Donald Trump confirms plans to run again in 2024 at White House Christmas party: 'See you in four years'
It's not a speculation anymore. President Donald Trump has confirmed that he plans to run for the Oval Office again in 2024 at a recent Christmas party at the White House on Tuesday, December 1, after he lost the 2020 reelection bid to President-elect Joe Biden.
“It’s been an amazing four years. We are trying to do another four years. Otherwise, I’ll see you in four years," Trump told the crowd at the White House Christmas party. Former Oklahoma Republican Party Chair Pam Pollard live-streamed the event in which the president is seen coming down the stairs inside the White House, decked up with Christmas decorations, and saying those words.
According to the Associated Press, the crowd at the party was mostly made up of members of the Republican National Committee. Most of the attendees did not wear masks and were seen hanging out together with little social distancing. Trump continued to address the cheering crowd, touting his election fraud claims, saying: "It’s certainly an unusual year. We won an election. But they don’t like that. I call it a rigged election, and I always will."
MEAWW previously reported that Trump is said to be considering holding an event during the president-elect's inauguration to announce his 2024 run and has boasted that he thinks the networks will continue to cover him after he leaves the White House because Biden is 'boring'. The president continues to refuse to publicly concede the election to Biden but finally showed signs of caving this week when he admitted he would leave the White House in January if the electoral college approves his rival's votes.
Two sources said that Trump is considering timing a kick-off event for his 2024 White House campaign to clash with inauguration week or with the ceremony itself. This would be a marked departure from protocol since the outgoing president traditionally attends the incoming president's inauguration as part of a peaceful transition of power, a grace then-President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden both showed Trump back in 2017. His plot to draw the attention away from inauguration day on January 20 would be a dramatic disregard for the process of a peaceful transition of power from one president to the next.
If Trump makes an announcement of a potential third run for 2024, it could discourage other prominent Republicans to run for the White House in the next election cycle. Republican strategist and GOP presidential campaign veteran Alex Conant, while talking to Fox News, said that an announcement by the president for a 2024 run would "absolutely" change the dynamic of the next White House race, “at least at the outset.”
Conant said: "Nobody wants to be the first candidate to challenge Trump in 2024. If it were truly an open race, you’d see a lot of potential candidates making some aggressive early moves, going to Iowa, New Hampshire. You would normally see candidates going through the early states before the end of this year. 2024 candidates don’t want to talk about Donald Trump. They want to talk about themselves. But so long as he is making noises about running again, the race will be all about him. And these candidates will be less inclined to do the early state travel because it will all be in the shadow of whether or not Trump runs again."