Former President Donald Trump rejected the idea of starting a third political party and instead teased the idea of a 2024 run in a speech Sunday at a conservative conference CPAC.
“I am not starting a new party. That was fake news, no,” Trump told supporters minutes into his speech that closed the four-day Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida. “Wouldn’t that be brilliant? Let’s start a new party and let’s divide our vote so that you will never win. No, we’re not interested in that.”
Trump rattled off the accomplishments of his term in the White House, repeated his claim that he won the 2020 election and added, “Who knows? I may even decide to beat them a third time.”
The speech to CPAC was Trump’s first public appearance since he left office 39 days ago. Since then, he’s kept an uncharacteristically low profile, hampered in large part because he is banned from Twitter and Facebook in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol that led to his impeachment and subsequent acquittal in the Senate.