Republican presidential hopefuls gathered at a conference this weekend signaled that former President Donald Trump won’t face an easy path for his 2024 bid for the White House.
Many potential rivals – and even allies – made it clear that Trump should expect active competition for the GOP nomination.
In Las Vegas for the Republican Jewish Coalition conference, Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley, who served in key roles in the Trump administration, offered the former president a reality check.
Pompeo, Trump’s former secretary of State and CIA director, said that “going on Fox News or sending tweets” won’t be enough for Republicans to win the elections. He added that his loyalty “wasn’t to a person, or a party or a faction.”
“Personality and celebrity just aren’t going to get it done,” Pompeo said. “We can see that. The American people did not want to look back, they wanted to look forward. They care about what happens tomorrow, not what happened yesterday.”
Haley, Trump’s U.N. ambassador who said last year she wouldn’t run if the former president did, suggested she might change her mind. She said in her speech at the event she was looking at running in a “serious way,” and called for “a younger generation to lead across the board.”
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu added that funding would be another challenge for Trump as major GOP donors are declining to finance the former president’s campaign.
“He’s not going to have the financial support he had anymore, he’s not going to have the internal support that he had before,” Sununu said. “And so therefore, there’s opportunity there. That political weak blood in the water for some folks.”
