Wharton graduate, former President Donald Trump announces 2024 presidential run

Former United States President and 1968 Wharton graduate Donald Trump announced his third presidential campaign on Tuesday.

Trump made the announcement on Nov. 15 at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Fla. In his speech, Trump spoke about his vision for America — reflecting on what he called the “successes” of his own time in office.

“We were a strong nation, and, more importantly, we were a free nation. But now we are a nation in decline,” Trump said during his announcement. “We are a failing nation for millions of Americans. The past two years under Joe Biden had been a time of pain, hardship, anxiety, and despair.”

In a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn College Republicans said that the club believes that "Donald Trump is not best suited for the 2024 presidential candidacy." The statement said that the club would prefer "a younger, more qualified candidate who better embodies conservative values."

"Last Tuesday’s results are indicative of the fact that the Republican party has many other potential candidates who garner great support in their home states and are not overshadowed by the controversial Trump presidency," Penn College Republicans wrote.

Penn Democrats Membership Director and College Junior Leo Cassel-Siskind said that another term with Trump in office would be “an existential threat to our democracy,” in a statement to the DP.

“[Trump] incited an insurrection at our nation’s Capitol in an effort to overturn a free and fair election,” Cassel-Siskind wrote. “Penn Dems may disagree with many of the policies that the Republican Party promotes, but Donald Trump takes it a step farther by actively attacking the democratic process and trying to take the choice of deciding America’s future away from the people.”

This announcement comes one week after the general midterm elections, in which Democrats maintained their majority in the U.S. Senate while Republicans are positioned to take back control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Trump reflected on the results of the election in his speech, expressing his pride in seeing Republican victories.

While Kevin Kiley is projected to win his election in California’s 3rd District, other candidates who Trump endorsed did not fair as favorably. Reports indicate that politicians who echoed Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election being stolen were more likely to lose a competitive race.

In Pennsylvania, Democrat Lt. Gov. John Fetterman flipped the seat of Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who did not run for re-election, in a decisive electoral victory over Republican Mehmet Oz — a Trump-backed candidate.

Trump also spoke about how he believes that the media will silence his campaign and his supporters’ beliefs.

“The Washington establishment wasnts to silence us, but we will not let them do that,” Trump said. “What we have built together over the past six years is the greatest movement in history because it is not about politics, it is about our love for this great country.”

Some Republicans, like Toomey, have expressed their discontent for Trump’s influence on the party. 

“The party needs to get past Donald Trump,” Toomey said in an interview with Fox News on Saturday.

After a pause for the midterm elections, the U.S. Department of Justice is fully resuming its two investigations regarding the former president. One regards Trump’s involvement in the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and the second surrounds his retention of sensitive documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence.

On Aug. 8, FBI agents raided Trump’s estate and allegedly broke into his safe in a search for official presidential records from the White House. The unprecedented raid was reportedly greenlit by 1987 Penn Carey Law graduate Bruce Reinhart.

Trump had been hinting at potentially entering the 2024 presidential race for weeks on Truth Social, his social media platform.