(CNN) Former president Donald Trump said Saturday that he would not drop out of the 2024 presidential race if he is indicted in any of the federal and state investigations he faces.
“I’m not thinking about leaving,” Trump told reporters at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, where attendees named him their preferred presidential candidate before he took the stage.
Trump is facing multiple investigations that include many criminal inquiries. Prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, are investigating an effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia, while the US Department of Justice is investigating the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 , 2021, as well as Trump’s handling of classified material after he left office.
Trump has remained defiant in the face of ongoing investigations and on Saturday argued that “they are taking advantage of our country’s justice.”
Trump refused to commit to supporting the 2024 Republican nominee if he wasn’t, and on Saturday also said he hadn’t decided whether he would sign the pledge of allegiance that Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel asked GOP 2024 candidates to join. debate.
“There are probably people I’m not too happy to endorse running, so we’ll see. I think some of them – I won’t use names, I don’t want to insult anyone – but some of them , I’m not happy,” Trump said.
During his speech at CPAC on Saturday, Trump said Republicans need to “change our thinking” on early and mail-in voting after the GOP’s losses in 2020 and 2022 — a dramatic shift. after years of lies about fraudulent voting forms.
Trump said progressive Republicans should try to “beat Democrats at their own game.”
“That means swamping the left with mail-in votes, early votes and Election Day votes,” he said.
What Trump didn’t mention: Republicans have long excelled at tactics. But he has spent years trying to convince conservatives that early and mail-in votes are unreliable, giving Democrats a huge advantage that President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory showed and the bad Republicans’ showing in last year’s midterm elections.
He cited Kari Lake, the Republican who lost the governor’s race in Arizona. Printer errors led to delays in some parts of Maricopa County on Election Day. All voters’ ballots are finally counted. Trump — while exaggerating the problems — said some Lake supporters didn’t wait in longer than expected lines, costing him votes.
“We have to change our thinking, because bad things are happening,” he said.
His remarks came during a nearly two-hour speech at CPAC in which he made the case that he could deliver conservative “revenge” against both Democrats and Republicans. His remarks concluded the abbreviated CPAC gathering, held at a Maryland convention center outside Washington, DC, as the 2024 presidential race began to take shape and several high-profile Republicans ready in their bids to block Trump from winning the party’s nomination for. third consecutive cycle.
Trump has said he will lead the GOP toward a more isolationist posture — a position that puts him at odds with his former ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, who has already launched her 2024 bid, and several others. other potential Republican presidential candidates.
“We’re not going back to a party that wants to give us unlimited money to fight endless foreign wars but demands that we cut veterans’ benefits and retirement benefits at home,” he said. Trump.
He stated that Biden is leading the country into “oblivion” and that other Republicans cannot correct course.
“I’m the only candidate who can make this promise: I will prevent World War III,” Trump said.
He took aim at several specific Republicans, telling the CPAC crowd that the GOP is “not going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove and Jeb Bush,” referring to the former House speaker, former George W. Bush aide and former governor of Florida . He also criticized Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney by name.
Trump also suggested — as Biden said in his State of the Union speech — that some Republicans are arguing for Social Security and Medicare reforms as part of efforts to cut spending and reform government. .
“We’re not going to go back to people who want to destroy our good Social Security system — even some in our own party; I wonder who that is — who want to raise the minimum age for Social Security to 70 , 75 or even 80 in some cases, and who wants to cut Medicare to an unrecognizable level,” he said.
Trump is popular at the annual conservative gathering. He was the first choice of 62% of CPAC attendees who were asked who they wanted to be the GOP nominee in 2024. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who did not attend this year’s event, finished second with 20% support. The straw poll is not a scientific survey and is not representative of the broader GOP electorate, as it is limited to CPAC attendees.
Trump has promised to purge the government of “entrenched political dynasties in both parties.”
“In 2016, I declared: I am your voice. Now, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been hurt and betrayed: I am your punishment,” said Trump. “I will not allow this to happen. … I will completely wipe out the deep state. I will remove the unelected bureaucrats and shadow forces that have weaponized our justice system as it has never been. weapon before. And I will bring the people back. again to this country.”
Trump’s comments targeting transgender people seemed to get the most applause on Saturday. He said he would sign a measure to “ban child sexual mutilation in all 50 states,” and said he would “keep boys out of women’s sports.”
Trump admitted that the country, as he sees it, will be “lost forever” if he does not win in 2024.
“This is the last war — they know it, I know it, you know it, everybody knows it. Either they win, or we win. And I promise you this: If you give back I’m in the White House, their reign will end, and America will be a free nation again,” Trump said.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.