Trump Says 2024 GOP Presidential Primary Run By Mike Pence Would Be 'Very Disloyal'

Donald Trump has complained that it would be “very disloyal” if former Vice President Mike Pence or any other member of his Cabinet decided to run against him in the GOP primary for the 2024 presidential race.

The comment was startking, given the former president’s silence for hours as his supporters rampaged through the Capitol Jan. 6 last year calling for Pence to be hanged if he didn’t follow Trump’s orders to overthrow the presidential vote.

“Many of them have said they would never run if I run, so we’ll see whether or not that turns out to be true,” the former president said Thursday, referring to his Cabinet members, in a phone interview with Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade.

“I think it would be very disloyal if they did,” Trump added.

While a frontrunner among Republican voters in possible matchups, Trump falsely boasted to Kilmeade that polls “have me leading by 40, 50 points” against contenders. Trump said he’ll decide whether to run for the presidency again “in the not-too-distant future.”

Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley have all indicated that they might be considering a run for the GOP presidential nomination.

Pence delivered several stealth digs at Trump earlier this week in a speech at a Heritage Foundation event in Washington, D.C., and complained about “unprincipled populism.”

We cannot “allow our movement to be led astray by the siren song of unprincipled populism that’s unmoored from our oldest traditions and most cherished values,” Pence said.

When Pence was asked this week if he’d vote for Trump if he runs, he responded: “Well, there might be somebody else I’d prefer more.”

Pence has not yet responded to Trump’s “disloyal” comment.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

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