President Trump announced for president on Tuesday evening.

He was forthright, straightforward, focused, and full of brief points.

According to Fox News, he began with this:

"In order to make America great and glorious again. I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States," Trump said Tuesday evening to a crowd of supporters.

"But just as I promised in 2016, I am your voice. I am your voice. The Washington establishment wants to silence us, but we will not let them do that. What we have built together over the past six years is the greatest movement in history because it is not about politics. It's about our love for this great country, America, and we're not going to let it fail," said Trump.

He didn't get scattered, he didn't descend into ad libs, and he didn't attack other Republicans.

He kept his aim squarely on the radical left running this country unchecked and the damage that has been done, speaking of "a nation in decline."  "We are a failing nation," he said, speaking of "pain, hardship, anxiety, and despair."

He focused on specific issues that are absolutely foremost in voters' minds, according to polls — inflation, energy independence, crime ("cesspools of violent crimes"), open borders, fentanyl, election security, wokesterism in education, the weaponization of the Justice Department, wokesterism in the military, vaccine discrimination, the targeting of parents, the peace during his term, the importance of peace through strength, global respect (Trump called the Afghanistan pullout "the most humiliating moment in the history of our country"), and the broad desire for a one-tier system of justice, which just isn't here now that the left is in charge.

He spoke of Biden's many failures, from "falling asleep at major conferences" to his inability to identify the country he was in — a reference to Biden's identification of Cambodia as "Colombia" the other day, and the general global mockery of the U.S. now that Biden is in the saddle.  He mocked Biden's failure to show up at a trade banquet with customary wit — "they're still looking for him" — eventually summing Biden up as "the face of left-wing failure and Washington corruption."

On elections, he once again focused on the "we" rather than "me" factor, focusing on not his own stolen election in 2020, but the grotesque and internationally mocked spectacle of the midterms, with its extended election-counting, which cuts confidence in the integrity of the system, given that it opens the door to fraud.

On foreign policy, he highlighted his successes, such as the Abraham accords, tying them to his policies of domestic strength, which is a strong point.

He spoke of his success in drawing Hispanic and black voters to the Republicans.

He spoke of backing the blue, linking support for police as a necessity in the wake of the current crime wave.

It was a welcome change, given a series of missteps he's made (WTH was he doing, attacking Florida's excellent Gov. Ron DeSantis?), as if righting his course.  He made his campaign voter-centered, not me-centered, and it resonated.

He rounded it off with a unity call, focusing on his successes, which naturally create unity.

What it did was effectively remind voters why they voted for him the first time.

Axios and a couple of others called the speech "low energy," but that was disingenuous of them, given that it showed the focus they called for and an absence of all the wild ad-libbing that they used to rage about. 

It remains to be seen whether Trump will be the best candidate for 2024, given the legal juggernaut the Biden administration has turned against him, his history of hiring disloyal lieutenants, his inability to admit he's ever been wrong, and the technicality of his capacity to run for just one term, as opposed to, say, Ron DeSantis, who can run for two.  The shift to a more subdued tone, though, was an impressive start, proof of sorts to voters that yes, he can avoid the mistakes he made and continue with his popular agenda.

I don't know if he's going to be the candidate, but he's definitely not out as a possibility.  His beginning speech was serious and promising.

Thomas Lifson has more thoughts here.

There's a fragmentary transcript from C-SPAN here.  I couldn't find any others.

Image: Screen shot from NowThis News video via YouTube.