Trump: Republican Party Has ‘Pretty Deep Bench’ If He Doesn’t Seek Presidency in 2024

Trump: Republican Party Has ‘Pretty Deep Bench’ If He Doesn’t Seek Presidency in 2024
Then-President Donald Trump speaks in a video released by the White House late on Jan. 13, 2021. (Screenshot/White House)
Jack Phillips
3/22/2021
Updated:
3/22/2021

Former President Donald Trump said that if he doesn’t run for the presidency in 2024, the Republican Party has a number of candidates who would be able to pick up the slack.

He didn’t say whether he would run again in 2024.

“I'll make that decision sometime later, but there’s a pretty deep bench,” Trump told the podcast “The Truth with Lisa Boothe” on March 22.

Trump said the GOP is “stacked” with “very good people” who will be contenders in upcoming elections, naming Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) as good candidates.

Trump was asked about whether these figures would be good options for the presidency in 2024. “I think we’ve got a lot of great people in the Republican Party,” he said.

Trump said that during a Conservative Political Action Conference’s (CPAC) straw poll, 97 percent of respondents gave him their approval. During his CPAC speech in late February, Trump teased that he is weighing his options to “beat them a third time,” referring to Democrats.

Should Trump run for president again, it’s likely that he will have to reestablish himself on social media after Twitter—his favored platform—suspended him indefinitely.

“I’m doing things having to do with putting our own platform out there that you’ll be hearing about soon,” Trump told Boothe, suggesting that he might create his own social media platform. His adviser, Jason Miller, said on March 21 in a separate interview that the former president was going to create his own platform “in probably about two or three months.”

“This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media,” Miller told Fox News. “It’s going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does.”

After Twitter, Facebook, and other Big Tech sites suspended him, Trump has relied on releasing statements via email and through his advisers—namely Miller.

“You’re seeing that we put out statements from the president, et cetera, et cetera. And it’s getting picked up by everybody, everything we say,” Trump said during the interview on March 22, saying the new method of messaging is “much more elegant” than tweeting.

“I think it’s been very big. I’ve only started doing that over the last three or four weeks. But the voices out there—I think, maybe in a certain way—may be as big as ever,” he said.

Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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