In an interview released Thursday, former President Donald Trump said there was only one thing that could defeat him in the 2024 presidential election: his health.

The 75-year-old has made several hints that he intends to run for a second term in the White House, but for the first time intimated that he could be content to sit back and watch his Republican rivals hash it out.

He confirmed that his health will play a role in his final choice, as he had warned advisers.

‘You have to talk about health all the time.’ You appear to be in fine health, but the next day you receive a note from a doctor requesting that you return to see him.’ When they say “again,” that’s not good,’ he told the Washington Post, adding that he was now in good health.

But he went on to say that he won’t rule out running again.

‘I don’t want to comment on running, but I believe a lot of people will be pleased with my decision,’ he said, adding, ‘because it’s becoming a little dull now.’

Trump might be a ‘super ager,’ fit and active into his 80s, according to doctors who study ageing and presidential health, though his obesity and a family history of dementia could cut that period short.

In polls, Trump leads possible Republican opponents by large margins.

Much of the rest of the field is now waiting to see when and if he will throw his hat into the ring.

At a time when some of his endorsements have backfired, the former president spent much of the interview focusing on his grip on his party.

He’ll be attending a demonstration in Selma, North Carolina this weekend. Some local Republicans, however, are upset that he endorsed Bo Hines, a 26-year-old candidate who lives nowhere near the congressional district where he is running, over local candidates.

It’s the latest in a series of blunders, according to opponents, as he flexes his muscles ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Even yet, Trump said that if he decides to run, he will be the candidate, and that former Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will just stand aside.

‘If I ran, I can’t imagine they’d want to run. Some would have had a hard time fleeing out of loyalty,’ he claimed.

‘I think that most of those people, and almost every name you mentioned, is there because of me. In some cases, because I backed them and endorsed them.’ You know Ron was at 3 percent, and the day I endorsed him, he won the race.’

Is it true that Trump ‘made’ DeSantis?

‘As soon as I endorsed him, the race was over,’ Trump responded.

He also used the interview to refute claims that he may have used a ‘burner’ phone on January 6, 2017, when his supporters trashed the US Capitol.

Several news outlets reported last week that the White House call log of Trump’s calls during the unrest had a gap of more than seven hours.

Trump claimed that no documents were destroyed and that he did not utilize unregistered cellphones.

According to the Post, he remarked, “From the standpoint of telephone calls, I don’t recall getting that many.”

‘Why would I care about who called me? If congressmen were calling me, what difference did it make?

‘There was nothing secretive about it. There was no secret.”

Several members of Congress, including House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, have stated that they spoke with Trump during the disturbance, but their conversations are not recorded in the White House records.

 

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