Kellyanne Conway, one of former President Trump’s primary advisers and the campaign manager of his 2016 run for the presidency, is speaking out about the 2024 race for the White House.
Conway believes that Trump could be a presidential candidate again by the end of the year. She did an interview on Friday with CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge. The reporter asked whether Trump, who has hinted at another run for a 2nd term, would announce his candidacy after the midterm elections and before Thanksgiving.
Conway responded, “Well, he would like to.”
“He’s as active as anybody in these midterm elections. That’s important to the calculus also, Catherine because we have the most ironic, if not unprecedented situation right now. We have a president, a current president, whose party doesn’t really want him to campaign with them,” she said.
Conway went further saying that she thought once the midterms were done, former President Trump would access the timing of his announcement. And then she told Herridge when he wanted to run for president again, “Donald Trump wants his old job back.”
Trump’s former adviser told the CBS investigative correspondent in July that her advice to Trump was to wait for a few months. Kellyanne Conway is the first woman to run a successful presidential campaign, and she stayed by Trump’s side for most of his time in the White House.
In the past, Conway described Trump as “chomping at the bit” to announce that he will run again in 2024. But she was not the only person asking Trump to wait until after the midterms to announce his plans. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy also said that he lobbied the former president not to announce a 2024 presidential run before the midterms. He said to reporters at the Capitol in July that his point for Trump was the first order of business was to win in 2022.
Also in July, a top Republican strategist told the press that a pre-midterm announcement from former President Trump would be a “train wreck for the party” and “a complete mess.”
Apparently, the Trump team has gotten that message loud and clear.
Conway has previously suggested that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, currently dealing with the devastation caused by Hurricane Ian in his state, should wait to run for president in 2028. She believes he should finish two terms as Florida’s governor and then he would be in a better position to make a presidential run.
Conway told Herridge that DeSantis has the skills, he has the temperament, he has the “moxie,” and the commitment to make a successful bid for the Oval Office.
She also said concerning a future DeSantis run, “Many of his generational peers will have been in the United States Senate. So if he’s running against a Ted Cruz or Rand Paul or Marco Rubio, let’s say Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and others, Ron DeSantis, his argument is you’ve been in the United States Senate, sometimes in the minority party, sometimes in the majority party, but what have you got to show for it? They’ll have to answer those questions. He’ll say, I’ve been the governor of the third largest state. Look what I’ve done.”
When Conway was asked if Trump and his team are worried about the competition from DeSantis in 2024, she said she did not think so. She maintained that Trump and DeSantis were friends and allies, but people wanted them to be two “scorpions in a bottle” and they are not.
If they both decide to run, it is hard to imagine that the race would be cordial. Time will certainly tell.
