‘Too early to say’: Donald Trump stays mum on 2024 campaign (but promotes his polls)
the late radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who died Wednesday.
Trump also spoke with Fox News and the One American News (OAN) network in phone interviews to talk about Limbaugh. “He was with me all the way,” Trump told Fox host Sean Hannity.
Asked about his future, Trump told Hannity “we have a lot to talk about,” but he added that “today’s all about Rush.”
The ex-president answered questions on other issues during the largely friendly interviews. He did not speak in detail about the Jan. 6 insurrection by his supporters, the subsequent impeachment by the House, or the recent Senate trial that ended with his acquittal.
The interviews came a day after Trump issued a scathing statement against Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, widening the rift within the GOP over the ex-president’s role in the party moving forward.
More:Donald Trump rips Mitch McConnell as each seeks to exert leadership after impeachment trial
Trump is polling well among Republicans. A Morning Consult/Politico poll released Tuesday said, “A majority of Republican voters (54 percent) said they would support Trump in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary election.”
McConnell’s reverse Watergate road map is the last hope for Trump accountability
On Saturday, the Senate acquitted Trump on charges that he incited the riot at the Capitol, but only because prosecutors could not muster the two-thirds vote necessary for conviction; 57 of the 100 senators voted for conviction, including seven Republicans.
Donald Trump, Bill O’Reilly, more mourn Rush Limbaugh’s deathIn Donald Trump v. democracy, acquittal shows depth and danger of Trumpism pandemic
McConnell actually voted to acquit Trump, but, he said, only because he did not think it was constitutional to conduct a trial of a president who is no longer in office. McConnell had also opposed staring the trial while Trump was still in office.
In casting his acquittal vote, the Kentucky senator did criticize Trump, saying his false claims about the election inspired the rioters.
“The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their President,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “And having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated President kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.”