"I am your retribution," says Trump in his CPAC speech

Trump delivered a fired-up speech on Saturday and came away the victor of the event's straw poll for GOP candidate

By Kelly McClure

Nights & Weekends Editor

Published March 5, 2023 11:18AM (EST)

Donald J. Trump delivering his speech at CPAC on March 4, 2023  (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Donald J. Trump delivering his speech at CPAC on March 4, 2023 (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

On the heels of dropping a new single with the J6 Prison Choir, former President Donald Trump delivered a fired-up speech at CPAC on Saturday shortly after he was announced the victor of the event's straw poll for top GOP presidential candidate — gaining 62 percent of the poll's votes over DeSantis' 20 percent.

In what The Washington Post refers to as his "victory lap," Trump regaled his CPAC audience with a "Democrats bad, Trump good" pump-up that both echoes his usual deal while providing a general outline of what we can expect to hear in his looming campaign for 2024.

"If you put me back in the White House, their reign is over," Trump said on Saturday in reference to his Democratic foes. ". . .America will be a free Nation once again. We're not a free nation right now. We don't have free press, we don't have free anything. In 2016 I declared I am your voice. Today I add, I am your warrior, I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution."

Calling out President Biden through much of his speech, Trump declared the current administration as "the most corrupt administration in American history," going on to sing his own praises for this, that, and the other.

When not claiming responsibility for everything good that happened in America during his time in office, Trump found occasion to call Stormy Daniels — the sex-worker who alleges to have had an affair with Trump in 2006 — a "horseface."

"No attraction. No affair," Trump remarks on Daniels.


Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.


Watch a thread of clips from Trump's speech courtesy of journalist Aaron Rupar here:


By Kelly McClure

Kelly McClure is Salon's Nights and Weekends Editor covering daily news, politics and culture. Her work has been featured in Vulture, The A.V. Club, Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, Nylon, Vice, and elsewhere. She is the author of Something is Always Happening Somewhere.

MORE FROM Kelly McClure


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Aggregate Cpac Trump