Republican Donald Trump said he will not run for a fourth consecutive term as US president if he loses the November 5 election, saying in an interview released on Sunday, “that would be all there is to it.”
Asked if he sees running for re-election in four years if he doesn’t succeed in his third consecutive bid for the White House, the 78-year-old former president told Sharyl Attkisson’s “Full Measure” program: “No, I don’t think so. I think that’s what will happen — that’s what will happen. I don’t think so at all. Hopefully, we’ll be successful.”
Trump is facing a tough contest with Democratic US Vice President Kamala Harris, with the two showing tight contests in key electoral states that are likely to be decisive in determining the winner, even as Harris has started to gain a lead in nationwide polls.
Trump launched his first re-election bid for the 2020 election on the same day he was inaugurated in 2017, and announced his latest bid for the White House two years ago in November 2022.
Trump has falsely blamed widespread voter fraud for his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden and faces federal and state criminal charges for efforts to overturn the election results. He has denied any wrongdoing and casts his indictments as a political attack against him, while adopting increasingly dystopian rhetoric if he loses in 2024.
He has also launched several business ventures during his latest campaign, including Trump Media, NFTs and Trump-branded sneakers, coins and crypto.
Meanwhile, Harris, 59, has called the election a pivotal moment for American democracy while saying she wants to focus on kitchen-table issues such as families and the cost of housing.
Asked if the four-year break had helped him regroup and figure out who he could rely on as allies, Trump said: “It would have been easier if I had done it … continuously.”
“But the benefit of this, more than anything else, is that it highlights how bad they were,” he added.
Trump, speaking to Attkisson at his Florida resort, also said it was “too early” to finalize any White House Cabinet positions if he wins in November.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
