Former Trump officials plotting effort to blunt his impact on elections: report

Around three dozen former Trump administration officials, including chief of staff John Kelly, recently held a conference call to discuss how to oppose the former president’s next potential run for office in 2024, according to CNN.

CNN reported that the call ended without any definitive decision from the group of former staffers, which included former communications directors Anthony Scaramucci and Alyssa Farah Griffin, as well as an aide for former national security adviser John Bolton.

But they remain opposed to the reelection of former President Trump and could hold another meeting to hash out a concrete plan to work against their ex-boss in the next presidential cycle, according to the news outlet.

One topic of discussion revolved around an unreleased poll showing that Trump was losing support in the Republican party. The group also discussed ways to further erode Trump’s hold on the party by ensuring the defeat of candidates he has backed in upcoming elections.

The unofficial group mirrors that of The Lincoln Project, a string of “Never Trump” Republicans who opposed Trump during the 2020 election because “those who ascribe to Trumpism are a clear and present danger to the Constitution and our Republic,” according to the group’s website.

But the former Trump staffers do not seem inclined to repeat the anti-Trump advertising campaign of The Lincoln Project, with Miles Taylor, the former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff, telling CNN that “letters and statements don’t mean anything.”

“The two operative words are ‘electoral effects.’ How can we have tangible electoral effects against the extremist candidates that have been endorsed by Trump?” he said to the outlet.

Some of those on the call have been vocal critics of their former boss; Kelly has questioned Trump’s leadership indirectly, saying the day after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that Americans should “look infinitely harder” at who they elect.

And after he was fired from his position, Bolton said Trump “is not fit for office.”