PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — “I think it’s a bad idea.”
That’s what Joe Trillo had to say when asked about former President Donald Trump launching his 2024 campaign Tuesday night.
Trillo, who served as the chairman of Trump’s 2016 campaign in Rhode Island, believes the former president doesn’t stand a chance.
“I think he’s going to lose,” Trillo said. “There are too many people out there that can’t accept his childish behavior.”
Trillo said Trump is “too divisive” and his “childish mentality” sets him back.
“It’s time to move on,” Trillo said. “I think he was a good president, it’s not that he wasn’t a good president … but he keeps shooting himself in the head over and over, and people have had it.”
Even though he doesn’t believe Trump should run again, Trillo said he would throw his support behind the former president over any Democratic candidate.
12 News Political Analyst Joe Fleming said Trump’s strategy is aimed at keeping other Republican candidates from running against him.
“Donald Trump is trying to get out there early, to get other people out of the race and get the support building for him again,” Fleming explained.
But Fleming said last week’s midterm election pains a bleak picture for the former president, especially since all of the candidates he threw his support behind lost.
“I think that’s put a black eye on Donald Trump,” Fleming said. “It also shows that the voters in this country are looking to move past 2020 election … they want to move forward.”
Meanwhile, Rep. David Cicilline is working to prevent Trump from ever holding office again.
In a letter to House Democrats Tuesday night, Cicilline said he’s drafting legislation that would bar Trump from holding office under the Fourteenth Amendment due to his involvement in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
“This language in our Constitution clearly intended to bar insurrectionists from holding high office in the United States,” Cicilline wrote.
The Rhode Island Democratic Party also condemned Trump’s 2024 campaign, with chairman Joe McNamara calling him “unfit for office.”
“It is clear that a president constantly entrenched in legal trouble, who denies a fair election, incites an insurrection and abuses his power at every turn is not what Americans want for our future,” McNamara said in a statement. “Donald Trump has shown us time and time again that he’s only capable of serving one person: Donald Trump.”
“Rhode Islanders are not looking to move backwards, we are looking to keep making progress and remain focused on the issues that matter most,” he continued. “When the time comes, it’s up to us to send him that message at the voting booth.”
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