Nigel Faragethe British Mr Brexitgive some awkward tips to conservatives at their annual gathering in Orlando, Florida, on Friday: Stop moaning about the outcome of the 2020 election and focus on offering voters a positive message.
He addressed the audience at the Conference on Conservative Political Action, which had already heard from dozens of speakers that Donald Trump he was deceived about the victory.
And Trump himself is expected to rekindle his grievances when the star attraction of the meeting appears on Saturday.
Farage, who now hosts a show on right-wing British television, said the postal vote was a disaster before asking: “But does it make sense for Republican politics to keep talking about stolen elections?
“Well, you can say ‘yes’ to all this work, because your political activists and you understand what happened.”
“Remember that most voters are busy with their lives, busy with their mortgages, busy with their children, worried about their jobs, worried about the price of gas, the cost of living and all that.”
Aides have told Trump in private that it is time to move on from the 2020 outcome.
They fear that his mixture of conspiracy theories and anger will repel voters or prevent his supporters from running in the by-elections.
Nigel Farage closed Friday night at the CPAC with a series of jokes and some difficult advice for conservatives. “This message about stolen elections, if you think about it, is actually a negative, backward message,” he said at the annual meeting in Florida.
Donald Trump continues to criticize the outcome of the 2020 election. He is scheduled to appear at the CPAC on Saturday, but was spotted playing golf at his club in West Palm Beach on Friday.
Farage was the last speaker on the main stage on Friday afternoon and delivered a quick series of jokes and insolence that caused laughter and applause from the crowd.
But no one has offered the advice as publicly as his friend Farage.
“And this message about stolen elections, if you think about it, is actually a negative, backward message,” he continued.
“There is a better, there is a better, more positive message that the Republican Party must accept, and it is this: We will go state by state, vote by vote, to make sure America has the best,” the cleanest and fairest electoral system anywhere in the West.
“We will make sure that there are no more elections, that you are open to doubts and that this negative anger must be turned into positive. You have to offer the voters of this country a brilliant city on the hill.
The Republican Party, he said, is the Party of Hope.
If it was a message the audience didn’t want to hear, they managed to hide it. After a moment of silence, polite applause spread through the hall.
The idea that Biden won unfairly by rigging elections is a symbol of faith for many present.
But Farage is a popular figure.
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) poses for a selfie with Donald Trump supporter at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida
He was a key player in the UK’s decision to vote in favor of Brexit in 2016, a referendum seen as a harbinger of populist forces that will push Trump to victory months later.
This earned him an elevated position in Trumpist circles as a chief strategist.
He received an exciting reception as he took the stage, and the audience accepted his honest advice in a good mood.
They laughed and applauded as he uttered striking phrases accentuated by the smoker’s cough.
The rest of the speech offered him a known price, as he condemned Biden for allowing Vladimir Putin to make his move on Ukraine.
And he was smart enough to praise Governor Ron DeSantis, whose rivalry with Trump was one of the plot lines of the meeting.
“Isn’t it appropriate for the CPAC to be held in Florida?” “The only state in the United States that, with Ron DeSantis as governor, pursued a sensible and sensible policy while the rest of the world went crazy,” he said.
But his analysis of the conflict in Ukraine will draw criticism that it echoes Moscow’s view that some parts of the country should be part of Russia.
“Vladimir Putin is a Russian nationalist,” he said. “He wants to return – at least I thought he wanted to return – the Russian-speaking regions of his country.
“When it comes to these two eastern provinces in Ukraine, they are Russian-speaking.
“I always thought we were dealing with someone who was actually very logical. But now I’m beginning to wonder if it’s him.
“And yet, of course, he has nothing to fear, is he?” The worst American president in the history of this nation? No question.
He added that things would be different with a different person in the White House.
“I have no doubt that if Donald Trump were still president, this invasion of Ukraine would not have happened,” he said. “I have no doubt about that.”