Barr: GOP has ‘big opportunity’ to move past Trump in 2024
Former Attorney General William Barr said Thursday that the GOP needs to elect someone other that former President Trump to be party’s presidential nominee in 2024.
Barr, who served as the nation’s top prosecutor under Trump, was asked on Newsmax if he would vote for the former president in 2024.
“I don’t think he should be our nominee — the Republican Party nominee,” Barr responded.
“And I think Republicans have a big opportunity — it would be a big mistake to put him forward,” he added.
Trump and Barr’s relationship crumbled after Barr refuted claims that the 2020 election was tainted by widespread voter fraud.
In his memoir “One Damn Thing After Another,” Barr said that Trump had “lost his grip” after the 2020 presidential election.
“He stopped listening to his advisers, became manic and unreasonable, and was off the rails,” Barr wrote. “He surrounded himself with sycophants, including many whack jobs from outside the government, who fed him a steady diet of comforting but unsupported conspiracy theories.”
Trump has similarly went after Barr, saying he caved to the “Radical Left” adding the former attorney general was “not one of my better picks” for his administration.
“I made many great appointments during my Administration, and we accomplished more than most Administrations could even dream of, but Bill Barr was not one of my better picks,” Trump said in a letter to NBC News anchor Lester Holt.
“He crumbled under the pressure, and bowed to the Radical Left—And that is not acceptable. Now he is groveling for the media, hoping to gain acceptance that he doesn’t deserve.”
Despite Barr’s views of Trump, the former president still holds significant sway in the Republican Party, endorsing several GOP candidates this year, including Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance. A recent poll showed that the former president holds a small lead over President Biden in a hypothetical 2024 matchup.
Trump has not publicly said whether he will run or not, but has hinted that his supporters will be “happy” with his decision.