The Guardian Australia

Trump will run for president in 2024, Sean Spicer claims

- Victoria Bekiempis in New York

Donald Trump’s onetime press secretary, Sean Spicer, said his former boss would run for the presidency again in 2024.

“He’s in,” Spicer claimed of Trump’s interest in the race during a recent Washington Examiner interview.

Spicer reportedly remarked that Trump’s appetite for the presidenti­al election had been bolstered over the last several months, after watching Joe Biden’s handling of issues such as immigratio­n.

“A couple of months ago, I wasn’t sure,” Spicer said of a Trump run in the interview. “Now ... there needs to be something that will keep him out.”

The Examiner does not state whether Spicer is giving his opinion or whether he has spoken to the former president or has definitive word from his inner circle, or similar informatio­n.

As Trump’s first White House press secretary, Spicer faced doubts over credibilit­y when he addressed the media, and hence the public, from the podium in televised briefings.

He has since claimed that he didn’t “knowingly” lie to the American public.

His latest claim came amid continued speculatio­n about Trump’s political plans following his decisive loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election, which officials at local, state and national level called the most secure presidenti­al contest in US history.

Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, appeared to discuss the former president’s future aspiration­s in a recent Newsmax interview. “We met with several of our Cabinet members tonight … I’m not authorized to speak on behalf of the president, but I can tell you this...we wouldn’t be meeting tonight if we weren’t making plans to move forward in a real way, with President Trump at the head of that ticket,” Meadows said, according to the Hill.

Spicer resigned from his position as White House press secretary in July 2017 following a chaotic six months.

His short-lived time behind the briefing room’s podium was characteri­zed by false statements and an aggressive attitude toward journalist­s, as well as a series of gaffes.

Spicer’s rocky tenure began just one day after Trump’s inaugurati­on. Spicer angrily insisted in his first briefing that Trump attracted “the largest audience ever to witness an inaugurati­on, period, both in person and around the globe”, following media reports – bolstered by clear photograph­ic evidence and public transport data – that attendance was weak, especially compared with Barack Obama’s 2009 inaugurati­on.

Spicer, whose foibles and apparent fibs were impersonat­ed by the comedian Melissa McCarthy on Saturday Night Live, was booted from his first post-politics job – the TV show Dancing With The Stars in fall 2019 – following eight weeks of low scores.

Meanwhile, the music superstar Barbra Streisand called Trump’s presidency “four years in a black hole” and gave a tip for combating his lies that he beat Biden in 2020, in an interview for Variety magazine.

“When you think of it, Al Gore lost the election by 537 votes. Hillary Clinton lost the election by [close to] 77,000 votes. But Trump lost the election by 7 million votes. I think they should show that every day on TV,” she said.

 ?? Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters ?? Donald Trump ‘is in’ for a 2024 run, Sean Spicer said.
Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters Donald Trump ‘is in’ for a 2024 run, Sean Spicer said.

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