Donald Trump announces he's running for president in 2024

• Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he's running for president again in 2024.
• It's Trump's third presidential run; he won his first race against Hillary Clinton in 2016 and lost to Joe Biden in 2020.

Donald Trump formally announced on Tuesday evening that he is running again for president, portraying a dark picture of President Joe Biden's America in what quickly became a meandering speech to kick off his comeback campaign.

Trump cast himself as the lone panacea to a long list of ills on a "quest to save our country." He was short on new policy pronouncements, reiterating past ideas of imposing the death penalty for drug dealers, promising full back-pay for any American servicemember who was kicked out due to vaccine mandates, support for term limits for members of Congress, and a lifetime ban on former lawmakers becoming lobbyists.

"America's comeback starts right now," Trump said during his speech.

"So from now until Election Day in 2024 ... I will fight like no one who has ever fought before," he added.

What was notable in Trump's just-over-an-hour speech is what he did not say. The former president did not attack Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or any of his potential future GOP primary foes by name. The closest he came to any criticism of any non-Democratic politician is when he warned that the task ahead is so great that only Trump himself fits the bill.

"Together, we will be taking on the most corrupt forces and entrenched interests imaginable," Trump said. "Our country is in a horrible state. We're in grave trouble. This is not a task for a politician or a conventional candidate this is a task for a great movement that embodies the courage, confidence, and spirit of the American people."

Trump described a nation of "blood-soaked" streets, an "erased" Southern border, and a "destroyed" economy. Of the upcoming holiday, Trump wished Americans "good luck getting a turkey during Thanksgiving."

Trump blames Biden for 'decline of America'

"America is mocked, derided, and brought to its knees, perhaps, like never before," he said, also describing the US as "failing" and "in decline."

The former president promised to "immediately tackle inflation" and restore the US economy to its pre-pandemic state, but he was short on specifics on how a renewed Trump administration would accomplish these tasks.

Trump repeatedly mocked Biden, suggesting that the commander-in-chief is feeble and unfit. The former president has never officially conceded his 2020 election defeat, continuing to tout a debunked denial of the results.

"The decline of America is being forced upon us by Biden and the radical left lunatics that are running our government right into the ground," Trump said.

Biden's team responded to Trump's announcement by pointing Americans to a new website that touts the Biden administration's accomplishments.

"Bored? A lot of people are. Read about @POTUS's high energy record!" White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates wrote on Twitter.

Trump appeared to try to stay on script on Tuesday evening, saying at one point that his announcement was "an elegant night and this is an elegant place." As time went on, though, Trump's speech became virtually inseparable from his long stem-winding political rally speeches that can go on for hours.

As the speech neared the one-hour mark, Trump began to abruptly jump topics from old grievances over the so-called "Steele dossier" to wanting to impose a federal limit on early voting. He then called for his son Eric to stand up, arguing that he has a "Ph.D. in subpoenas" due to the many prosecutors who have probed the Trump administration.

Multiple networks, including Fox News, began to give up on Trump's announcement and resumed regular programming before he was done speaking.

The twice-impeached former president won his first term in 2016 against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Now-President Joe Biden defeated Trump in 2020. Trump has repeatedly and falsely claimed that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen from him due to widespread voter fraud, claims that failed repeatedly in courts but that nonetheless helped incite the violent storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Trump's announcement comes two years before Election Day, and he is the first Republican to throw his hat into the ring. Just before his expected announcement, Trump filed his official paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission — such a step would meet the legal requirements of his comeback campaign.

Trump now enters the field as the presumptive frontrunner for the Republican nomination, with greater name recognition and a larger war chest than any of his potential rivals.

He also goes into the 2024 race facing more federal and state criminal investigations than his potential opponents, with prosecutors scrutinizing everything from his handling of highly sensitive government records to his role in the deadly January 6, 2021, insurrection.

Unlike most former presidents, who cede the spotlight to a new generation of successors after leaving the White House, Trump has sought to maintain control of his party apparatus while out of office and held rallies around the country, fueling expectations that the 76-year-old would run again.

