Trump will have ‘no guardrails’ if he runs in 2024, Stephanie Grisham says

Former President Donald Trump will almost certainly run again in 2024, and will do so without “guardrails”, his former press secretary has warned.

Stephanie Grisham told NBC’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press on Sunday that she believed initially that Mr Trump would not run again, and instead planned to coast off of Republican anger surrounding his election defeat to raise money to pay legal bills and other debts.

Now, she believes, his plans have changed.

“That’s part of what’s been scaring me as I’ve been watching from afar, you know, at first I thought he wouldn’t run again. I honestly thought this was a lot of his bluster,” she said.

“I thought he was just gonna kind of raise money to pay off legal bills, et cetera, but I think now, because his base is reacting to him the way it is and polls are showing that he is still very much the leader of the Republican Party...I think he is going to run again,” she continued.

Ms Grisham pointed to a lack of resistance from prominent GOP politicians and leaders regarding Mr Trump’s “role in January 6” and ongoing efforts to discourage confidence in the official results of the 2020 election as driving factors behind the former president’s considerations for seeking reelection. While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to support Mr Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, the lies have been embraced by much of the party including leaders in the House such as Minority Whip Steve Scalise, who refused to call President Joe Biden the legitimate winner during an interview Sunday on Fox News.

“If he does run again in 2024, he’ll have no guardrails because he never has to worry about reelection,” Ms Grisham continued, adding that the former president would seek to purge his inner circle of those who would not bend to his will whether legal or not.

The warning comes as Mr Trump has continued to hold rallies around the country, less than a year into his successor’s first term and ahead of a midterm election fight next year expected to shake up control of one or both chambers of Congress.

Several prominent figures in the GOP such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are thought to be considering 2024 bids for the presidency, but the will-he-won’t-he debate over whether Mr Trump will enter the race is seen as the most significant factor for the upcoming primary.

Polls currently indicate that at least half of the GOP electorate would likely support Mr Trump were the 2024 primary to be held today; that number could easily change over the next few years, but nevertheless represents a mountain facing any other contenders considering their own bids for the White House.

Ms Grisham served as White House press secretary before becoming chief of staff to former first lady Melania Trump. She resigned following the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, and is currently embarked on a media tour promoting the release of her memoir, I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw in the Trump White House.

In recent days she has blasted her former boss over the former administration’s Covid-19 response, which she referred to as “tragic”, while also warning that her former boss has only become emboldened by the lack of consequences he has faced in the months following the attack on the US Capitol and his attempts to overturn his election defeat.