From our correspondent
Oxon (Maryland) — Even if indicted, Donald Trump he will continue to run for the White House. The former president announced it to his supporters during the Conservative Political Action Conference, just outside Washington. “Absolutely, I wouldn’t even think for a moment of giving up.” The annual CPAC, the conservative conference — less crowded than in the past and whose organizer Matt Schlapp is accused of sexual harassment — was a trumpet love party. On stage, before the former president, his family members marched, parliamentarians such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, allies such as Jair Bolsonaro and Nigel Farage. When Nikki Haley,, the former Trump ambassador to the UN who now wants to become president, as she left the conference room she stopped to take selfies with fans, she was surrounded by activists. TO”We want Trump! We want Trump!TO”. They chased her to the elevator. The half-empty room was silent when Haley — who proposed a test of mental competence for over-75s like Biden and Trump — said: “America has not passed its prime, its politicians have” . Mike Pompeo, Trump’s former secretary of state and another potential challenger, was more careful not to appear disloyal in his speech and after applause fled from a private exit. The youngest candidate for the Republican nomination, the 37-year-old entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, an Indian-American (like Haley) and author of the bestseller Woke Inc., is equally cautious at a party in his suite: “I would hire Trump as an adviser”, we he says (many imagine him a future minister of Trump or DeSantis).
The survey
A poll conducted last night among activists gave Trump a 62% of preferences against Ron DeSantis at 20%, but he was absent. And in private conversations even some ardent supporters of the former president reveal uncertainty about the possibility that their leader can regain the White House. Several admit that they also wanted the governor of Florida here, who instead went to a meeting of donors of the powerful Club for Growth in Palm Beach where Trump was not invited. Jock Gearhart, Vietnam veteran (and Cpac: he saw Reagan in 1974), paid three thousand dollars for his pass. Over a gin and tonic, he explains that he fears that the Republican electorate will split. His solution would be for Trump to withdraw “as a patriot”.
The Bannon Show
In an America that feels in decline, the right blames leftist politicians (and corporations) abandoning Western values; there are those who ask for a “divorce” between “red” and “blue” states, those who wish for a “national rebirth”. Trump, speaking in closing, swears that he will oust Joe Biden from the White House, defined as a “criminal” as his son Hunter and also lashes out against the Republican party: “It was dominated by freaks, neocons, globalists and idiots. We will not go back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove and Jeb Bush!». The great enemy is China: “God bless them if the Ukrainians want to take back the Crimea but Europe pays,” Steve Bannon sings. TO”Do you want to send your sons to fight for Zelensky?’ ‘Nooo,’ replies the crowd. “Our borders first, we will defend our borders first of all,” says Trump, echoing the slogan “America First”. He criticizes NATO on Ukraine: put in as much money as the USA. Then he promises:  «I will end the war in one dayI’ll get along with Putin.’
Brothers of Italy
Nicola Procaccini, MEP of the Brothers of Italy, at the head of about 40 delegates of the group of Conservatives and Reformists (Ecr), tells us that on the theme of values there is harmony, less on isolationism in foreign policy. But the MEPs also met, outside the Cpac, the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation. They welcomed them “with the double flag on their chests, American and Ukrainian†.
I «traditori»
The “betrayal” of Fox News is a problem. The right-wing TV this year does not finance the event, others such as the «New Federal State of China» founded by Bannon with the billionaire Guo Wengui who three years ago signed in blood the declaration of intent against the Chinese Communist Party. Bannon attacks the Murdochs more than Biden, accusing them of having “illegitimately” declared the former president’s defeat in 2020 and of no longer giving him space. Right-wing networks like Newsmax don’t have the clout of Fox. “The Murdochs must follow him. We need to hear Trump’s voice.”