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Many of Donald Trump's 2024 GOP presidential primary rivals are making a mistake in not "going after" the frontrunner during their campaigns, according to a former official in the Trump administration.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, an ex-Trump White House communications director who has become critical of the former president, suggested that most Republicans who are vying for the GOP candidacy next year are so worried about "alienating" Trump's supporters that they are failing to stand out as candidates.
As a result, Trump is still the overwhelming favorite to win the GOP primary next year, despite the former president's string of legal difficulties.
The View co-host did offer "major kudos" on Twitter to those in the race who have been "unwavering" in their critiques of Trump, such as former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and former Texas Congressman Will Hurd.
"When post-mortems of the '24 GOP race are written: #1 will be the bad advice nearly all candidates got to not go after Trump. Fear of alienating Trump voters materialized in candidates failing to stand out in any real way, while also failing to weaken their chief opponent," Griffin wrote.
"The notion that in the Year of Our Lord 2023 a candidate will break through on a policy position or a Big Speech, or even knocking the most doors, is just not reality. 2 rules: define your opponent & define your values."
Newsweek reached out to Trump's office via email for comment.
When post-mortems of the ‘24 GOP race are written: #1 will be the bad advice nearly all candidates got to not go after Trump. Fear of alienating Trump voters materialized in candidates failing to stand out in any real way, while also failing to weaken their chief opponent.
— Alyssa Farah Griffin (@Alyssafarah) July 9, 2023
Just like the 2016 primary, Trump has launched attack after attack against his fellow GOP primary hopefuls, most notably Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. In comparison, DeSantis personally has not retaliated as strongly bar a few jabs here and there on his presidential campaign.
A DeSantis campaign Twitter account was heavily criticized for an online video that criticized the former president's previous pro-LGBTQ comments.
Log Cabin Republicans, the largest GOP organization representing LGBTQ+ individuals, accused the ad in a series of tweets of being "divisive and desperate," which ventured "into homophobic territory."
Former Vice President Mike Pence, whose relationship with Trump fell apart in the wake of the January 6 attack, has been more vocal in his attacks on Trump since he launched his 2024 presidential campaign.
"I believe that anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States, and anyone who asked someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again," Pence said in a speech in Iowa last month.
Former South Carolina governor and fellow 2024 candidate Nikki Haley recently provided some recent criticism of the former president, saying that if the federal allegations aimed at Trump in the classified documents are accurate then he has been "reckless."
Despite this, Haley later told the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton podcast that she would be "inclined" to pardon the former president if he is convicted in Special Counsel Jack Smith's probe.
Speaking to CNN in June, Hutchinson rejected the idea that any Republican presidential candidate should be offering a Trump pardon as a vote-winning tactic after entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy also made a similar vow.
"It is simply wrong for a candidate to use the pardon power in the United States of the president in order to curry votes, and in order to get an applause line is just wrong," Hutchinson told CNN. "That really undermines the rule of law in our country that I've served my lifetime supporting, and it's offensive to me that anyone will be holding out a pardon under these circumstances."
Christie, a former close ally of Trump, has frequently attacked Trump during media appearances during his 2024 campaign, including recently mocking the former president for apparently exaggerating the size of his rally crowds and failing to keep his campaign policies.
"The people in the Republican Party, and quite broadly across America, are tired of having political candidates who are snake oil salesmen who just don't tell them the truth, who tell them whatever they think they want to hear at the moment," Christie told Fox News on Sunday.
"Tens of thousands don't show up anymore. That's another one of the big lies," he added. "All you have to do is look at the pictures."
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more