PRESIDENT Donald Trump is reportedly planning a possible run for the White House in 2024—and considering hosting a related event on President-elect Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day.
Trump has conversed with confidants and his closest advisers about potentially launching a 2024 campaign and the best time to announce it to keep the Republican Party behind him until the next election, three sources told The Daily Beast on Saturday.
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Over the past two weeks, Trump has raised the idea of holding a 2024 event on the week of Biden’s inauguration if his legal battles challenging the election results fail, two of the sources said.
The news comes as vote recounts in Wisconsin—which cost the Trump administration $3million—extended Biden’s lead in the crucial state.
In private, Trump has bragged that media attention will remain on him because he brings viewership and ratings to the outlets that find Biden “boring” to cover, two sources told The Daily Beast.
Trump and his associates have reportedly begun asking big donors if they would back him in 2024 and some of the president’s top allies are apparently staying on his good side in case he decides to run.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Sun on Saturday.
Earlier this month, Trump told National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that he plans to run for president in 2024 if the results for 2020 do not swing in his favor, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
“If you do that—and I think I speak for everybody in the room—we’re with you 100 percent,” O’Brien said during the meeting in the Oval Office.
Trump has not conceded, despite setbacks in several efforts to challenge and overturn elections results in battleground states.
On Thursday at the White House, Trump told a reporter that “it’s going to be a very hard thing to concede because we know there was massive fraud.”
The Trump administration spent several million dollars in requests for recounts in Milwaukee and Dane counties in Wisconsin, which the president lost to Biden by more than 20,000 votes.
On Friday, Milwaukee County election officials finished the recount and announced that Biden actually gained 257 votes, while Trump only got 125 more.
“The recount demonstrates what we already know: that elections in Milwaukee County are fair, transparent, accurate and secure,” said Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, Dane County is expected to reveal its recount totals on Sunday.
Trump has yet to legally challenge Wisconsin’s total election results, but his timeframe to do so is limited, as the state is set to certify its results on Tuesday.
