Donald Trump Says He Won't Form His Own Political Party During CPAC Speech, Teases 2024 Run

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Donald Trump dispelled rumors that he would start a third party outside of the GOP during his CPAC speech on Sunday.

The former president said he’s behind the Republican Party, the same one that the one-time political outsider dominated to become the 45th president of the United States. Though Trump has run in other elections as an independent, he plans to dance with the ones that brought him in any potential future runs for office.

“I am not starting a new party. That was fake news,” he said, in front of the crowd gathered in Orlando for the conservative convention. “The brave Republicans in this room will be at the heart of the effort to oppose the radical Democrats, the fake news media, and their toxic cancel culture.”

He also noted that a third-party could only harm his political goals. To the approval of the crowd, Trump said he could only see a third-party run benefiting his political opponents by splitting the vote of the right-wing.

“We’re not starting new parties. You know, they kept saying, ‘He’s going to start a brand new party.’ We have the Republican Party,” he said.

Perhaps the biggest applause of the speech, which widely focused on immigration policy and slamming the first month of the Joe Biden presidency, came after Trump teased a run in the next presidential election. After walking back to his famous campaign announcement speech from 2016, Trump said he might throw his hat in for another contest, one he said the Democrats would “lose decisively.” At the same time, Trump implied the previous election was stolen from him, the animating concern behind the Capitol riots of January 6.

“You know, they just lost the White House. But it’s one of those things,” he said. “Who knows? I might even decide to beat them for a third time.” It was one of many instances in which Trump continued to push the lie that the election was stolen from him.