Donald Trump returned to Washington, D.C. on Tuesday for the first time since leaving the White House.
He came to deliver a keynote address at a summit hosted by America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank founded by staffers from the former president’s administration.
The speech serves as a vision, for what a Trump 2024 platform might be, delivered even as Trump has not officially announced whether he plans to launch another campaign.
This will be 76-year-old Trump’s first return to D.C. since leaving in January 2021, shortly after he lost the election to Joe Biden and after a crowd of his supporters breached the U.S. Capitol, a scene that turned deadly and led to his second impeachment.
Former Republican House speaker and Trump ally Newt Gingrich said, “It’s an opportunity for President Trump to come to Washington and give a visionary speech about why the future would be better with his leadership and to the degree he focuses on that it could be a very important speech.”
Trump’s return to Washington comes amid a House select committee’s investigation of the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Among the many revelations of the hearings so far have been that Trump told advisers he did not want to say “the election’s over” in a video message he recorded as the riots unfolded.
Testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson alleged that Trump was aware his supporters were armed in D.C. on Jan. 6, and that he lunged at a member of his own Secret Service detail in the car in an attempt to reach the Capitol that day.
Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair, said there will be more hearings in September after investigators spend August pursuing emerging information on multiple fronts.
While Trump hasn’t officially announced a 2024 campaign, the former president has openly flirted with the idea, and began hinting about a return to the White House almost as soon as he left, including in a July 1, 2021, interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, when he said “yes” when asked whether he had made a decision regarding a 2024 campaign.
A year later, in July 2022, Trump told a reporter for New York magazine, “In my own mind, I’ve already made that decision, so nothing factors in anymore.”
They are labeled ultra conservative since they still believe in the constitution.