Former Attorney General Bill Barr doesn’t want Donald Trump to be the 2024 GOP nominee, but if that happens the former Justice Department chief says he can’t imagine voting for anyone else.
Mr Barr made the comments in an interview with NBC News, which was broadcast on Monday. During the interview Mr Barr heaped excoriating criticism on his former boss for his efforts to overturn the election and his anger towards people who stood up against his false claims, but made clear that he was still a loyal Republican.
His remarks came despite a new attack launched by the former president in response to the behind-the-scenes revelations found in Mr Barr’s upcoming memoir which referred to his former AG as “cowardly” and lazy. Mr Trump is now political enemies with both of the men who served as the US attorney general during his tenure, despite both originally being his close allies.
"The president is a man who when he is told something he doesn't want to hear, he immediately throws a tantrum and attacks a person personally," said Mr Barr to NBC’s Lester Holt.
Of Mr Trump, he added: “[A]fter the election, he went off the rails. He wouldn't listen to anybody except a little coterie of sycophants who were telling him what he wanted to hear."
Mr Barr famously broke with Mr Trump in late 2020 and refused to support what he called the president’s “bullsh-t” claims of widespread voter fraud that the Trump campaign falsely claimed were responsible for Joe Biden’s victory.
In reality, Mr Trump’s team was never able to come up with any tangible evidence of voter fraud on a significant scale, and their legal efforts to halt the certification of the 2020 election fell flat in every state. Still, driven by Mr Trump’s false claims, his supporters would go on to attack Congress on Jan 6 and attempt to thwart the certification of the election results.
But despite the events of January 6, Mr Barr said in his interview that he would still vote for Mr Trump should he win the 2024 GOP nomination, due to the threat supposedly posed by the values of who Mr Barr sees as his true opponents: The Democratic Party.
"Well, I certainly have made it clear. I don't think he should be our nominee and I'm going to support somebody else for the nominee," he told NBC News.
He then added, however: "Because I believe that the greatest threat to the country is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic Party, it's inconceivable to me that I wouldn't vote for the Republican nominee.”
Mr Trump remains the wide favourite to win the 2024 GOP nomination. A recent straw poll of Republicans at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Florida showed Mr Trump dominating the field of potential candidates, with only Florida’s Gov Ron DeSantis coming anywhere close (but still a ways away) from Mr Trump’s level of support.
