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Mike Lindell claims Ron DeSantis will endorse Donald Trump after Mar-a-Lago announcement
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Donald Trump teased a “big announcement” at Mar-a-Lago - and he delivered on Tuesday night.
Firing the starting pistol on his third presidential run, he shrugged off mid-term results that were lackluster for MAGA candidates and announced that he is the man to lead America.
Moments before he took the stage, it emerged that he'd filed paperwork for a presidential run that will grip a divided nation.
The run for office isn’t a huge surprise; in recent days he said that he would “very, very, very probably” run again and would be setting out his intentions “very, very soon.”
Republican officials had urged him to wait until after the midterms to launch his campaign, partly to avoid turning the election into a referendum on him.
Despite him holding back, many on the right have pinned the blame on Mr Trump for a rather meh midterm performance by Republicans - as some continued to urge him to hold off announcing even longer, as there’s still a senate run-off to take place in Georgia.
Trump began his remarks by saying: “Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, and my fellow citizens, America’s comeback starts right now.”
He claims that before the 2020 election the US was on the cusp of a “golden age”.
Unsurprisingly, reaction on social media was swift.
The account that tracks everyone who has been outlived by Liza Minnelli acknowledged that, unfortunately, she has outlived the relative safety of American democracy.
Some people chose to watch far-fetched sci-fi movies, expecting more of a dose of reality than you'd find at a Trump rally
The never-ending election denier has, ultimately, had to admit that he lost in 2020 - as you can't run for a third term in America.
Dave Rubin went for the low-hanging (orange) fruit, mocking his glow
The Lincoln Project - an anti-Trump campaign group that became the bane of his existence in 2020 - quickly counter-punched
One person pointed out that rather than being a big political story, it should be covered by newspapers' crime desks
Some people were stunned that he ... said he saved lives during Covid?
For a guy who boasts about his energy ... this was very low
Perhaps some terrible speechwriters are to blame
Some fans hoped he'd end his speech with the ultimate sign-off ... that he's returning to Twitter now that Elon Musk is CEO
NPR published the news with an absolute mic-drop Twitter post
It was quite satisfying to see even Fox News cut away from the speech
Somehow it then got weirder
Trump has never been great with logic
One pundit summed up the grim tone of the whole event with a proposal for a new slogan
Given his racially charged rhetoric at times, it was a relief to see how this tweet ended
The parody New York Times Pitchbot account - which mocks the even-handedness of the news organisation even in the face of endless Trump scandals, also piled in with snark
The former White House Press Secretary poured cold water on Republican hopes it could ice some tricky legal investigations
Hilariously, and tragically, Trump is still playing the victim
Ultimately, it's the same chaotic Trump
Trump will likely face an uphill struggle to win over moderate Republicans and independents going forward - with even former Vice President Mike Pence warning: “We’ll have better choices in the future.”
He's already started firing shots at his likely 2024 primary rival, Ron DeSantis.
Trump has $69m (nice) in his war chest raised through his leadership PAC, but that legally cannot be converted into campaign funds.
However, Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center, told Business Insider that he could likely transfer the money to his super PAC called MAGA Inc.
Whatever he does, he doesn't seem to have changed - even though he's no longer on Twitter, he's still pushing the same tired storylines over on his own social media site Truth Social.
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