Former US president Donald Trump has given his biggest hint yet that he plans to run again for the White House.
At a rally in Iowa on Thursday night he signalled a formal announcement could come in the near future.
“In order to make our country successful and safe and glorious, I will very, very, very probably do it again ... Get ready that’s all I’m telling you – very soon. Get ready”, he said.
US publication Axios reported on Friday that Mr Trump’s inner circle was discussing launching a 2024 presidential campaign on November 14th.
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It said an official announcement could possibly be followed by a series of political events running over several days.
Mr Trump is holding a series of rallies across the United States to support Republican candidates – many of whom he personally backed to secure the Republican Party nomination – in the midterm elections.
Mr Trump was defeated in the 2020 presidential election by Joe Biden. However, he has never accepted his defeat and has maintained that the election was stolen due to fraud and irregularities.
In Iowa on Thursday Mr Trump said: “I ran twice, I won twice, and did much better the second time than I did the first, getting millions more votes in 2020 than I got in 2016.
“And likewise, getting more votes than any sitting president in the history of our country by far.”
However, Mr Biden secured 81 million votes to the 72 million obtained by Mr Trump in 2020.
Any announcement by Mr Trump of his intention to run for the presidency again would come when he is the subject of a number of investigations in the United States.
CNN reported that there were discussions underway in the US department of justice on whether a Trump candidacy would require it to establish a special counsel to oversee these inquiries.
There is an investigation underway relating to attempts to overturn to the results of the 2020 presidential election which culminated in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6th last year as congress was due to certify Mr Biden as the new president.
Separately, there is an investigation being carried out into allegations that Mr Trump mishandled official documents – including some that were highly classified – by taking them to his home in Florida.
In Georgia, a district attorney is looking at a phone call made by Mr Trump to officials, allegedly seeking votes to allow him to win the election in the state in 2020.
The district attorney in Georgia Fani Willis has indicated that she expects to finalise her work by the end of the year.
