US Celebration
“Three years from now, the United States will celebrate the biggest and most important milestone in our country’s history—250 years of American independence,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “That’s why as a nation we should be preparing for the most spectacular birthday party. We want to make it the best of all time.”“I will work with all 50 governors, Republican and Democrat alike, to create the Great American State Fair, a unique one-year exhibition featuring pavilions from all 50 states,” he said in a video, proposing a “legendary,” special “one-time festival” in Iowa.
“And finally, and most importantly, I will ask America’s great religious communities to pray for our nation and our people as we prepare for this momentous occasion,” Trump also remarked. “America has been a country sustained and strengthened by prayer and by our communities of faith as we chart a course toward the next 250 years. Let us come together and rededicate ourselves as one nation under God.”
The timing of Trump’s statement is no coincidence. The former president is traveling to Iowa for a tour of the state, which is important launching point during the 2024 Republican Party primary.
100 New US Attorneys
Wednesday’s proposal from Trump builds on the patriotic themes that he used during his 2016 campaign and administration. Trump in 2020 established the 1776 Commission dedicated to patriotic education and history lessons, countering the New York Times’s “1619 Project” that attempts to reframe the founding of America around slavery.“As we completely overhaul the federal Department of Justice and FBI, we will also launch sweeping civil rights investigations into Marxist local district attorneys,” Trump said in a video posted to his YouTube page, which was restored earlier this year after a two-year suspension. “And that’s what we have—they are Marxist in many cases.”
End Birthright Citizenship
This week, Trump also again vowed to issue an executive order to end birthright citizenship for children born to illegal immigrant parents. Several years ago, Trump signaled that he would issue the executive order, but some legal analysts have said that it would likely face significant legal challenges as birthright citizenship is essentially protected under the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment.Death Penalty for Drug Offenders
During his post-midterm announcement for president, Trump also proposed handing down the death penalty for some drug dealers and traffickers, arguing that such individuals are causing death and destructionCritical Race Theory
Trump in January also pledged to cut federal funding to schools that teach the controversial critical race theory along with curriculum around gender identity. While speaking in Davenport, Iowa, Trump promised to keep male transgender athletes out of girls’ sports and “bring back parental rights into our schools.”A policy plan also calls for opening new “civil rights investigations into any school district that has engaged in race-based discrimination.”
Jan. 6 Pardons
More than two years after the Capitol breach on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump said last month that he would pardon a range of individuals who were convicted and sentenced in connection to the incident. Those pardons, he said, will “be very early on” in his presidency.“I am inclined to pardon many of them,” Trump said at a town hall hosted by CNN last month. “I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control.”
Stop and Frisk
And Trump has also promised to have police departments around the United States implement the “stop-and-frisk” policy to detain and search civilians for contraband items and weapons. For years, New York City police departments used the police tactic, which has been described by a number of enforcement groups as an effective policy. A federal judge in 2013 deemed the policy unconstitutional.Freedom Cities
In possibly his most far-reaching proposal, Trump said he wanted to create a plan to come up with “freedom cities” on federal land and wanted to hold a contest to design 10 new cities built around “hives of industry.” He said the initiative would be a “quantum leap in the American standard of living.”Energy Dominance
Trump also said he would also “ unleash the production of domestic energy resources, reduce the soaring price of gasoline, diesel and natural gas, promote energy security for our friends around the world, eliminate the socialist Green New Deal, and ensure the United States is never again at the mercy of a foreign supplier of energy.”Crime
“There is no higher priority than quickly restoring law and order and public safety in America,” said his campaign website, adding that he will make a priority to “revitalize police departments and reclaim safety, dignity, and peace for law-abiding Americans. He will deliver record funding to hire and retrain police officers, strengthen qualified immunity and other protections for police officers, increase penalties for assaults on law enforcement, put violent offenders and career criminals behind bars, and surge federal prosecutors and the National Guard into high-crime communities.”Race Heating Up
Trump has also increased his criticism of Governor Ron DeSantis after the he officially announced his 2024 presidential bid last week, noting that some polls show DeSantis is trailing Trump by more than 30 percentage points. And this week, the former president highlighted a survey that shows Trump ahead of DeSantis by about 42 percentage points.Arguing that DeSantis lacks charisma, Trump has sought to cast DeSantis as disloyal after he endorsed him during his 2018 gubernatorial bid. DeSantis has started to push back against Trump’s claims, saying that the former president has too much baggage to win in 2024.
And polls have consistently shown that DeSantis is ahead of other Republican presidential candidates, including former U.N. ambassador and governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, radio host Larry Elder, and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson.
Former vice president Mike Pence is reportedly also slated to announced his presidential bid in the coming days, while reports have indicated that former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who had endorsed Trump and headed his transition planning team in 2016, will make an announcement on a possible 2024 run soon.
In the midst of the Trump criticism, DeSantis has appeared on Fox News multiple times for interviews about various subjects. That has also drawn the ire of Trump, who this week criticized former White House press secretary-turned-Fox host Kayleigh McEnany for focusing on DeSantis’s campaign.
