Trump to Hold First Public Campaign Event This Year to Kick Off 2024 White House Run

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File

A new report reveals plans by former President Donald Trump to hold his first public event of the year later this month, which will seemingly kickstart his 2024 campaign for the White House.

It’s been nearly two months since Trump announced he would run for president again in 2024. In that time, he hasn’t done much to establish the groundwork for a new campaign, plus there have been recurring questions about whether Trump wields the power and influence he once had.

Politico spoke with Trump advisers who say the ex-president will hold an “intimate” event in Columbia, South Carolina. These advisers described the event as an affair where Trump will roll out his leadership operation and launch the initial expansion of his campaign.

From the report:

During a Wednesday interview with Politico, senior Trump advisers Brian Jack, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles pushed back on the idea that Trump had so far run a low-energy effort, pointing to his opening of a campaign headquarters in West Palm Beach, FL, his activity in key primary states over the course of the 2022 midterm election and the initial build-out of senior staff.

They said the forthcoming South Carolina event, among other moves, was evidence that the former president was taking important steps to set himself up for the GOP nomination during the opening days of the race.

“Not all that occurs in the campaign is done in the public eye…There’s a level of expectation that is maybe pushed by people that don’t view the campaign in maybe the most positive light,” said LaCivita. “You have to husband your resources, you have to plan and you have to be ready, and so all of that — we don’t advertise those aspects of campaign building, of campaign organizing.”

The report is ambiguous on when Trump will hold campaign rallies again, with LaCivita suggesting it would be “kind of crazy” to spend the money to organize one this early in the race. The article offers further details on Trump’s attempts to make inroads in various states, his observation of the race for Republican National Committee chair, and how his new campaign “is being seen as very different from 2020 one.”

So far, the 2024 campaign is tightly staffed, and Wiles said its ranks of aides would be filled out “deliberately” – an implicit contrast with Trump’s reelection campaign four years ago, which was criticized as bloated. And unlike Trump’s 2020 campaign, based in a sleekly designed office in Arlington, Va., with panoramic views of the Beltway, the just-opened West Palm Beach headquarters is sparsely decorated, with used furniture, two TVs, and a cheap refrigerator.

“It is a true campaign headquarters,” Wiles said, adding that it was not “extravagant in any sense.”