Donald Trump plans to announce a second bid for re-election, sources close to the former president said.
Mr Trump is expected to make an official primetime announcement at Mar-a-Lago club on Tuesday, despite mounting concerns from GOP leaders that the move could backfire.
A senior advisor to Mr Trump also told CBS that the businessman-turned-politician expressed concern about summoning an exploratory committee, noting that it would look “weak”. It comes days after Trump-endorsed candidates underperformed in a midterm race in which the former president was largely seen as the GOP’s biggest loser.
“President Trump is going to announce on Tuesday that he’s running for president. And it’s going to be a very professional, very buttoned-up announcement,” Jason Miller, a longtime adviser of Mr Trump, told former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon on Friday, adding that the former president was “fired up” about a 2024 run.
Mr Trump has voiced concerns that re-elected Florida governor Ron DeSantis is “playing games” by not shutting down speculation about his possible run for the presidency in 2024. In an unhinged statement via TruthSocial on Thursday, Mr Trump charged at the GOP firebrand, baselessly claiming that he saved Mr DeSantis’s 2018 campaign, and most recently had dispatched the FBI to protect Mr DeSantis from defeat in key counties where electoral fraud supposedly was taking place.
The Hill reported that the announcement would also cost Mr Trump financial support from the Republican National Committee for legal fees stemming from the plethora of ongoing litigations against the former president.
Republican leaders have reportedly asked Mr Trump to hold off on his announcement, at least until a gubernatorial runoff takes place in Georgia, where control of the Senate could be at stake.
Re-elected New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu openly criticised Mr Trump’s strategy during a radio interview.
“He stands to potentially muck up the opportunity for [Herschel] Walker to win in Georgia in his runoff,” Mr Sununu said on Friday, per The Hill. “I think what the former president doesn’t understand is if he announces … he’s not going to keep anyone out of the race.”
He continued: “But no one else is going to announce until summer or fall for a whole variety of fundraising reasons and all of this. So it’s going to be a very awkward thing with only him in the race.”
After fiercely projecting a red wave ahead of the midterms, GOP leaders may have to re-evaluate Mr Trump’s influence on constituents as candidates who echoed election lies continue to lose state-level races.
Fewer than half of Mr Trump’s chosen candidates for Congress lost their bid, with roughly 80 of his 174 congressional endorsements making it to the Capitol Hill. News channels and media across the nation, including Mr Trump’s once favourite Fox News, have largely covered his underwhelming impact on the midterm elections.
“For those many people that are being fed the fake narrative from the corrupt media that I am angry about the midterms, don’t believe it,” his statement on Thursday read. “I am not at all angry, did a great job (I wasn’t the one running!), and am very busy looking into the future. Remember, I am a ‘stable genius.’”
He continued: “I had such great success on endorsements, perhaps success like no one has had before, both for Republican nominations and the general election itself, and I continue to get fake news, RINO, and radical Left criticism, but seldom congratulations or praise.”
CBS reports that Mr Trump’s inner circle are becoming fed up with his constant attacks on fellow GOP leaders.
“I have never seen him more irresponsible and chaotic than he is today,” one source told the network. “He seems to be in self-destruct mode. It is irresponsible to attack DeSantis and Youngkin, and it’s irresponsible to announce any time in the near future but definitely before the Herschel Walker runoff is complete.”
