- President Trump has already started talking to aides about the idea of a Trump 2024 presidential ticket, according to various news accounts on Monday.
- This comes even as President Trump has remained steadfast in his refusal to publicly accept the results of the November 3 election or to concede to President-elect Joe Biden.
- The US Constitution limits presidents to serving two terms, but they don’t have to be consecutive.
At least publicly, President Trump has so far resisted accepting the results of the November 3 presidential election, with his Twitter account over the past week conveying a steady stream of grievances and claims about the election that Twitter has slapped warning labels on, one after the other. Trump surrogates including his sons Eric and Don Jr. seem to be among the members of the Trump orbit most aggressive in urging the president to press on with the quixotic proposition of somehow challenging the results and Biden’s win.
At the same time, here’s an indication that Trump’s grasp of the post-election reality may be more nuanced than the version he presents to the public. Specifically, he’s reportedly already begun talking to aides about the possibility of a Trump 2024 ticket — since, of course, presidents are limited to serving two terms, which don’t have to be consecutive.
According to Axios, two sources familiar with Trump’s conversation along these lines have confirmed the news, never mind the fact that on Sunday, Trump tweeted the following: “Since when does the Lamestream Media call who our next president will be? We have all learned a lot in the last two weeks!“
Jennifer Jacobs, Bloomberg’s senior White House reporter and indefatigable Trump World scoop machine, tweeted on Monday that we should get ready for four years of will-he-or-won’t-he from Trump along these lines. She thinks he’ll tease a new White House bid ahead of 2024 as a way to stay relevant and in the press, which will ensure that he continues frustrating the political left (and will also hamstring legitimate GOP contenders the closer we get to 2024, as they need to lock up donors who are forced to wait and see what Trump decides to do).
His 2016 election win could prove a little instructive about what he plans to do next. Trump filed the official paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to qualify as a 2020 candidate on the very day he was inaugurated, in January of 2017.
And lest this all seem like idle speculation, don’t forget: On November 3, Trump still managed to set a record in terms of the number of votes he received, beating the popular vote totals of every president in history including Barack Obama — with one exception. And that exception, of course, is the man who will be sworn in as the nation’s 46th president come January.
