Former president Donald Trump called himself a “proud political dissident” on Saturday in one of the closing speeches at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.
“A vote for Trump is your ticket back to freedom, it’s your passport out of tyranny, and it’s your only escape from Joe Biden and his gang’s fast track to hell,” Trump said on the final day of CPAC 2024.
“And in many ways, we’re living in hell right now because the fact is, Joe Biden is a threat to democracy, really is a threat to democracy,” he added. “I stand before you today not only as your past and hopefully future president, but as a proud political dissident. I am a dissident.”
Without specifically mentioning any of his numerous criminal or civil cases, Trump did compare his legal troubles to those of American gangster Al Capone. “Remember, I’ve been indicted more than Alphonse Capone,” he said. Capone received only one indictment, while Trump has been indicted four times within the last year.
“It’s very dangerous. What’s going on? They’ve weaponized government. They’ve weaponized the DOJ, the FBI. We’ve never had anything like this in this country,” Trump said.
He has previously compared his criminal indictments to the political persecution of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who died in prison last week. At CPAC, Trump implied the connection by characterizing his court cases as “Stalinist show trials.”
Trump’s remarks come on the same day as the South Carolina Republican primary, results of which will start pouring in after polls close at 7 p.m. Saturday. The former president is expected to win the state, after polls have shown him leading former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley by some 30 points in her home state. Trump left for South Carolina shortly after his 90-minute speech.
Haley was invited to CPAC this year but declined to attend. She has spoken at the conservative conference as recently as last March, a few short weeks after announcing her presidential bid.
CPAC 2024 took place from Wednesday to Saturday in National Harbor, Md., just outside of Washington, D.C.