Despite being at the center of multiple investigations, former President Trump is still flirting with the idea of running for office again in two years.
During a rally in Robstown, Texas campaigning for Republicans on Saturday, the former president said he may have to run for president again, while pushing unfounded claims that he won the 2020 election.
“In order to make our country successful, safe and glorious again, I will probably have to do it again,” he told the crowd.
But would his fellow Republicans be on board with these 2024 presidential election plans? You might be surprised to learn what his former running mate had to say about the potential bid.
Will Trump actually run again?
Trump’s remarks about running again at the Texas rally marks his strongest hint of running against yet — and the idea is unsurprisingly already being welcomed by some of his fiercest supporters. In response to him saying that he would “probably” run again, the 45th president was greeted with chants of “We want Trump.”
But of course, this isn’t the first time the former president has expressed interest in returning to the Oval Office. Over the summer, Trump made it a less question of if and more of a question of when. “In my own mind, I’ve already made that decision,” he told New York Magazine in July.
So when will his reelection bid be official? Earlier this month, former adviser Kellyanne Conway told CBS News that Trump wants to announce his 2024 election plans by Thanksgiving, saying he “wants his old job back.” Still, other Trump advisers and maybe even his wife, Melania Trump, are hoping he waits until 2023 to make his intentions known.
Either way, both options would put his announcement after November’s midterms — a timing that looks like it has been carefully thought out. Though Trump later denied such plans, the former president was reportedly considering announcing his reelection bid on July 4th. But this plan was reportedly abandoned after aides urged him to wait, amid concerns that the announcement could upend the midterm elections and hurt Republicans’ chances for reelection.
What about Trump’s multiple investigations?
Trump’s potential comeback comes amid several legal challenges. Just last Wednesday, Trump gave sworn deposition testimony in a defamation lawsuit brought by magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, who says he raped her in the mid-1990s in the dressing room of a New York department store. Then on Friday, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection subpoenaed Trump and called on him to testify before on the panel “beginning on or about Nov. 14.,” according to Reuters. He’s also being required to submit all documents related to the attack by Nov. 4.
Now this week, his former namesake company, The Trump Organization, is set to go to trial for alleged tax crimes, with jury selection starting Monday. This includes helping some of the company’s top executives avoid income taxes on kickbacks they received on top of their salaries, which came in the form of luxuries like rent-free apartments. Though Trump signed some of the checks, it doesn’t look like he’s facing any charges in the case and isn’t expected to testify. But, if convicted, the organization could be fined more than $1 million and struggle with getting future loans or deals.
Meanwhile, the FBI continues investigating Trump’s storage of hundreds of sensitive government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, despite the former president’s objections. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s emergency appeal to step in and intervene in the search. But that’s not all: A special grand jury in Georgia is still investigating whether Trump and others attempted to influence state election officials during the 2020 presidential election. The case was kicked off last year shortly after a recording of a January 2021 conversation emerged, where Trump suggested that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “find” the votes needed to overturn President Joe Biden’s win. The probe has compelled some of Trump’s most loyal allies, including Senator Lindsey Graham, to take the stand.
But in his July interview with New York magazine, Trump insisted that he isn’t considering running again in order to protect himself from any potential criminal charges (per Justice Department policy, a sitting president cannot be prosecuted). “I did absolutely nothing wrong,” Trump told the publication. “I had a perfect phone call in Georgia, so I’m not concerned with it.”
What are fellow Republicans saying about Trump’s potential presidential bid?
Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, who’s one of Trump’s fiercest critics, warned that the party could “shatter” if the former president actually runs again. She also vowed “to do whatever it takes,” to make sure that the former president doesn’t run again. (Cheney is currently the Republican vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee that’s probing the pro-Trump attack on the Capitol last year.)
“The party has either to come back from where we are right now, which is a very dangerous and toxic place, or the party will splinter and there will be a new conservative party that rises,” Cheney told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.
Even former Vice President Mike Pence, who has largely steered clear of overtly criticizing Trump, suggested that he wouldn’t vote for Trump in 2024, saying “there might be somebody else I’d prefer more. That could be because Pence could be contemplating putting himself in the running, something Trump has already dismissed as being “very disloyal” to him.
Pence might not be the only one considering making a bid for the Republican nomination: Cheney, Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley have all signaled that they might become contenders.
Would Trump’s bid mean another match-up against Biden?
Like Trump, Biden hasn’t formally made his decision to run for president. But, in an interview with MSNBC on Friday, he revealed that he intends to run — that is, of course, with the support of his wife, First Lady Jill Biden.
“I have not made that formal decision, but it’s my intention. My intention to run again. And we have time to make that decision,” he told the network.
Part of this decision to wait could have something to do with the fact that running would trigger Federal Election Commission requirements about disclosing financial information, and would limit how much both candidates could raise from individual donors before November 2024.
Nevertheless, a hypothetical rematch is already showing Trump with a slight edge over his successor. According to a Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey released Monday shows Trump, 45 percent of voters say they would back the former president for a second term in 2024, compared to 43 percent who plan to support Biden.
“The whole Jan. 6 effort seems to have largely backfired by doing more to revive Trump than to finish him off,” Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey, told The Hill. “These numbers are also a reflection of how poor a job Biden is seen as doing across the big issues of the day.”
