'Democracy Is Not Out of the Woods Yet': Trump Announces 2024 White House Run

Less than two years after fomenting a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, former President Donald Trump on Tuesday formally announced that he will be making another run for the White House in 2024, delivering a characteristically lie-filled speech replete with bigotry and attacks on the election process.

During his address, Trump called for a complete end to early and absentee voting--methods that he has used in the past--and said elections should be conducted via paper ballots only, a demand fueled by baseless claims about U.S. voting machines that became commonplace in right-wing circles following the 2020 presidential election.

"To protect our democracy and our freedoms, we must make sure he never sets foot in the Oval Office again."

The twice-impeached former president's announcement came after many of his handpicked candidates who parroted his election lies lost their midterm contests, significantly dragging down the GOP's overall performance in congressional and state-level races.

"Last week, the American people soundly rejected Trump's extremist candidates for governor, senator, and secretaries of state," Sean Eldridge, founder and president of the advocacy group Stand Up America, said in a statement late Tuesday. "Tonight's announcement makes it clear that our democracy is not out of the woods yet."

"Trump was the ringleader of the criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and the will of the American people," Eldridge added. "He and his allies have shown that they will go to any lengths to seize power, from lying to the public to inciting political violence. To protect our democracy and our freedoms, we must make sure he never sets foot in the Oval Office again."

Trump, the subject of numerous ongoing investigations at the state and federal levels, launched his campaign with a massive war chest that campaign finance experts say is the product of a blatantly illegal transfer of cash from the former president's leadership PAC to a super PAC known as Make America Great Again, Inc. The Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint over the move on Monday.

Following Trump's speech and submission of paperwork initiating his run, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) reiterated its vow to pursue legal action to bar the former president from the 2024 ballot.

"When Donald Trump incited an insurrection that led to a deadly attack on the Capitol, he disqualified himself from holding office under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution," CREW said in a statement. "We warned him that should he decide to run again, we would be taking action to ensure the Constitution's ban on insurrectionists holding office is enforced. Now we will be. Trump made a mockery of the Constitution he swore to defend, but we will see that it is defended."