The 'red wave' that wasn't

Trump's lavish Mar-a-Lago club in Florida became a mandatory campaign stop for Republican candidates seeking donations and support from the former president ahead of the 2022 midterms. He also handed out dozens of endorsements during the 2022 midterm cycle, playing kingmaker in key races like the battles for the Arizona, Ohio, and Pennsylvania US Senate seats.

Republicans saw the 2022 midterm elections as a prime opportunity to regain power in Washington, DC, especially as Biden's approval ratings remained underwater in most public polling this year. Conservatives sought to rally voters around issues including inflation and the record number of migrant apprehensions at the US-Mexico border. Most political observers had long predicted that a GOP-fueled "red wave" would elect dozens of new members of Congress — flipping the House and potentially the Senate — based on the precedent of a new president's first midterm election cycle being one where voters reject the commander-in-chief's political party and opt for the opposing party.

However, the wave never materialized, as Democrats retained their Senate majority and control of the House currently remains up in the air, a development that has stunned Republicans — who had hoped to use the midterms as a clarion call for reclaiming the White House in 2024. If Republicans eventually regain a House majority, it will be a slim one, which will present challenges for Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, a Trump ally who is poised make a bid to lead the chamber if the party claims at least 218 seats.

Many of Trump's endorsed candidates lost their general election races, including GOP secretary of state nominees Mark Finchem of Arizona, Kristina Karamo of Michigan, and Jim Marchant of Nevada, all of whom backed the former president's debunked claims about the 2020 election.

Trump-backed candidates Adam Laxalt of Nevada, Blake Masters of Arizona, and Mehmet Oz of Pennsylvania all lost their respective Senate races, dashing any hope of a Republican Senate majority in 2023.

Republican author JD Vance defeated Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan in the Ohio Senate race, but not before the GOP was forced to pour millions of dollars into the contest, diverting resources that could have been used for other races.

And the Georgia Senate race is headed to a December 6 runoff election, with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock edging out the Trump-backed GOP nominee, former NFL player Herschel Walker, on Election Day but falling just short of the 50% threshold required for victory. It is unclear what role, if any, Trump will play in the runoff, given that many Republicans still blame his involvement in last year's runoff races, featuring then-Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, for the party losing both seats.

Outgoing Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan — a potential 2024 GOP presidential contender — on Sunday criticized Trump's influence in the 2022 races, stating that the former president had become a drag on the party's efforts to elect more Republicans.

"I think it's basically the third election in a row that Donald Trump has cost us the race, and it's like three strikes, you're out," Hogan said during a CNN interview. "I'm tired of losing. I mean, that's all he's done."

Trump's candidacy would be highly unique

Trump's will-he-won't-he dynamic has shaped the Republican 2024 field, as allies and potential rising stars in the party waited to see what he would do.

Trump's presidency ended in a cacophony of partisan violence and a historic second impeachment, stemming from the attack on the US Capitol during which his supporters attempted to stop the verification of the 2020 election results.

After months of Trump's insistence that Biden and the Democratic Party had stolen the election from him, thousands of pro-Trump rioters besieged Congress as it formally certified the Electoral College tally that named Biden the winner. At least seven people died in connection with the attack, including one pro-Trump demonstrator who was shot by a Capitol Police officer. In the days after the attack, five Capitol Police officers died, including one who sustained injuries while fighting off the mob, and two who died by suicide.

Trump was impeached for the first time in 2019 by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives over allegations he sought to withhold aid to Ukraine unless its leaders opened investigations into Biden's family. The Senate later acquitted Trump of these charges.

There is only one other precedent in US history for what Trump is seeking to accomplish.

Grover Cleveland, of the National Democratic Party, was the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms in the White House. He held office from 1885-1889, and again from 1893-1897. Cleveland was ousted after his first term by Benjamin Harrison, a Republican, but made a political comeback four years later.

Former staff writer Kayla Epstein contributed to this report.