Donald Trump announces 2024 US presidential run; Biden says he 'failed America'

Former US President Donald Trump said Tuesday (November 15) that he will mount a third White House campaign, launching an early start to the 2024 contest.

The announcement comes just a week after an underwhelming midterm showing for Republicans and will force the party to decide whether to embrace a candidate whose refusal to accept defeat in 2020 pushed American democracy to the brink.

“In order to make America great and glorious again. I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump said to an audience of several hundred supporters, club members and gathered press in a chandeliered ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, where he stood flanked by more than 30 American flags and banners that read, “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

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Trump enters the race in a moment of political vulnerability. He hoped to launch his campaign in the wake of resounding GOP midterm victories, fueled by candidates he elevated during this year’s primaries.

Instead, many of those candidates lost, allowing Democrats to keep the Senate and leaving the GOP with a path to only a bare majority in the House.

Far from the undisputed leader of the party, Trump is now facing criticism from some of his own allies, who say its time for Republicans to look to the future, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis emerging as an early favorite White House contender.

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The former president is still popular with the GOP base. But other Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence, are taking increasingly public steps toward campaigns of their own, raising the prospect that Trump will have to navigate a competitive GOP primary.

He’s launching his candidacy amid a series of escalating criminal investigations, including several that could lead to indictments. They include the probe into dozens of documents with classified markings that were seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago and ongoing state and federal inquiries into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

After Trump’s announcement came, US President Joe Biden wrote on Twitter with a video of Trump, “Donald Trump failed America.”

(With agency inputs)