We’re closing the blog now, after a reasonably busy day in US politics.
Merrick Garland’s big NBC News interview is due at 6.30pm ET – here’s our story, which will develop, for those who want to carry on reading about whether Donald Trump will face criminal charges over January 6 and his attempt to overturn US democracy itself.
Otherwise, today saw:
- Trump return to Washington to deliver a 90-minute speech at the America First Agenda summit. He didn’t get so far as to announce a new White House run. See Richard’s blogging below and David Smith’s report on the speech to come.
- The New York Times reported more details of part of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the fake electors scheme.
- Mike Pence also gave a speech in Washington, in some mild sense dueling with his old boss and in some very mild sense rebuking him for fixating on the past.
- CNN reported that John Roberts, the chief justice, tried to persuade Brett Kavanaugh to help him stop the other conservatives on the supreme court overturning the right to an abortion – but it didn’t work.
- Nancy Pelosi’s mooted trip to Taiwan continued to cause all sorts of bother and headaches – and to attract Republican support.
The blog will be back tomorrow. Good night.
Updated
Trump teases 2024 White House run
Donald Trump on Tuesday dropped more hints that he will imminently announce a third run at the White House.
In a largely subdued, and scripted, 90-minute speech to the America First Agenda summit in Washington DC, his first visit to the capital since leaving office last year, Trump said it would be his “very great honor” to run again, and that if he didn’t “our nation is doomed”.
But he stopped short of outright declaring his candidacy, the former president mindful he is mired in legal and political jeopardy amid numerous investigations into the insurrection and attempt to stay in office following his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden.
Trump said he could not just sit at home while the “persecution” continued:
I can’t do that because I love our country. And I can’t do that because I love the people of our country. So I can’t do that. I wouldn’t do it, and people don’t want me to do it.
I’m not doing this for me because I had a very luxurious life. I had a very simple life. People say you sure you want to do this? But you know, there’s an expression. The best day of your life is the day before you run for president. And I laughed at it. I said that may be true, actually.
Trump’s speech was intended to be a laying out of Republican policy agenda for the November midterms and beyond, but it pivoted into a succession of familiar old Trump grievances, including attacks on Democrats over crime, immigration and the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
After an assault on the House panel investigating his illegal attempts to stay in office, Trump concluded:
If I don’t [run] our nation is doomed to become another Venezuela or become another Soviet Union.
Please look in later for my colleague David Smith’s account of Trump’s speech.
Updated
