Sunday, February 28 Former President Donald J. Trump gathered in Orlando, Florida to deliver his first address to his supporters since his presidency, at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Highly regarded Republican politicians such as Texas senator, Ted Cruz and Ron DeSantis also spoke at the CPAC event along with many other prominent conservatives. 

Former President Trump spoke for almost an hour and a half to an enthusiastic ‘pro-Trump’ crowd that showed their emphatic love for the Former President. The crowd was fully engaged for the entirety of the speech as Trump tore into the current Biden administration. 

During his introduction, Trump recalled his journey during his presidency saying, “there’s never been a journey so successful, we began it together four years ago, and it is far from being over.” 

Many Republicans are desperately hoping the Former President runs again in 2024, and they have already shown in polls that they would support Trump, if he were to win the Republican nomination. 

This speech by Donald Trump wasn’t about the past though, as Trump gave his insight on how he thought the Biden administration had done in their first month in office, saying, “Joe Biden has had the most disastrous first month of any president in modern history.” During his first month, Joe Biden has practically reversed a large portion of what Trump worked towards during his four years in office. Trump, called the new administration “anti-jobs, anti-families, anti-border, anti-energy, anti-women and anti-science.”

Trump briefly spoke on how Biden had already cancelled the Keystone XL Pipeline, costing twelve-thousand plus Americans solid, paying jobs. Americans lost approximately $2 billion dollars in pipeline wages. The pipeline jobs were extremely valuable to those workers, providing for their families during the pandemic. 

A big talking point for Trump was Biden’s newly implemented “open-border” policy. Many Republicans couldn’t help but see the hypocrisy between the Trump and Biden administrations. Sean Hannity commented on Biden’s “open-border” policy, saying, “That [illegal border crossing] is forcing the Biden administration to open an emergency facility for kids, or as the media mob used to call it under Donald Trump, kids in cages.” 

Donald Trump hammered Biden on his “open-border” policy by saying, “By recklessly eliminating our border, security measures, controls, all the things we put into place, Joe Biden has triggered a massive flood of illegal immigration into our country like we’ve never seen before.” Trump spent a great deal of his time in office fousing on limiting illegal immigration. 

During Barack Obama’s second term, a border crisis was declared in 2014. According to NPR, more than 60,000 unaccompanied children arrived at the southern border in 2014, most from the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. 

Current Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas was questioned during a White House press briefing on whether or not there was a crisis at the border. Mayorkas acknowledged there was a ‘challenge’ at the border, but insisted that the situation was under control. Mayorkas said, “The men and women of the Department of Homeland Security are working around the clock, seven days a week to ensure that we do not have a crisis at the border—that we manage the challenge, as acute as the challenge is.” 

Former President Donald Trump was very passionate regarding the reopening of schools across the nation, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the speech, Trump said, “The Democrats now say we have to pass their $1.9 trillion boondoggle to open schools, but a very small part of it has to do with that. You know where it’s going — it’s going to bailout badly-run Democrat cities, so much of it.” The Democrats are asking for nearly 2 trillion dollars to reopen schools in many metropolitan areas, but many conservatives think that it is extremely ludacris to ask for such a massive amount of money. 

Many advocates for the continued closure of schools have been proven to be working for their own agenda. Matt Meyer, the Berkeley Federation of Teachers’ president was caught on video taking his two year old daughter to a Bay Area preschool while continuing to deem schools ‘unsafe’ to reopen. The hypocrisy shown by teachers unions all across the country is deeply divisive and contradictory to their own beliefs. 

Lastly, Donald Trump reinvigorated hope within the Republican party, stating that there was still a chance that he would make a presidential run in 2024. He also cleared up all misconceptions speculating that he would start a third party. He ended his speech hammering home that the Republicans would unite and do well in the upcoming 2022 and 2024.