Former President Donald Trump may not embark on a third campaign for the White House, after all, star New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman posited on Sunday.
The journalist cast doubt on Trump’s future political ambitions, even though the former president and his allies have repeatedly teased that Trump has made up his mind and the only major consideration left to make is when to announce.
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“We don’t know whether Donald Trump is actually running,” Haberman said during an appearance on CNN. “Everybody around him says he’s running. It is advantageous to Donald Trump to talk about running at a time when prosecutors are looking at him.”
Trump has long flirted with the notion of a 2024 campaign. He told New York magazine in July, “Well, in my own mind, I’ve already made that decision, so nothing factors in anymore. In my own mind, I’ve already made that decision,” leaving only the question of when to make a formal declaration as the remaining “big decision” if an announcement is to be made.
As recently as Sunday, in a post to his Truth Social platform, Trump said he “may just have to do it again” while citing polls and a “backfired” FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago resort. Trump is facing multiple investigations at the state and federal levels, including inquiries into his actions surrounding the Capitol riot and 2020 election, but he has broadly maintained he has done nothing wrong.
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Haberman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has long covered the Trump beat, made the assessment about Trump’s 2024 strategy during an exchange about whether Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) will announce a White House bid, even as he says he is focused on his own reelection campaign in Florida and is helping campaign for Trump-aligned candidates.
“He definitely has a lane,” Haberman said. “The question is whether he’s sharing it with Donald Trump and whether or not he actually wants to be in a cage match with Donald Trump, and I’m not convinced that he does.”