Ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the national GOP spotlight, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday he would “absolutely” support the former president if he became the GOP presidential nominee in 2024.
While McConnell maintained the 2024 presidential election cycle would be a “wide-open race,” when pressed by Fox News’ Bret Baier about supporting Trump if he captured the Republican nomination, McConnell offered, “The nominee of the party? Absolutely.”
Trump is set to deliver the closing speech of the Conservative Political Action Conference, which began Thursday and ends Sunday in Orlando, Florida. The speech marks Trump’s first public appearance since leaving the White House on Jan. 20, the same day President Joe Biden was inaugurated as the nation’s 46th president.
The theme of this year’s CPAC conference is “America Uncancelled.” McConnell, the Senate’s Republican leader, was not invited to this year’s event. Former Vice President Mike Pence also declined an invitation to speak as he plans to step away from the public stage for the next several months.
The annual conference draws thousands of conservative activists from across the country, and the speaker list is usually a useful clue to demonstrate what politicians harbor presidential ambitions.
“Leader McConnell did a great job confirming judges, and we know he will be a strong supporter of restoring appropriate election laws. Next year would be a better year for him to address the improvements to election laws once the states have time to act,” said Dan Schneider, executive director of the American Conservative Union, which puts on the event.
If McConnell were to show up on the CPAC stage, he would risk being met by a hostile audience, given the group’s loyalty to Trump. While McConnell voted to acquit Trump of inciting the insurrection in his second impeachment trial this month, the Kentuckian said the former president was morally responsible for the rampage and could be held criminally or civilly liable.
“There’s always tension between the grassroots and the establishment. That’s part of the history of this thing,” a CPAC source told McClatchy News Service, adding the change of location from the D.C. Beltway to Florida will make the crowd more inherently conservative and pro-Trump. “You’re not going to have the swampy set.”
“Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell said after Trump’s historic second impeachment.
In response, Trump ripped McConnell in a lengthy statement, calling him “a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack.”
The potential 2024 aspirant lineup is already long, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Rick Scott of Florida.
But the main event will be Trump’s return to the public foray Sunday, where he is expected to address an array of topics since being de-platformed from his social media accounts in January.
A new poll from The Economist/YouGov this week showed how much power Trump still wields over his party. Forty-eight percent of Republicans said they wouldn’t vote for a candidate who has been critical of Trump, and 61% said they’d be more likely to vote for a candidate with Trump’s endorsement.
“I’m pretty sure he will win the nomination,” U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney told The New York Times. “I look at the polls and the polls show that, among the names being floated as potential contenders in 2024, if you put President Trump in there among Republicans, he wins in a landslide.”
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