Former President Donald Trump returned to Washington on Tuesday for the first time since leaving office, delivering a policy speech before an allied think tank that has been crafting an agenda for a possible second term.

Trump addressed the America First Policy Institute's two-day America First Agenda Summit as some advisers urged him to spend more time talking about his vision for the future and less time relitigating the 2020 election as he prepares to announce an expected 2024 White House campaign.

The former president did both in his remarks Tuesday for the AFPI.

"It was a catastrophe that election," Trump said of the 2020 election. "A disgrace to our country."

Composed of former Trump administration officials and allies, the nonprofit is widely seen as an "administration in waiting" that could quickly move to the West Wing if Trump were to run again and win.

Trump spoke extensively about public safety and the need for reform in Congress, saying he is sure the Republicans will be able to retake both the House and the Senate during this year’s midterms and that he “strongly believe(s)” a Republican will be sitting in the Oval Office after the 2024 presidential elections.  

“America first must mean safety first,” Trump said. “We need an all-out effort to defeat violent crime in America and strongly defeat it, and be tough and be nasty and be mean if we have to.” 

“Here's what we must do to restore public safety: first we have to give our police back their authority, resources and power and we have to leave our police alone,” Trump continued, saying he never wants to hear the phrase “Defund the Police” again. “Let them do their job. Give them back the respect that they deserve.” 

The former president went on to advocate for controversial stop-and-frisk policies like the ones that gained traction under former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, a longtime Trump ally, saying police departments should “do it judiciously, but it works.” 

Numerous studies have shown that, particularly in New York, non-white Americans were disproportionaltey targeted by the practice than their white counterparts. Still, New York City mayor Eric Adams, himself a former police officer, voiced support for the practice “if used properly.” 

Trump on Tuesday went on to delineate other policy priorities for the Republican party in the years to come, saying: “The next Congress should pass a landmark package of public health, public safety and mental health care reforms. Cleaner streets are safer streets and I will be happy to help campaign for any of those bills.”

The former president also railed against the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill, saying lawmakers on the committee will “say stuff and they think you're going to believe it.” 

Trump went on to espouse many falsehoods and dubious, debunked claims about the 2020 election, which he lost. The 45th president claimed in his remarks he “won a second time” and gained millions more votes than Joe Biden, neither of which are true. 

But the former president did hint at a possible 2024 run while claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from him, saying in part: “That's going to be a story for a long time. What a disgrace it was, but we may just have to do it again. We have to straighten out our country.”

And at another point in his speech: "There's an expression. The best day of your life is the day before you run for president [...] That'd be true. But I'm doing it for America and it's fine. It's my great, great honor to do it. Because if I don't, our nation is doomed to become another Venezuela."

Touching on yet another hot-button issue, Trump also evoked the recent story of a 27-year-old man who pled guilty to raping a 10-year-old girl in Ohio – who was subsequently forced to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion after Ohio’s trigger law went into effect – in pressing for sweeping criminal reform. Trump noted that the suspect, Gerson Fuentes, is reportedly an undocumented immigrant.

“We need to pass a dramatic sentencing enhancement for those courts breaking our immigration laws so that anybody with a record will not set foot on our soil," Trump said. "And if they do, they'll be out of here quickly or they'll be in one of our prisons [...] these are just some of the critical reforms we should race to implement. We have to get it done as soon as we possibly can." 

Trump's appearance in Washington — his first trip back since Jan. 20, 2021, when President Joe Biden was sworn into office — came as his potential 2024 rivals have been taking increasingly overt steps to challenge his status as the party's standard-bearer. They include former Vice President Mike Pence, who has been touting his own "Freedom Agenda" in speeches that serve as an implicit contrast with Trump.

Trump and Pence spoke at separate events in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, showcasing the ever-growing schism in the Republican party as the race to 2024 begins to heat up. 

Pence spoke Tuesday morning to a conference of young conservative voters – and while he didn’t mention the former commander-in-chief by name, he said “elections are about the future,” discouraging those listening from looking to the past in an apparent reference to last election cycle. 

“I truly do believe that elections are about the future, and that it’s absolutely essential at a time when so many Americans are hurting, so many families are struggling, that we don’t give way to the temptation to look back,” Pence said, adding: “I don’t know that the president and I differ on issues. But we may differ on focus.” 

"Some people may choose to focus on the past, but I believe conservatives must focus on the future. If we do, we won't just win the next election, we will change the course of American history for generations," Pence had planned to say in a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on the eve of Trump's visit. Pence's appearance was postponed because of bad weather.

Trump has spent much of his time since leaving office fixated on the 2020 election and spreading lies about his loss to sow doubt about Biden's victory. Indeed, even as the Jan. 6 committee was laying bare his desperate and potentially illegal attempts to remain in power and his refusal to call off a violent mob of his supporters as they tried to halt the peaceful transition of power, Trump continued to try to pressure officials to overturn Biden's win, despite there being no legal means to decertify the past election.

Beyond the summit, staff at the America First Policy Institute have been laying their own groundwork for the future, "making sure we do have the policies, personnel and process nailed down for every key agency when we do take the White House back," Brooke Rollins, AFPI president and CEO, said in part.

The nonprofit developed, she said, from efforts to avoid the chaotic early days of Trump's first term, when he arrived at the White House unprepared, with no clear plans ready to put in place. As Trump was running for reelection, Rollins, then the head of Trump's Domestic Policy Council, began to sketch out a second-term agenda with fellow administration officials, including top economic policy adviser Larry Kudlow and national security adviser Robert O'Brien.

When it became clear Trump would be leaving the White House, she said, AFPI was created to continue that work "organized around that second term agenda that we never released."

The organization, once dismissed as a landing zone for ex-Trump administration officials shut out of more lucrative jobs, has grown into a behemoth, with an operating budget of around $25 million and 150 staff, including 17 former senior White Houses officials and nine former Cabinet members.

The group also has more than 20 policy centers and has tried to extend its reach beyond Washington with efforts to influence local legislatures and school boards. An "American leadership initiative," led by the former head of the Office of Personnel Management, Michael Rigas, launched several weeks ago to identify future staff loyal to Trump and his "America First" approach who could be hired as part of a larger effort to replace large swaths of the civil service, as Axios recently reported.

The group is one of several Trump-allied organizations that have continued to push his polices in his absence, including America First Legal, dedicated to fighting Biden's agenda through the court system, the Center for Renewing America and the Conservative Partnership Institute.

The summit is intended to highlight AFPI's "America First Agenda," centered around 10 key policy areas including the economy, health care and election security. It includes many of Trump's signature issues, like continuing to build a wall along the southern border and a plan to "dismantle the administrative state."

In a speech Monday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose "Contract with America" has been credited with helping Republicans sweep the 1994 midterm elections, praised the effort as key to future GOP victory.

"The American people want solutions," he said.