Mary Trump says her uncle Donald will risk 2024 run despite his ‘humiliating’ 2020 defeat

‘Why wouldn’t he run? He’s in so much trouble, legally, criminally and civilly’

Former President Donald Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, has changed her mind about her uncle running for president again – she now believes he could try to regain the White House in 2024.

“I thought it was impossible because he got defeated so badly [in 2020]. It was such a humiliating loss that I believed he would never put himself at the risk of suffering that kind of narcissistic injury again,” Ms Trump told The Daily Beast’s The New Abnormal podcast.

But the Republicans have regained some ground since Mr Trump’s 2020 loss and they could do devastating damage to the Democrats in the 2022 midterms.

“If Donald gets to the point where he believes that if he ran, he couldn’t lose, why wouldn’t he run? He’s in so much trouble, legally, criminally and civilly,” Ms Trump said.

“I grew up in a family where kindness was considered weakness and cruelty was considered a legitimate strategy to get what you wanted,” she said on the podcast.

She added that “there’s still hope” for President Joe Biden despite his crashing poll ratings.

“What gets completely left out of the narrative is the absolutely horrific hand Biden was dealt. Look what he came into office having to deal with,” she said.

“If Democrats lose the House, we’re going to have a Joe Biden impeachment,” host Molly Jong-Fast said. “You could get brought up there for, like, being disloyal to your uncle. I mean, it’s really scary what could happen.”

In November 2020, Ms Trump told CNN she didn’t think that her uncle would run again. “I know he’s said that he would and that’s weird because that’s conceding the loss now, but I think that was floated initially as a way to appease him and his ego, but he will never put himself in a position where he can lose like this again.”

Running again “would mean that for four years, he is playing essentially a supporting role, which will be very difficult for him to sustain,” she added at the time. “In four years, he will be the same age Joe Biden is now. However, Donald is a very unhealthy person — he has a terrible diet, he doesn’t exercise, he has psychological disorders that continue to go untreated, so I don’t even imagine that he’ll even be able to run in four years.”

But since the election, Mr Trump has continued to push the baseless claim that he lost because of fraud with the support of a large number of Republicans.

Mr Trump is also facing legal problems. The Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, is facing a trial as he stands accused of a number of financial crimes.

A House Select Committee is also looking into Mr Trump’s actions in relation to the Capitol riot on 6 January. His former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was indicted over the weekend for contempt of Congress after he refused to comply with a subpoena.

Ms Trump now believes that her uncle could run again, that he’s willing to risk another loss amid mounting legal threats.