Trump again teases presidential announcement after 2022 midterms
Former President Donald Trump reiterated Monday that he will “probably” announce his decision on a run for the White House after the 2022 midterm elections and hinted that his choice would make “a lot of people” happy.
“I am certainly thinking about it and we’ll see. I think a lot of people will be very happy, frankly, with the decision, and probably will announce that after the midterms,” he told Fox News.
However, the 45th president stopped short of committing himself to that timeline.
“It doesn’t mean I will [announce then],” Trump said about. “It’s probably appropriate, but a lot of people are waiting for that decision to be made.”
The former president added that other Republican lawmakers who are considering throwing their hat in the ring for 2024 ”are waiting for that decision, because they’re not going to run if I run.”
“We have a lot, they’re all very well named. But almost all of them said if I run, they’ll never run,” he said, adding that “shows a great degree of loyalty and respect.”
When asked whom he would pick for a running mate, Trump answered that there are “a lot of great people in the Republican Party.”
About Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whom many pundits consider the likeliest GOP presidential nominee if Trump does not run, the ex-president said: ”He’s a good man, but we have a lot of great people. He’s been good.”
Speaking about Nikki Haley, who served as ambassador to the United Nations in his administration, Trump said she “every once in a while goes off the rails, and she comes back, which is nice.”
“She said she’d never run if I ran, which I think is a good sign of respect,” Trump said. “I was very good to her, I thought she did a very good job at what she did with the United Nations. She did an excellent job.”
Trump has laid the groundwork for a possible run in recent months, holding a series of campaign-style rallies and sitting down for interviews with conservative media outlets. In June, Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity he had made a decision about whether to run for president in 2024, but declined to say what it was.
With President Biden’s approval rating sinking amid a series of foreign and domestic crises, Republicans are hoping to regain control of the House and Senate next year.
The GOP will also be encouraged by a strong showing in this year’s election contests.
Democrat Terry McAuliffe was defeated last week by Republican Glenn Youngkin in the governor’s race in Virginia, a state Biden won by 10 percentage points a year ago.
In New Jersey, which Biden won by 16 percentage points in 2020, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy barely eked out a win against Republican Jack Ciattarelli to become the first Democrat re-elected as the Garden State’s governor since Brendan Byrne in 1977.
