Donald Trump returned to Washington for the first time since leaving the White House 18 months ago on Tuesday, giving a heated address peppered with strong hints that he may run for President of the United States again in 2024.

Trump did not declare his candidacy but instead outlined his demands for the "next Republican president."

“I always say I ran the first time and I won, then I ran a second time and I did much better,” Trump said. “We may just have to do it again. We have to straighten out our country."

'A nation in decline'

Trump harshly criticized Biden, blaming him for the country’s free falls.

“We are a nation in decline,” he said. “We are a failing nation.”

“Inflation is the highest in 49 years,” Trump said. “Gas prices have reached the highest in the history of our country.”

He accused Biden of allowing an “invasion” by millions of migrants crossing the southern border.

Hinting at the soaring rate of gun violence, Trump called the United States under Biden's tenure "a cesspool of crime.”

“We have blood, death and suffering on a scale once unthinkable,” he said. “Democrat-run cities are setting all-time murder records.”

The former president said the US is now “a beggar nation” that has been “literally brought to its knees.”

He accused Biden of having “surrendered in Afghanistan” and allowing Russia to invade Ukraine.

“It would never ever, ever have happened if I was your commander-in-chief,” he said.

No evidence regarding 2020 election

There is no convincing evidence that the 2020 election was contaminated, according to federal and state election officials from both parties, as well as Trump's attorney general. Courts, including justices chosen by the former president, unanimously rejected his charges of fraud.

Despite Trump's efforts to stay in power, Trump continued to deny his defeat as he made his first appearance in the nation's capital on January 20, 2021, when President Joe Biden was inaugurated in.

“It was a catastrophe that election,” Trump declared about a mile from the White House he once called home.

Read next: Trump denies taking responsibility for Jan. 6 riots

Indeed, even as the House Jan. 6 committee has been laying bare his attempts to remain in power and his refusal to call off a violent mob of his supporters as they attempted to halt the peaceful transition of power, Trump has continued to press officials to overturn Biden's victory, despite the fact that there is no legal way to do so.

Trump vs. Pence

Several hours before Trump took the stage at the right-wing America First Policy Institute, his former vice president, Mike Pence, addressed a different conservative audience in Washington. Pence is also exploring a bid for the presidency in 2024.

Pence stated at Young America's Foundation conference that Americans must look to the future, not the past, and downplayed differences with Trump.

“Elections are about the future,” Pence said. “I came today not to look backward but to look forward."

“I don’t know that the president and I differ on issues,” he said. “But we may differ on focus.”

The dueling appearances came as Trump's possible opponents have grown more daring in their willingness to aggressively challenge the man who remains the Republican Party's dominant force.

On Friday, former top Trump advisor Steve Bannon was convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the January 6 panel. On the same day, former Trump administration Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark was held on charges of acting in "dishonesty" about sending a letter to Georgia state officials with false statements and interfering with justice after the 2020 election. Clark was the person whom former US President Donald Trump sought to appoint as attorney general to overturn the 2020 elections.