Trump Says This Election Will Be His Last if He Loses

“I think that that will be it,” he said. “Hopefully we’re going to be successful.”

Trump, pictured here at the 9/11 Memorial ceremony this month, said if he loses in November, this election may be his last: "I think that that will be it."Yuki Iwamura/AP

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Is the end in sight?

If Trump loses to Vice President Kamala Harris in November—which is a real possibility, if recent polls are accurate—he does not plan to run again in 2028, he said in an interview that aired Sunday.

“No, I don’t,” Trump told Sharyl Attkisson, host of Full Measure, when she asked if he thinks he would run again in four years if he loses the next election. “No, I don’t. I think that that will be it. I don’t see that at all. Hopefully we’re going to be successful.”

Is he serious? Time will tell… but don’t hold out hope: While Trump appeared to (finally) recently acknowledge he lost the 2020 election—as dozens of court cases affirmed—he quickly walked that back at the debate against Harris earlier this month, telling the moderators that he was being sarcastic. “I don’t acknowledge [losing] at all,” he added.

If Trump does back out of running for president again in the future, many in the GOP will be thrilled.

As I have covered, scores of onetime high-level Republican officials have been openly defecting from the party, announcing their plans to vote for Harris over Trump—including many former Reagan, Bush, and Trump staffers. On Sunday, more joined in, signing a bipartisan open letter endorsing Harris over Trump, writing, “Vice President Harris defends America’s democratic ideals, while former President Donald Trump endangers them.” Of the more than 700 current and former national security officials who signed on, more than 180 are Republicans or independents, which includes some who changed their affiliation after Trump took the reins of the GOP, according to one of the organizers.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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