Arguably the biggest question ahead of 2024, perhaps even more so than if President Joe Biden seeks re-election, is whether former President Donald Trump will run once again for a second term in the White House.
If it were up to former Attorney General Bill Barr, though, Trump most certainly should not run for office again, the Washington Examiner reported.
Instead, Barr believes that his former boss should stand aside and allow somebody else to pick up and carry his mantle going forward as the leader of both the Republican Party and the Make America Great Again movement.
“Trump is not that man” to fully restore America
The former attorney general, who has both kind words and strong critiques for the former president, recently sat down for an in-depth interview with the Examiner and, of course, the topic of a potential Trump 2024 campaign came up in the discussion.
I’m all for restoring America. That’s what I’m all about, is restoring the greatness of this country. And the principle threat is this progressive agenda,” Barr said. “The only way to do that is not to speak about some other election and continue this trench warfare but instead a breakthrough election that will create and usher in an era just like Reagan did.”
“I don’t necessarily want to take a shot at Trump, but Trump is not that man,” he continued and suggested that if Trump were to be re-elected, he would be immediately constrained as a “lame-duck” president.
“He does not have the capacity to win the kind of transformative election,” Barr said. “He may have been, historically, a necessary figure, and I give him all credit for bringing to a screeching halt the progressive march that occurred under the Obama administration and threatened the country going forward with Hillary Clinton.”
The twice-former AG further praised some of Trump’s characteristics as having been necessary and good for the time during which he was first elected, “including his willingness to fight. Maybe his constant pugnacity and over-the-top approach was necessary to break through the media.”
“However, if you believe in the MAGA agenda, we’ve already punched the other guy in the nose. Now, how do we actually go about methodically restoring the United States?” he continued. The solution, in Barr’s view, is a broad and decisive electoral victory, “And you don’t do that by starting a civil war in the party and calling everyone who doesn’t believe that the election was stolen a RINO.”
Bookmaker odds and hypothetical polls
So, while it is clear that former AG Barr is not keen on the idea of Trump running for the presidency again, the same cannot be said for the former president’s loyal base of supporters, nor for the bookmakers that analyze and set odds for future elections, Newsweek reported.
That outlet noted that several top bookmakers had named Trump as the favorite to win both the GOP nomination as well as the general election in 2024, and some hypothetical polls of American voters have found a similar sentiment — that if Trump ultimately decides to run again, the odds are good that he will win.
Indeed, the Election Central website has compiled all of the major 2024 GOP primary polls and showed that, when Trump is included in the mix, he wins handily over the competition. That said, if Trump decides not to run again in the next presidential cycle, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) emerges as the clear favorite of Republican voters among the crop of potential candidates.
It likely won’t be until after the 2022 midterm elections have concluded that Trump will make a final decision on whether or not he will run again, and it is a certainty that the former president’s supporters and haters alike will be anxiously awaiting that ultimate determination.
