Donald Trump has zero incentive to announce definitively whether he’s running for president.
Granted, if he does jump into the 2024 primary, he will be the clear front-runner, albeit one much diminished from his prior monopoly on the Republican Party, if the polls are any indication. Yet, the reasons for Trump not to try and secure his old job are obvious and numerous enough: Not one American wants to relive the geriatric monstrosity that was the election between Trump and eventual victor Joe Biden. And though Trump is obviously less decrepit than the near octogenarian Democrat, few would gamble again on a candidate who would be as old in 2024 as Biden is now. And, of course, it goes without saying that with telegenic Gen Xers such as Ron DeSantis and Kristi Noem ascendant, nominating the president who was impeached for a second time for beckoning a mob to the Capitol to “stop the steal” may be less palatable to even the most ardent MAGA supporters.
But there is one simple reason to believe Trump will ultimately refuse to run, at least seriously: He’s a selfish man, and his post-presidency is treating him orders of magnitude better than the White House ever did.
After fleeing Washington, Trump and his family decamped to Florida, where the billionaire is no longer bored by the buttoned-up Brooks Brothers types who dominate the Beltway, but back with his fellow fabulously wealthy friends of Palm Beach. Daughters Ivanka Trump and Tiffany Trump reside close by Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound, where he reigns not as a president beholden to Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, but as a king.
Trump now spends his days playing golf, greeting adoring guests, and fielding the occasional Republican arriving on bended knee for him. He has all the political power within the party to continue to act as its unchallenged kingmaker, but given his current status as a mere private citizen, he’s been received as a megacelebrity at UFC in Las Vegas, with top Hollywood starlets such as Megan Fox and Addison Rae cheering him on without even Hollywood capable of canceling them for their plaudits.
And as the saying goes, happy wife, happy life. By available accounts, Melania Trump does not have the faintest desire to return to the campaign trail or worse, the East Wing. The former first lady spends her days at the spa or with her parents or her son, Barron. According to Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender, the former president repeatedly notes to friends that his wife now looks “more beautiful than ever.”
Then, there’s Donald Trump himself. Days spent on the golf course instead of rage-tweeting over Big Macs have led him to lose 15 pounds, and recent pictures of the former president show him noticeably less rotund and spray-tanned, a far cry from the seething, orange man whisked to the hospital as he fell woefully ill with the coronavirus last fall.
Finally, there’s a major clue in the tea leaves: Trump is reportedly selling his Washington, D.C., hotel, which served as the unofficial court across Pennsylvania Avenue for his retinue of grifters and charlatans to pay to be seen.
I don’t want Trump to run for president again, and I don’t see why anyone except for the Lincoln Project grifters, who profit by having him as a target, would want it. But if I were a betting woman, it seems clear that Trump has every selfish reason not to subject himself to the “Swamp” again.
