On Saturday, Donald Trump will go to South Carolina for his first formal campaign rally of 2024. This might be a crucial weekend for the former president.
Trump will first stop in New Hampshire, one of the early primary states, where he will address the state’s Republican Party’s annual gathering in Salem.
While on the trip, Special Counsel Jack Smith is still looking into how President Trump handled sensitive information at his Florida mansion, Mar-a-Lago.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith, a career prosecutor, to decide whether to file charges. The FBI searched the home on August 8, 2020, but Trump has constantly denied any wrongdoing and lambasted the Department of Justice for the action.
As he launches his third bid for the White House, Trump is also under political pressure, and a recent survey shows that citizens of New Hampshire choose Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. According to a survey conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center and released on Thursday, Trump is 12 points behind the Republican governor.
DeSantis hasn’t declared his candidacy for president, but many observers view him as a potential foe for the GOP nomination. Former Vice President Mike Pence is also rumored to be thinking about running and has been seen out and about recently, keeping his distance from Trump.
According to John Bolton, a former national security adviser, Trump’s 2024 campaign is “going bad and I think it’ll continue to go downhill,” he told CBS News on Thursday. He referred to the previous president as the Republican Party’s “poison.”
“He is ineligible for the presidency. He would ruin our chances of winning a Senate and House majority if he became the Republican nominee. He won’t be the Republican nominee, in my opinion, “Bolton declared.
Bolton reportedly mentioned that he might run for president on his own to try to stop Trump from winning a second term. On Friday, it appeared that Trump responded by labeling Bolton “one of the dumbest persons in Government” on his Truth Social platform.
Ronna McDaniel’s re-election as chairwoman of the Republican National Committee on Friday, though, seemed to be a silver lining for Trump before his trips to New Hampshire and South Carolina.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and Republican Harmeet Dhillon from California, who had received DeSantis’ endorsement, were among the competitors McDaniel vanquished.
Trump posted on Truth Social following her re-election: “We congratulate Ronna McDaniel on her significant victory as RNC CHAIR. Now we need to PREVENT THE DEMOCRATS FROM ELECTION FRAUD!”
