Trump set to announce his candidacy for 2024 presidential run amid stiff opposition from GOP

Washington, Nov 15 (IANS) Former US President Donald Trump has always proved he is impetuous and is determined to announce his bid for the Presidential run for 2024 on Tuesday night despite stiff opposition from a strong section of the Republican party who are thinking of other candidates to back.

Trump had said at the start of polling on November 8 midterms he would make an important announcement on November 15. But the Republicans are thinking in terms of Ron DeSantis, the Florida hero, and former VP Mike Pence with his own plans for a run, embittered by Trump calling him a "wimp".

Trump called Pence a wimp when he refused to use his powers to bar certifying Joe Biden as the President in the 2020 elections.

Pence, whose life was threatened by rioters in the January 6 uprising at Capitol Hill, recently told ABC News there will be "better choices" than the former President.

He admitted he himself is considering a 2024 bid of his own but demonstrated no commitment so far towards this objective. In the midterm election, he has campaigned with several GOP candidates not chosen by Trump but opposed by his candidates.

DeSantis, despite enjoying the moment of his glory in Florida, has been careful not to make any statement even as some Trump supporters pulled out his old statements swearing his loyalty to the ex-President. Laura Trump, younger daughter of Trump, has supported her father in daring DeSantis to oppose the ex-President in the GOP primaries.

Most donors are shying away from Trump and even the Republic National Convention does not want to bet on the horse that lost them so many seats in both the Senate and House badly, yet Trump is wanting to announce his bid for 2024 without any commitment to pull any money out of his much touted $93 million war chest, aggregated through his Save America and Make America Great Again (MAGA) campaign, media reports said.

Trump is upping the ante with his supporters. He wrote on his Truth Social that "Hopefully, tomorrow will turn out to be one of the most important days in the history of our country". He is expected to make the announcement at 9 p.m. EST from his Mar-A-Lago residence in Florida.

The twice impeached former President has not responded to the subpoena to give testimony before the house congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack. Celebrated New York Times columnist and former New York Post correspondent Maggie Haberman, who interviewed him a number of times, observed that being President makes Trump feel powerful, important and insulated against the legal troubles he is facing. That's why he is determined to run, she has said.

Trump has also sought to distance himself from the humiliating defeats of his preferred candidates in the race to the Senate and the House and chose to raise the bar on his onslaught against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who he had accused of colluding with the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, of the Democrats, to defeat his candidates.

Republican Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has said that Trump has cost the GOP the last three elections and should sit out 2024 as he apportioned a large part of the blame to Trump for the party's disappointing performance in the midterms.

Trump's niece Mary Trump has warned that the former President is at his "most dangerous" when on the back foot, as he is poised to announce his much-anticipated 2024 presidential run. She told MSNBC that it won't be so easy for Republicans to walk away from Trump even as his value to the party is being openly questioned after the poor show in the midterms.

"Donald becomes most dangerous when he fears loss of relevance, when he fears that he is no longer the centre of attention, when he fears that he is no longer the one in control," she said. She alleged that Trump would go to any extent to use the information he has against his opponents in the party, and had indicated this in the 2020 elections itself.

"Donald will burn everything down if he feels like he is going down. We cannot discount that. We ignore him at our peril," she was quoted by MSNBC as saying.

Mo Brooks, a former ally of Trump and who whipped up a crowd at the 6 January rally with his fiery rhetoric, has now described the former President as a "dishonest, disloyal, incompetent (and) crude" politician.