Trump claims it's 'highly unlikely' he'll run for Congress in 2022
Donald Trump stands on stage during an appearance at the North Carolina GOP convention dinner in Greenville, North Carolina, U.S. June 5, 2021.
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Former President Donald Trump has said that it’s “highly unlikely” that he will run for a House seat in the 2022 midterms, putting a stop to the theory that he could become speaker if the Republicans win back the chamber.
“Well, so many people are saying that I should run in ‘22, and I think that’s highly unlikely, but they do say that a lot... You know, there’s a whole theory behind that,” Mr Trump told Fox Business Network. “We won’t get into that.”
Mr Trump did say that he’s considering running for president again in 2024.
On 4 June, right-wing talk radio host Wayne Allyn Root encouraged Mr Trump to run for a House seat in Florida and “win big, lead us to a dramatic landslide victory, taking the House by 50 seats and then you become speaker of the House, lead the impeachment of Biden and start criminal investigations against Biden.”
“You’ll wipe him out for his last two years and then you’ll be president. Do it, you’ll be a folk hero!” Mr Root told Mr Trump.
“People have said, ‘run for the Senate,’” Mr Trump responded. “But you know what, your idea might be better, it’s very interesting.” But Mr Trump appeared to put an end to the idea in his more recent call-in with Fox.
The Constitution doesn’t say that you have to be a member of Congress to be speaker. Theoretically, the post could be held by anyone.
“The House of Representatives shall [choose] their Speaker and other Officers,” the Constitution states.
The office of the House Historian has previously said that the speaker “has always been (but is not required to be) a House Member”. But many historians and experts think the founders just assumed that the speaker would be chosen out of the members of the House.
During his interview with Fox Business Network, Mr Trump once again pushed the lie that the 2020 election was fraudulent.
“I won the election, but they cheated,” he said. There’s no evidence to suggest that this is true.
He also gave voice to another baseless conspiracy theory, accusing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg of using “phony lock boxes” holding 90 per cent of the votes for President Joe Biden.
Mr Trump also said his bans from social media platforms remain in place because the companies are run by “radical left crazy people” who “don’t want to hear a sane voice”.
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