Rift in Trump’s inner circle over 2024 presidential campaign announcement

Donald Trump’s top political staffers at Mar-a-Lago are pressing him to move forward with his planned 2024 presidential campaign announcement next week but a chorus of allies are suggesting delaying until after the Senate runoff in Georgia in December, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The former US president has been forced to reckon with Republican blame for underwhelming performances from rightwing candidates he endorsed in the midterm elections, with the defeat of Republican candidate Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, contributing to uncertainty over which party will control the Senate.

Trump has suggested publicly that he intends to announce his 2024 presidential campaign next week as planned. Behind the scenes at Mar-a-Lago, in a sign of concern about his standing after disappointing results in the midterms, he remains undecided on how to proceed. However, some initial invites for the “Special Announcement” event have been sent.

Trump’s top staffers have firmly pressed him to announce his latest White House campaign as planned on Tuesday, the sources said, suggesting that he would appear weak and wounded by the results were he to cave to demands that he hold off until the Senate runoff early next month.

Trump also has no upside in waiting until the Senate runoff, where his handpicked Republican candidate Herschel Walker trails Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock. His staffers are said to have told him: if Walker wins, he can take credit, and if Walker loses, his position would be no different.

The staffers that are urging the former president to stick with an announcement include the core team that joined him at his election night party at Mar-a-Lago, such as former Trump 2016 campaign advisor David Bossie and Maga Inc Pac aides, who have underscored their loyalty to him.

But Trump is also being urged by a growing chorus of advisors with no formal role on his team or his political action committees, to hold off until the Senate runoff – and then decide how to announce his candidacy based on how votes break down in Georgia, the sources said.

The chief reason for delaying is that the Trump-endorsed candidate Walker came out with around 35,000 votes fewer than Warnock in the general election. Delaying would also give Trump time to assess the results of the Arizona and Nevada Senate races that remain too close to call.

The group urging a delay appears fear Trump could sink the Senate runoff for Republicans as he is widely considered to have done in 2020, when he focused on his own grievances about the 2020 election rather than helping Republican candidates.

The allies seeking a delay include Trump’s longtime advisor Jason Miller, who remains hugely influential to the extent that he amounts to around ten voices in the room, some Trump staffers conceded, as well as former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, now at Fox News.

“They want to ‘go’ because they need jobs,” one close Trump confidant suggested derisively about the staffers urging Trump to stick to his guns, adding that he wasn’t sure that anyone truly believed the former president should announce next Tuesday.

The initial plan was to have Trump announce his candidacy on Tuesday and turn the campaign launch into a several-day affair, the sources said – though it was always on the assumption that Republicans would surf a “red wave” in the midterms that did not ultimately materialize.

Though some invitations for the anticipated announcement have been sent, the sources said, it was done knowing that Trump could easily change his mind and feel no need to even bother to explain if the event was eventually cancelled.

Trump has been itching for weeks to launch his 2024 presidential campaign, and took advice in the summer to wait until after the midterms to make the announcement. But he could not help himself last Saturday and teased making a “very big announcement” a week after election night.

The disappointing performances by some of his endorsed candidates has cast a cloud over Trump, and the usually talkative former president delivered only a brief speech at the election watch party he held at Mar-a-Lago and ultimately eschewed talking to assembled reporters.

Instead, he sat entrenched at a table with his top staffers, including Save America Pac chief Susie Wiles, in-house counsel Boris Epshteyn, lawyer Lindsey Halligan and a few others as well as Bossie, watching the results trickle in on Fox News.

The following morning, as a hurricane lashed rain against the south Florida resort, Trump fumed about Oz’s defeat and cast around seeking people to blame for the endorsement, though he had been repeatedly urged at the time to not throw his backing behind the celebrity doctor.

By contrast, DeSantis spent election night celebrating his mammoth re-election in Florida, with some supporters chanting for him to run as president.

Trump has long viewed DeSantis as a threat and started attacking him before the Florida governor’s race was called, warning him against running for president in 2024 under the threat that he would release damaging information about his personal life.

In a furious and rambling statement on Thursday night, Trump tore into DeSantis: “The Fake News asks him if he’s going to run if President Trump runs, and he says, ‘I’m only focused on the governor’s race, I’m not looking into the future.’ Well, in terms of loyalty and class, that’s really not the right answer.”