President Trump made a triumphant return to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, gleefully recounting his acts of retribution against the Biden administration to a crowd of loyal supporters that included people he had pardoned for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Two years after he used an address at CPAC, an influential conservative gathering, to declare to his supporters that “I am your retribution,” Mr. Trump took a victory lap amid his wide-reaching efforts to reshape the federal government in his image, including firing thousands of federal workers and dismantling the government’s main international development agency.
“We have escorted the radical-left bureaucrats out of the building and have locked the doors behind them,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ve gotten rid of thousands.”
The speech took place against the backdrop of a conference that for several days has sought to cast Mr. Trump’s second win as a turning point in a global and increasingly successful crusade by right-wing political movements against institutions and norms that they believe have oppressed them.
Mr. Trump later added, “I ended Joe Biden’s weaponization as soon as I got in. I said, ‘I’m going to hit him with the same stuff.’”
Not only at the 2023 CPAC but throughout last year’s campaign, after he was charged with dozens of state and federal felonies, Mr. Trump had vowed revenge against his political enemies. He promised that his election would be a “judgment day” for “the liars and cheaters and fraudsters and censors and impostors who have commandeered our government.”