Former President Donald Trump “plans to stay in the arena,” according to one of his top White House aides.
Mark Meadows, who was Trump’s final chief of staff, spoke about plans for the future Thursday in a radio interview with host Sebastian Gorka, who himself is a former White House adviser.
He offered rare insight into what Trump is up to these days, more than three weeks removed from the White House and now facing a Senate impeachment trial.
Meadows, who said he spoke to Trump on Wednesday and Thursday, said Trump “continues to put America first, but he also plans to stay in the arena.”
He also said, “America and the 75 million voters are not done with Donald Trump and all he did for the country,” referring to the number of people who voted for Trump in the 2020 election.
Trump met with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy at his Mar-a-Lago resort in West Palm Beach, Florida, in late January, after which his Save America political action committee said the former president struck a deal to help Republicans win back the majority in the House.
Other than that burst of news, Trump, barred from major social media platforms, has stayed largely off the public’s radar save for some reporting on his mood and activities throughout his historic second impeachment fight.
Ten Republicans joined with Democrats to impeach Trump on a single article of impeachment last month. He is accused of inciting an insurrection in connection to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot.
With Trump’s defense team set to start making its case on Friday, Meadows predicted a Senate vote will happen Friday night or Saturday, ending in acquittal.
Meadows is a former U.S. congressman from North Carolina, who left his seat to become White House chief of staff in March 2020 and stayed on until Trump left office last month when President Biden was inaugurated. Since then, Meadows has joined the Conservative Partnership Institute as a senior partner, which he called a “networking hub for conservative causes.”
Shedding light on the plans of a former colleague, Meadows said Stephen Miller, who was senior adviser to Trump for four years at the White House, is gearing up to have a group of attorneys file “lawsuits to go against some of the radical executive orders that are coming out of this new administration.”
Meadows also told Gorka that he would be meeting with members of the House Freedom Caucus, a group he once led, on Thursday to “figure out exactly what the next move is to push back against Speaker Pelosi and all that she has in store for her liberal leftist agenda friends.”
