Former US President Donald Trump says he will make a "very big announcement" next week amid speculation he will announce a 2024 presidential bid.
Trump made the remarks at a campaign rally for a Republican congressional candidate ahead of the US midterm elections tomorrow.
“I'm going to be making a very big announcement on Tuesday, November 15 (local time) at Mar-a-Lago," Trump said before a cheering crowd in Ohio.
“We want nothing to detract from the importance of tomorrow."
Trump has been increasingly explicit about his plans to launch a third presidential campaign, saying in recent days that he would “very, very, very probably” run again and would be formalising his intentions “very, very soon."
Republican officials and some people in Trump’s orbit had urged him to wait until after the midterms were over to launch his campaign, in part to avoid turning the election into a referendum on him and to shield him from potential blame should Republicans not do as well as the party hopes.
But Trump has been eager to move forward and has said privately for weeks that he might announce his plans at one of his homestretch rallies, even as aides have been discussing possible venues and dates for a formal announcement in the coming days.
At a rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend, he told the crowd that “in the very next very, very, very short period of time, you’re going to be so happy, OK?”
“You’re going to be surprised at how soon. But first, we have to win a historic victory for Republicans on November 8,” he said.
Last week, ABC News and CNN reported that Trump had considered the third week of November as an "ideal" time to launch his campaign.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press.
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