OPINION
GUEST ESSAY
Why I’m Sure Trump Will Run for President in 2024
July 23,
2021
By Michael
Wolff
Mr. Wolff
is the author of three books about the Trump presidency.
To write
three books in four years about Donald Trump has been an immersion into his
obsessions and fixations. This is why I know the obvious: Donald Trump will run
for president again.
This
spring, in another of his compulsive bids for attention — indifferent to
whether it is good or bad — he hosted me at Mar-a-Lago, even after I had
written two unflattering books about him (one whose publication he tried to
stop), for an interview and dinner. After dinner, I asked about his plans for a
presidential library, the traditional retirement project and fund-raising scheme
of ex-presidents. There was a flash of confusion on his uniquely readable face,
and then anger, aroused, I figured, by the implication of what I seemed to be
saying — that his time in office was past.
“No way, no
way,” he snarled, “no way.”
It is an
existential predicament: He can’t be Donald Trump without a claim on the
presidency. He can’t hold the attention and devotion of the Republican Party if
he is not both once and future king — and why would he ever give that up?
Indeed, it seemed to be that I was strategically seated in the lobby of
Mar-a-Lago when I arrived precisely so I could overhear the efforts by a
Republican delegation to court and grovel before Mr. Trump and to observe his
dismissive dominance over them.
More than a
bit of his subsequent conversation with me was about his contempt for any
Republican who might be less than absolute in his or her devotion to him —
after all, he had the power to make or break the people who have since
disappointed him (like Senator Mitch McConnell and Justice Brett Kavanaugh). He
seemed not so much paranoid about challenges to him but warlike, savoring his
future retributions.
He
repeatedly returns to his grudge against his once obsequious vice president
with relish; Mike Pence has become more public about his own political
ambitions. In his telling, it is Mr. Pence whose actions confirmed “the steal,”
by his refusal to overturn the electoral vote count, over which he presided in
January in the Senate. I believe he will run again just to stop the men who, in
his view, helped take the presidency from him from trying to get it for
themselves. The reports that reach him of the West Wing and members of his
administration who refuse to subscribe to the idea of “the steal” only feeds
his fury and determination to punish all doubters — “some very weak people who
have worked for me but won’t in the future,” as he told me.
Gov. Ron
DeSantis of Florida has become another frequent subject at Mr. Trump’s
Bedminster, N.J., golf club, where the former president is spending the summer
away from the Florida heat. Many members of Trumpworld believe Mr. DeSantis,
who came in second to Mr. Trump in a CPAC straw poll this month, might,
unbelievably, run for the 2024 nomination even if Mr. Trump runs. The idea that
Mr. DeSantis, who Mr. Trump believes he “made” by his endorsement, might not
accept his dependence on and obligation to Mr. Trump would be a personal
affront that must be met. Mr. Trump pointedly blew off the governor’s request
that he postpone a Florida rally in the aftermath of the Surfside building
collapse. Clear message: The governor is not the boss of him. (Mr. DeSantis has
denied making this request.)
The
continued career of Mr. McConnell, to whom Mr. Trump has not spoken since
vilifying him with a heap of obscenity after Mr. McConnell acknowledged Joe
Biden’s victory, is unfinished business. (Trump aides believe the two are
likely to never speak again.)
Mr. Trump
believes that Mr. McConnell retained his Senate seat in 2020 only because of
his support. The war against Mr. McConnell is a war about who controls the
Republican Party — if it’s Mr. Trump’s party, it can’t be Mr. McConnell’s. If
candidates win because of his endorsements, thereby making Mr. Trump himself
the ultimate winner, and inevitable front-runner, then it’s surely his party.
Mr. Trump, whose political muscle helped oust some Republican enemies from
office in 2018, is confident about evicting Mr. McConnell once back in power.
(I doubt he pays attention to the fact that Mr. McConnell was re-elected to a
six-year term and has a reasonable chance of becoming the Senate majority
leader again.)
Many
Democrats believe that the legal pursuit of the former president’s family
business in New York, and other cases, including the investigation of his
attempt to overturn election results in Georgia, might seriously impede his
political future. But in Mr. Trump’s logic, this will run the opposite way:
Running for president is the best way to directly challenge the prosecutors.
Mr. Trump
also believes he has a magic bullet. In his telling, the Republicans almost
took back the House in 2020 because of his “telerallies,” telephone conference
calls in congressional districts that attracted in some instances tens of thousands
of callers. Who has that draw? he asked me, nearly smacking his lips. In 2022,
with his draw, the Republicans, he is certain, will retake the House with his
chosen slate of candidates. And indeed, this actually might be true.
But perhaps
most important, there is his classic hucksterism, and his synoptic U.S.P. —
unique selling proposition. In 2016 it was “the wall.” For 2022 and 2024 he
will have another proposition available: “the steal,” a rallying cry of rage
and simplicity.
For
Democrats, who see him exiled to Mar-a-Lago, stripped of his key social media
platforms and facing determined prosecutors, his future seems risible if not
pathetic. But this is Donald Trump, always ready to strike back harder than he
has been struck, to blame anyone but himself, to silence any doubts with the
sound of his own voice, to take what he believes is his and, most of all, to
seize all available attention. Sound the alarm.
Michael
Wolff (@MichaelWolffNYC) is a journalist and the author, most recently, of
“Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency.”
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