American sequel: Trump announces 2024 bid despite possible criminal indictments

Donald Trump has announced he will run for the United States presidency again in 2024, despite facing multiple criminal investigations and the poor performance of the candidates he backed in last week’s midterm elections.

Trump launched the bid — his third for the presidency — on Tuesday evening at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, a week after midterms elections in which Republicans failed to win as many seats in Congress as they had hoped.

Trump spoke to hundreds of supporters in a ballroom decorated lined with dozens of American flags, in a live broadcast. “In order to make America great again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” the 76-year-old told the cheering crowd of donors and longtime supporters.

“I am running because I believe the world has not yet seen the true glory of what this nation can be,” he said. “We will again put America first,” he added.

There is a long road ahead before the Republican presidential nominee is formally selected in the US summer of 2024, with the first state-level contests more than a year away.

Trump’s unusually early launch may well be aimed at fending off potential challengers for the party’s nomination, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, 44, and Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, 63.

Trump was twice impeached during his last term as president.

And the candidates he elevated during this year’s primaries lost the midterms election, allowing Democrats to keep the Senate, the upper house of Congress. Prominent Republicans blamed Trump for promoting weak candidates.

He also faces possible indictments in a series of escalating criminal investigations: one of them is a probe into dozens of classified documents seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago, as well as ongoing state and federal inquiries into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

He is also facing the congressinal subpoena on his role in the 6 January, 2021 attak on the US Capitol by his supporters.

Trump’s presidential bid paves the way for a potential rematch with Biden, who has said he intends to run for re-election despite concerns from some in his party over his age and low approval ratings.

The two men were already the oldest presidential nominees ever when they fought the 2020 campaign. Trump, who is 76, would be 82 at the end of a second term in 2029. Biden, who is about to turn 80, would be 86.

Trump lost by three million votes in 2016 but won the electoral college. In 2020 he lost by seven million in 2020.