Rahm Emanuel predicted on Sunday that former President Trump would not run for reelection in 2024 and would instead begin pursuing retribution against GOP lawmakers who spoke out against him.
“[Trump] won’t run, but he is going to spend the next two years on retribution,” the ABC News commentator predicted during a panel discussion on ABC’s “This Week.”
“He is going after every Republican that either said something bad or voted against them. And God bless him. You guys didn’t want to cut him off. He made a Faustian bargain with them. And that’s what’s coming to the Republican Party,” Emanuel, who was previously the Democratic mayor of Chicago and served as White House chief of staff in the Obama administration, said.
“In 1932, when [former President Franklin Roosevelt] won, was the last time a party — that is the Republicans — lost the presidency, the Senate and the House. That’s how far back you go for this moment in time to have a corresponding point in history,” he added.
With the elections of Democratic Georgia Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, the Democrats gained a 50-50 split in the Senate, with Vice President Harris holding the tie-breaking vote. Democrats have a slim majority in the House.
Trump established his “Office of the Former President” in Florida in late January as he reportedly seeks to maintain his influence in the GOP. Allies to the former president have said that Trump may support primary challengers to Republican lawmakers he feels have wronged him, including House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney (Wyo.), who voted to impeach him.
Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.), the finance chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said last week that the GOP House lawmakers who voted to impeach Trump would not face financial punishment for their votes, telling Politico that he believed regaining control in the House was more important that depriving reelection campaigns.
Although seven GOP senator joined Democrats in voting to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, the former president was acquitted on Saturday.