Donald Trump begins laying the groundwork for using his health as an excuse to bail out of 2024
Donald Trump was never going to be a candidate in the 2024 election – at least not an actual one. There has always been the possibility that he would announce a phony 2024 campaign in 2021 or 2022, so he could use it as an excuse to fundraise and pocket the money, before shutting the whole thing down.
Trump will be dealing with criminal charges long before the 2024 election cycle. And even if he weren’t, his pathetically low 32% favorability rating and total irrelevance on social media have made clear that he wouldn’t be a 2024 contender anyway. It was a matter of time before we started hearing excuses for why he might take a pass on 2024, and now it’s happening.
Trump’s close pal Franklin Graham is now saying that when it comes to Trump running in 2024, “everything will depend on his health.” In other words, Trump and his allies are already putting an excuse in place that Trump can use, without having to admit that he’s not running because he’s too unpopular to win and too deeply in legal trouble to even try.
Again, this doesn’t meant that Trump won’t try to launch some 2024 faux-campaign in the short term, as a cash grab. In fact he’s already supposedly resuming holding rallies next month, presumably so he can use them to fundraise money and pocket it for his upcoming criminal trial defense costs. But it sure is telling that Team Trump is already spelling out why Trump won’t be an actual candidate in the 2024 election cycle. They know he’s toast.
