pence, are taking increasingly public steps toward campaigns of their own, raising the prospect that Trump will have to navigate a competitive GOP primary.

Trump is also launching his candidacy amid a series of escalating criminal investigations, including several that could lead to indictments.

They include the probe into dozens of documents with classified markings that were seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago and ongoing state and federal inquiries into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

But Trump, according to people close to him, has been eager to return to politics and try to halt the rise of other potential challengers.

Aides have spent the last months readying paperwork, identifying potential staff and sketching out the contours of a campaign that is being modelled on his 2016 operation, when a small clutch of aides zipping between rallies on his private jet defied the odds and defeated far better-funded and more experienced rivals by tapping into deep political fault lines and using shocking statements to drive relentless media attention.

Trump returned to that dark rhetoric in his speech last night, painting the country under President Joe Biden in apocalyptic terms, describing “blood-soaked streets” in “cesspool cities” and an “invasion” at the border and earning cheers as he vowed to execute those convicted of selling drugs.

“We are a nation in decline,” he said. “We are here tonight to declare that it does not have to be this way.”

And while Trump spoke before a crowd of several hundred, notably missing were many longtime supporters including previous campaign managers, aides and his daughter Ivanka, who released a statement saying that she does not plan to be involved in politics.

“While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena,” she said in statement.

Trump’s candidacy poses profound questions about America’s democratic future. The final days of his presidency were consumed by a desperate effort to stay in power, undermining the centuries-old tradition of a peaceful transfer.

And in the two years since he lost, Trump’s persistent — and baseless — lies about widespread election fraud have eroded confidence in the nation’s political process.

Federal and state election officials and Trump’s own attorney general have said there is no credible evidence the 2020 election was tainted. The former president’s allegations of fraud were also roundly rejected by numerous courts, including by judges Trump appointed.

But that did not stop hundreds of midterm candidates from parroting his lies as they sought to win over his loyal base and score his coveted endorsement.

While some Republicans with presidential ambitions have long ruled out running against Trump, others appear ready to challenge him. They include Mr DeSantis, whose commanding re-election as governor last week was a bright spot for Republicans this cycle.

If he was ultimately successful, Trump would be just the second US president in history to serve two non-consecutive terms, following Grover Cleveland’s wins in 1884 and 1892.

President Joe Biden responded to Trump’s announcement by saying the Republican “failed” his country while in office.

“Donald Trump failed America,” Biden said in a tweet from Bali, where he was attending the last day of the G20 summit.

This accompanied a video compilation saying Trump presided over “rigging economy for rich”, “attacking health care”, “coddling extremists”, “attacking women’s rights” and “inciting a violent mob” to try to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden.

Later, while participating in a ceremonial mangrove planting with other G20 leaders, reporters asked Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron if they had reactions to the Trump announcement.

The two looked at each other briefly before Biden said “not really”, while Macron remained silent.

Additional reporting by AFP

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    Mute RogerRamjet
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    Jul 10th 2021, 8:33 AM

    Affordable housing!?! How about helping those who can work and do work to buy a house at an affordable level first instead of perpetuating the entitlement attitude of many to a house without doing any of the work or contributing to greater society.

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    Mute David Corrigan
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    Jul 10th 2021, 9:13 AM

    @RogerRamjet: FG/FF’s efforts at fixing the housing crisis has ended up as the unmitigated mess as outlined in the report above. Millions wasted on creating and maintaining the mess also.

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    Mute Charliegrl80
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    Jul 10th 2021, 9:56 AM

    @RogerRamjet: We have a housing crisis in this Country and blaming people on lower income isn’t the answer! In the Tipperary area where I live if you earn less than €25,000 as a couple you are eligible to apply for social housing, in the cities the limit is a little more it would be between €31,000 to €35,000 to apply for social housing if you are in one of the lower paid Jobs or on a social welfare payment you would qualify, NO BANK is going to give you a mortgage on that income. However, at the moment there is NO SOCIAL HOUSING being built and the local government through the Government is housing many of these families in private rental units which in turn leaves no rental units for others to rent and this keeps the cost of rental units in the state extremely high. If someone can get a mortgage and we had affordable housing in the Country fair play to them but please don’t blame people on a lower income from stopping anyone from buying a house and look at where the actual problem is its our government allowing investment funds to bulk buy all of housing so your affordable house is now in their hands and they will not sell but rent them back to you and at crazy prices. I am a full time family carer working 24/7 contributing to the state by and on a so called welfare payment of €219 per week who is going to give me a mortgage? there’s only a tiny fraction of people on welfare that don’t contribute for what ever reason. I can assure you the welfare system just don’t hand you a payment without dragging you through the coals first so if you do get a payment that would mean you qualified for it!

