Former President Donald Trump said he’s planning a “big political speech” on Thursday in a sign that he is ramping up his 2024 campaign.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump announced his plans. The former president did not elaborate on what the speech would be about but responded to reports claiming that his presidential campaign is off to a lackluster start.
Without elaborating when he would give the speech, Trump added that he’s giving the address at the Trump Doral resort in Miami, Florida.
After a Nov. 15 announcement confirming he would run for president a third time, Trump has increasingly faced criticism from GOP figures. Some have blamed the former president for Republicans’ poorer-than-anticipated midterm results, namely Trump-backed Senate candidates like Dr. Mehmet Oz, Don Bolduc, Blake Masters, and others.
Trump may also face his stiffest Republican challenge yet from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has not publicly indicated whether he will run for president in 2024. There has been rampant speculation about whether the governor—considered by many to be a rising GOP star—would join the race, while some opinion polls have shown Trump and DeSantis are close.
During a recent interview, Trump said that DeSantis running would be a “bad move” for the Florida Republican. “So you know, now I hear he might want to run against me. So we’ll handle that the way I handle things,” Trump said, adding that his endorsement of DeSantis in 2018 led to him being elected governor; DeSantis won his reelection by about 20 points.
More Signs of Activity
In another sign of a ramped-up campaign, the former president said Wednesday he is aiming to reinstate his Facebook account after it was banned in January 2021. In an interview with Fox News, Trump declared that Facebook, owned by Meta, “needs us more than we need them.”The Mark Zuckerberg-operated Meta “lost $700 billion since I was de-platformed,” Trump said, referring to significant stock losses that the Menlo Park, California-based firm took in recent months. The former president, whose account was reinstalled on Twitter in late 2022, said that social media platforms that banned him all suffered losses.
“It has been considered a major business mistake for them, Twitter, and others,” Trump said of his deplatforming. “If they took us back, it would help them greatly, and that’s okay with me,” Trump added.
In late 2021, Zuckerberg announced the formation of Meta, which oversees Facebook, Instagram, and other social media ventures, while also announcing the Metaverse. Analysts say that the Metaverse and rebranding haven’t panned out, while Meta recently announced it would terminate more than 11,000 jobs due to poorer-than-anticipated earnings and dim U.S. economic forecasts.
Reports indicated that Facebook was Trump’s main vehicle for digital fundraising during his 2020 campaign. If he had full access to his accounts, he would again be able to solicit donations.
“We’ll have to see what happens,” Harrington said, while touting the Trump-owned Truth Social. “I’m not here to make any announcement as of yet.”
Harrington added: “We do know that Truth Social is doing incredibly well ... there’s no shadow banning, there’s no censorship, there’s really hardly any bots on the platform. It’s a great platform for free speech. But we will see if [Trump is] going to return to Twitter and use it as an asset for the campaign.”
