Former Attorney General William Barr on Friday said that he did not think the Republican Party could win the White House in 2024 with former President Trump, adding that his ex-boss is “not my idea of a president.”
Barr was asked during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper if he would get involved in a primary challenge against former President Trump and support another candidate if Trump ran, to which he replied, “Yes.”
“Yes, I think the coming presidential election would be a good opportunity for the Republican Party because from my standpoint, the progressive left has — is sort of showing a sort of a totalitarian temperament,” Barr replied.
“I think the Republicans can win a decisive majority, but I don’t think we can do it with Trump. He’s just too divisive a candidate,” he added.
Barr was also asked about commentary he shared in his new book, “One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General,” in which he criticized the former president’s various actions during his presidency.
“He’s not my idea of a president, and … I felt he was going to lose the election because he was not controlling himself. He was allowing this pettiness to come through, and I feel it’s one of his great failings,” Barr told Tapper, speaking of the former president.
“I think a lot of people agree with his policies. They like his strength and his directness. But to the extent they support them, it’s despite these — this kind of obnoxious behavior, it’s not because of it,” he said.
Barr noted that he thought Trump “went off the rails” after losing the 2020 presidential election, and claimed that he did not listen to his advisers.
Despite Barr’s remarks, a new poll released on Friday shows a hypothetical 2024 match-up between Trump and President Biden as a tie. In a Wall Street Journal poll released on Friday, both men would get 45 percent of support from Americans in a hypothetical 2024 match-up.
Trump told Fox News in an interview in November that he would “probably” wait until after the midterms to announce a decision on whether he would run for the presidency in 2024.
The Hill has reached out to a Trump spokesperson for comment.