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    Mute M Bowe
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    Jul 10th 2021, 10:04 AM

    @RogerRamjet: yeah let’s all tackle those in need of housing rather than tackle the cause of the problems in housing. FFG policy and support of vulture/ cuckoo funds and developers over citizens needs.

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    Mute RogerRamjet
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    Jul 10th 2021, 10:22 AM

    @Charliegrl80: where am I blaming people on lower income? You can work and do, I’ve no issue with you getting access to housing. It’s the people who get handouts including housing and have no intention of doing an honest days work (but are well capable of doing it) or contributing to society I’m talking about.

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    Mute Charliegrl80
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    Jul 10th 2021, 4:43 PM

    @RogerRamjet: There are many different kinds of welfare allowance in Ireland from the state pension down to jobseekers including the many people that lost jobs and some lost their homes during the down turn that are now aged out of employment and through no fault of their own have to stay on one of the most degrading payments in the state “jobseekers” if they take two weeks work they are cut off that payment and will go through hell to get it back. Yes there are a few people that don’t work but it’s a very tiny fraction of people claiming welfare and these people should be helped back on their feet by education and somebody actually giving a dam you see many of these people outside the court houses of this country every week for mainly drug related issues. Until this country tackles our massive drug problem these issues will never go away as they go hand in hand. Please do not blame people down on their luck because of circumstances in their lives and put the blame where is needs to be and that’s the housing crisis created by greed and the policies of the current and past governments as they are continually selling the family silver!

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    Mute Bleurgh
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    Jul 10th 2021, 8:02 AM

    Can someone give the exact number of houses that were bought under REITS/bulk buy/cookoo funds in last few years? As in a percentage of houses bought???

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    Mute Daniel Murray
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    Jul 10th 2021, 9:29 AM

    Can someone far more informed than me on this matter explain why we can’t temporarily ban bulk buying of houses entirely during a housing crisis? Make it mandatory that you can only own one or max two houses? Maybe that violates EU or WTO agreements? The government seems perfectly content to get fined for breaking emissions targets by completely failing on climate change and isn’t out VRT straight up illegal?

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    Mute Ilarion Cibu
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    Jul 10th 2021, 9:37 AM

    @Daniel Murray: government is being fined by EU for breaking violations with our huge money making scam – VRT.
    But they make far,far more from VRT than the EU fines us.

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    Mute Gerard Heery
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    Jul 10th 2021, 9:31 AM

    Greed and high cost of living in this small little sod run by self serving goombeen men in suits ,remove these three ! problem solved and therefore it will never be solved it’s our culture now

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    Mute Kenneth O' Connor
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    Jul 10th 2021, 8:11 AM

    Excellent piece Conal!!!

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    Mute Goran Josifov
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    Jul 10th 2021, 10:59 AM

    So many different institutions and bodies to deal with the housing crisis, but house prices continue to rise and are getting more and more unaffordable. One could come to the conclusion that the goal of all those bodies (quite a few created in the last several years) isn’t to tackle housing crisis or make houses more affordable, despite what is publicly declared, but quite the opposite. As if they’re there to put the veil over people’s eyes that they’re doing something, but in reality the measures they’re bringing forth do not give the desired outcome. So something is more than just rotten in the spiderly interconnected housing industry (government, city councils, developers, different type of funds mentioned in the article, emergency accommodation providers, homelessness etc).

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    Mute Den Sullivan
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    Jul 10th 2021, 12:38 PM

    If you put government in charge of the supply your bread you will soon want for bread. It’s nature of the beast

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    Mute Neuville-Kepler62F
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    Jul 10th 2021, 11:45 PM

    Fianna Fail: 4.9% of the electorate want them in power but they are still “in power”!

    The only way to put citizens in power and in control of Housing for the benefit of citizens and not “others” is a Referendum.

    https://www.change.org/p/irish-referendum-on-family-home-special-status

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    Mute Oisin O'Connell
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    Jul 17th 2021, 2:51 PM

    The article misses the Bank influence and mortgages in low supply and demand; if supply of housing too low prices of property are set by the Banks and both the duration of mortgages and max amount they will pay out; USA even worse re duration eg 90 yr second geberation mortgages; the benefit in USA is bank takes responsibility so if you decide you cannot pay your mortgage you can return the house keys to banks and its their problem not yours; so ling as bank gives out outrageous mortgages and longer durations and vultures funds own properties to let then Ireland is fubbered

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