This Sunday Trump will deliver his first post-presidential speech at the conference, and his aides say he will use his words to reaffirm his power.
“Donald J. Trump is not going anywhere,” said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, one of several hopefuls for the presidential nomination in 2024 who spoke at the event, which is held this year in Orlando, Florida, to avoid restrictions. of the pandemic.
The show highlighted the furious division in the Republican ranks, where many traditional voices argue that the party must leave Trump behind to win back the suburban voters who deserted them in November and sent Joe Biden to the White House.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and others fear for the party’s political future if its conspiracy theories continue to dominate its political platform.
But at the conference, speakers continued to spread misinformation and conspiracy theories about the last election. Several panels were dedicated to repeating allegations of massive fraud dismissed by the courts, state electoral authorities and the Trump administration itself.
Federal authorities are investigating whether former Trump allies like Roger Stone and Alex Jones played a role in the violent assault on the Capitol, according to NBC News.
Sen. Josh Hawley, another 2024 contender, received huge applause and even a standing ovation when he bragged about challenging the election certification on Jan.6 despite the assault on Capitol Hill by Trump supporters trying to stop the process.
“It seemed to me that it was an important position that I had to defend,” he said.