Tell me you’re insecure without telling me you’re insecure: Donald Trump is at it again. As if we needed more reasons to question his confidence in running for the 2024 presidential election—Trump has given us a plethora of them, including attempts at shaming the other potential candidates.
While the news of him targeting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is no surprise, especially after Trump’s daughter-in-law allegedly threatened the Florida governor not to run in 2024, Trump is taking his insecurities to a whole new level by targeting anyone rumored to be running against him, including former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence.
In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt Thursday, Trump not only brought up the fact that Haley said she wouldn’t run against him, but claimed she wouldn’t be able to stay in office.
“Nikki suffers from something that's a very tough thing to suffer from: She's overly ambitious,” Trump said.
He continued: “She’s a very ambitious person. She just couldn’t stay in a seat. I said, ‘You know what, Nikki, if you want to run, you go ahead and run.’”
Of course, Hewitt’s show is not the only place Trump took to calling out her soon-to-be-broken promise. He also took to sharing a video of her saying “I would not run if President Trump ran” on Truth Social Wednesday.
"Nikki has to follow her heart, not her honor. She should definitely run!" Trump posted.
While Haley would be the first to declare a bid against Trump, according to Business Insider, former allies such as Pence and Mike Pompeo are also considering it.
Trump also took a jab at Pompeo and his new autobiography.
“I haven’t seen the book yet. I haven’t read it, though I heard he was generally nice. … He took a little bit more credit than he should, but that’s okay with me,” Trump said, adding: “We did a great job. I got along very well with Mike.”
But hating on the potential other candidates is not all he’s doing. According to CNN, the former president even warned that he might refuse to endorse the other nominees if he loses the primary race. This obviously wouldn’t be a good scenario for Republicans.
The warning came after his comments about the other candidates on Thursday on the same show. Trump used his regular tactics of trying to intimidate those running against him later to dive into the topic of whether he would commit to backing the GOP nominee if it wasn’t him.
“It would depend. I would give you the same answer I gave in 2016 during the debate. … It would have to depend on who the nominee was,” Trump said.
Given his history of being a sore loser this isn’t shocking news. What would be surprising is if he didn’t claim the race was rigged against him if he lost.
At this time Trump remains the only publicly declared GOP candidate. While DeSantis has said nothing as of yet of his candidacy, Haley is expected to make her campaign announcement on Feb. 15.