Trump announces 2024 presidential bid

Former President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday night he is running for president again in 2024.

In a speech delivered at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trump said the "country is being destroyed before your very eyes," and he believes this campaign will "unify people." He's certain that voters will "overwhelmingly" embrace his platform of "national greatness and glory to America," he said, and spoke about his four years in office, including his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, in glowing terms.

Before declaring his run, the twice-impeached Trump dismissed the Biden administration and called the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan "perhaps the most embarrassing moment in our history." He also downplayed climate change and gave false statistics about rising sea levels, saying nuclear war is a more pressing matter, and claimed the Russian invasion of Ukraine "never would have happened" if he were president. People, he added, "are going absolutely wild and crazy."

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Trump briefly touched on the midterm election results, an underwhelming event for Republicans and Trump-endorsed candidates especially, and claimed he told Republicans it was fine to only win the House by six seats. He said he believes the country will be in such bad shape by 2024 that "voting will be much different," but also looked to the past, suggesting without evidence that China interfered in the 2020 election to help President Biden.

Several advisers told Trump ahead of Tuesday he should hold off on making his presidential announcement until after the Georgia Senate runoff on Dec. 6. Trump did mention the Republican candidate Herschel Walker, a longtime friend of his, and encouraged people to vote for him.

Right before he made his speech, Trump filed with the Federal Election Commission a statement of organization of the Donald J. Trump for President 2024 committee. This launch comes as Trump faces several criminal investigations, including probes into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia and his mishandling of classified documents he took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.