Graham: Trump should consider running again in 2024 if he loses

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Monday that President Trump should consider another run in 2024 if he loses his legal battles over the 2020 White House race.

Graham — during an interview with Fox News Radio’s “The Brian Kilmeade Show” — did not acknowledge that Trump lost this year’s election and instead said that if the president “falls short” he should “not let his movement die” and should “consider running again.”

“I would encourage him to think about doing it,” Graham said, saying Trump should “create an organization, platforms over the next four years to keep his movement alive.”

“Grover Cleveland came back. Donald Trump should think about it if he falls short,” Graham added, referring to the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms.

Trump has not conceded the election to President-elect Joe Biden, and his legal team is vowing a drawn-out court fight in key battleground states that Biden carried.

Other Trump allies have also floated that the president could run again in 2024 as he continues to try to exert his influence over the party even after losing the presidential election.

Rick Gaetz, a 2016 campaign aide, told USA Today that Trump would likely “seriously consider another run in 2024.” Former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said he would “absolutely” put Trump on a “shortlist” of Republicans likely to run in 2024.

Trump hasn’t publicly weighed in on a potential 2024 bid.

Graham, during the Fox News Radio interview, said he expects the president will continue to fight for the 2020 election.

“I talked to the president for a long time yesterday. He wants to fight, and he should fight. … If we can close the margins in Arizona and Georgia and look at provisional ballots, this is not over,” Graham said.

Biden could end up with around 306 Electoral College votes. The Associated Press currently puts him at 290 and leading in Georgia, which would give him another 16 votes if he wins the traditionally red state.

Which party will control the Senate majority next year is unclear, but if Republicans hold on to the upper chamber, Graham said he is going to ask Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to investigate mail-in voting.

“What I’m going to tell Mitch McConnell today when we get back, if we keep the Senate, we need to do a joint committee in the Senate to analyze mail-in balloting and how it worked in 2020,” Graham said.

Trump has repeatedly lashed out at mail-in voting, arguing that it leads to widespread fraud, a claim that election experts have said is unsubstantiated.