Former Attorney General Bill Barr is “adamantly against” the notion of his former boss, President Donald Trump, returning to the Oval Office.
While promoting his new book “One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General” at a May 5 event hosted by The City Club of Cleveland, Barr said it would be a “tragedy” if Trump won the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, though he added that he did not think that would be the case.
“We have other serious candidates who have most of the same policies and don’t have all the baggage,” he noted.
Barr, who served as attorney general under both the George H.W. Bush and Trump presidencies, had a falling out with the latter in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump believes he rightfully won.
“He went off half-cocked and there was no getting him back on the rails,” Barr recounted. “And the stuff about it being stolen, to me, once I started looking at it, understanding what had happened, it was clearly wrong. And I wasn’t going to be a part of it.”
Working for Trump
When asked Friday by Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera, who attended the Cleveland event, as to whether he believed Trump was fit to hold office, Barr responded that Trump would be “the last person” who could execute and achieve the policies he promotes.“He does not have the discipline; he does not have the ability for strategic thinking or setting priorities, or how to get things done in the system,” he asserted. “It is a horror show when he’s left to his own devices. So, you may want his policies, but Trump will not deliver Trump policies.”
Despite that criticism, Barr said that, up until the 2020 election, he felt that the Trump administration had been largely successful in accomplishing its goals.
“I was satisfied with the performance,” he noted, adding that he thought Trump had been treated unfairly by the press and federal law enforcement in relation to the Department of Justice’s Russia probe.
Barr also said he had enjoyed the informal and “chaotic” way in which the billionaire had conducted business, likening meetings in the Oval Office to life at a fraternity house.
“We had a room in my fraternity at college. We called it the card room, and it just seemed that there was a 24/7 card game going on. And you could never sort of detect who was there and who wasn’t—people were sort of coming and going in a subtle way—and it just kept on going. And that’s what the Oval Office was like.”
Nevertheless, the former attorney general did not hold back in his criticism of Trump, describing him as a “narcissist” who was difficult to work with.
And Trump has not been coy in sharing his thoughts on Barr, either, often describing him as a “RINO” (Republican in Name Only) and a sellout to the Washington establishment.
Choosing a Nominee
According to a May 2 Morning Consult poll, Trump has the support of 56 percent of Republican primary voters—a 34 percent edge over second-place contender Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has not officially declared his candidacy.Despite those numbers, Barr said he felt Republicans would be making a mistake if they put him forward again as their presidential nominee.
Without naming his preferred candidate, Barr said the party should instead take advantage of the Democrats’ leftward lunge and nominate someone who would appeal to a wider faction of the electorate.
“I have felt for some time that this could be a replay of 1980,” he said. “When one party goes too far in one direction, it leaves a big spectrum for the other party to fill. And I feel the way for [Republicans to get] the country back was for the Republican Party to get the hint and put up somebody who’s quasi-normal to be president of the United States.”
When reached for further comment about Barr’s criticism, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign simply replied, “Who?”
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