Trump: ‘I wouldn’t be concerned’ if Pence runs in 2024

Former President Trump said Tuesday in an interview with Fox News that he “wouldn’t be concerned” about his former vice president, Mike Pence, potentially running against him for the Republican nomination in 2024.

“I mean, I wouldn’t be concerned with that,” Trump said of Pence’s possible run. “People are very disappointed in Mike, and if he ran, I don’t think that would be a problem.”

Trump pointed to surveys showing that he would easily take the lead over Pence and other Republican candidates in a primary election, saying, “Well, I think, if you look at the polls, I’m leading by a tremendous amount. I had a 98 percent approval rating in the Republican Party.”

A Trump spokesman said Monday that Pence is “desperate to chase his lost relevance,” specifically in view of his break with Trump over the Georgia gubernatorial Republican primary.

Pence announced earlier this month that he would support Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), someone Trump has openly criticized, in the race Tuesday, while Trump has strongly advocated for Kemp’s challenger, former Georgia Sen. David Perdue (R).

Trump knocked Kemp and praised Perdue in the Fox interview, which occurred during the Georgia primary.

“As you know, Brian Kemp did a very poor job on election integrity,” he said, referring to Kemp’s defiance of the former president’s demands to recount votes in Georgia in 2020.

Trump also again rehashed false claims that he had won the 2020 election against President Biden.

“You take a look at the results, I mean, every one of these states, every one of these swing states and beyond, but everyone in these swing states is proven. The evidence is so massive. The problem is the press, including Fox, doesn’t want to talk about it,” said Trump.

Fox Business Network commentator Stuart Varney pushed back on Trump’s claims, saying that Republicans want to “look forward to the future” rather than “go back to a chaotic situation or a toxic situation.”

However, Trump insisted that “there’s a vast portion of the Republican Party that disagrees with that.”

“They are very upset about it. They’re very angry with what happened in the election,” he said.