What Trump can do after leaving White House?

In this Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021, file photo, President Donald Trump arrives on the South Lawn of the White House, in Washington, after returning from Texas.

Trump’s choices after leaving the office

Maintaining his relevance

Trump will clearly try to maintain his relevance after he leaves office. There are a number of overlapping roles he could play in order to do that: likely candidate in 2024, a GOP “kingmaker” for that race if he does not end up running, and a major media presence, said the Hill.

“I would certainly expect we will continue to see him do some sort of rallies and I expect we will see him try to make the news,” said GOP strategist Alex Conant. “He will certainly try to advance controversies, which he did before he was president and which there is no reason he can’t do after he has been president.”

Conant added with a laugh that he did not expect Trump to retire to enjoy a quiet life. “I don’t think he is going to take up painting,” he said, a reference to the hobby former President George W. Bush took up after leaving the White House.

Run for President 2024

Trump is widely expected to keep alive the possibility that he might run in 2024, whether he ultimately does so or not.

Trump is widely expected to keep alive the possibility that he might run in 2024, whether he ultimately does so or not.

It is also in the interest of various Trump aides and friends to talk up a 2024 bid. Since he launched his first presidential bid in 2015, Trump has drawn into his circle a number of figures who had been on the periphery of Republican politics. Their relevance is tied up with the idea of a future campaign at least as much as is the president’s.

President Trump boards Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on January 12. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

“Covering” the media

One GOP source put the chances of him running again “between 70 and 80 percent” but said that Trump’s real aim was to “control the conversation.”

The most obvious way to do that, at least in the short term, is to find a media platform beyond his Twitter account.

He will have no shortage of willing takers. One of his more well-founded boasts is that he is good for TV ratings, especially among conservative viewers.

Rumors that Trump would start his own media outlet flared in late 2016, at a time when he was expected to lose that year’s election. This time around much of the speculation is on whether he would affiliate himself with an existing network.

Fox News would seem an obvious choice given its audience. However, Trump has recently sought to promote two smaller rivals, Newsmax and One American News (OAN). Trump and Newsmax Media CEO Chris Ruddy are friends.

“The president understands that he needs to still engage his base, and the best way to do that is with a media platform,” said Brad Blakeman, a former member of President George W. Bush’s White House and a strong Trump supporter. “So I suspect the short-term plan is to get a home, a platform for him to have regular contact with his base.”

The right kind of media platform would also be lucrative — always a consideration of Trump’s, and likely to remain so given that he faces potentially worrisome debts. The New York Times revealed in October that Trump had personally guaranteed more than $400 million of his companies’ debts, and that about three-quarters of those debts come due within the next four years.

Trump referred to his debts as “a peanut” during a televised town hall shortly before the election.

One of the key questions — unanswerable for now — is the extent to which Trump’s presidential controversies have harmed his business brand.

In the years before his run for the White House, his business dealings were increasingly built around licensing his name — a process helped along by his fame from NBC’s “The Apprentice” — rather than actually constructing buildings himself. Whatever reputational damage he has incurred over the past four years would likely have an adverse impact.

A presidential memoir is another possibility for Trump.

In the political arena, no one doubts that Trump’s influence over the GOP will remain profound.

Despite his defeat — and his divisiveness in the nation at large — he is the most popular Republican in the country. Even if he does not run again, any 2024 contender will not want to wind up in his cross-hairs.

If he runs again, said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell “he is without question the favorite” to become the nominee.

Trump plans to leave the White House for Florida prior to Biden’s inauguration

Donald Trump plans to fly to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida the morning of Joe Biden’s inauguration, where several current White House staff are expected to work for him or his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, after his presidency.

Trump intends to live at the Palm Beach resort, the people said, though some of his future neighbors are trying to stop him from taking up permanent residence.

Trump is expected to fly down to Palm Beach County on January 20, the day of President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Photo: Palmbeachpost

As reported by the Detroitnews, the White House is considering holding a send-off event for Trump before he leaves Washington, according to a person familiar with the planning. But no final decisions have been made about the format or the location of the event, the person said. Former President Barack Obama delivered farewell remarks in 2017 at Joint Base Andrews before his final flight on the presidential aircraft.

This week, the State Department extended an invitation to Biden and his wife, Jill, to stay at Blair House, a historic home near the White House, the night before the inauguration on Jan. 20, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Bidens have accepted, people familiar with the matter say, continuing a tradition for presidents-elect.

There has been uncertainty in the White House about where Trump would go after his presidency. Aides had assumed Mar-a-Lago, but the president hadn’t told them his plans or said publicly what he’ll do after leaving the White House, the people said.

Kushner plans to live at least part of the time in Miami with his wife, Ivanka Trump, the people said.

Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Photo: Wilfredo Lee/AP

Trump aides who may work for him after the White House include Nick Luna, the director of Oval Office Operations and Trump’s “body man;” Molly Michael, a deputy assistant to Trump; and Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the people said. Luna’s wife, Cassidy Luna, a deputy assistant to the president, may work for Kushner.

The people asked not to be identified because he hasn’t made them public and might change his mind.

After some speculation among aides that he might leave earlier, Trump now plans to depart Washington for Florida the morning of Jan. 20, according to two people familiar with the matter. The president on Jan. 8 announced he would not attend Biden’s inauguration after his false claims that the election was stolen from him inspired a bloody riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol.

It was his last tweet before Twitter permanently suspended his account over concerns he could use it to spark more violence. Vice President Mike Pence – who angered Trump by refusing to go along with his bid to overturn the election and was furious with the president following the riot – will attend Biden’s inauguration.

A lawyer representing several of Trump’s neighbors has demanded that Palm Beach declare that the outgoing president can’t live at Mar-a-Lago, citing an agreement he made with the city in the early 1990s when he converted the property from a private residence to a private club, according to the Washington Post. So far, the city is not known to have done anything that would prevent Trump from living there.

Trump’s staff have begun to vacate the White House

While Trump spends the final days of his presidency ensconced in the White House, more isolated than ever as he confronts the fallout from the Capitol riot, staffers are already heading out the door. Many have already departed, including those who resigned after the attack, while others have been busy packing up their offices and moving out personal belongings — souvenirs and taxidermy included, according to AP News.

A man walks past boxes that were moved out of the Eisenhower Executive Office building, just outside the West Wing, inside the White House complex, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021, in Washington. Photo: AP /Gerald Herbert

On Thursday, chief of staff Mark Meadows’ wife was caught on camera leaving with a dead, stuffed bird. And trade adviser Peter Navarro, who defended the president’s effort to overturn the election, was photographed carrying out a giant photo of a meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Staff are allowed to purchase the photographs, said White House spokesman Judd Deere.) Also spotted departing the West Wing: a bust of Abraham Lincoln.

Stewart D. McLaurin, the president of the White House Historical Association, said he had reached out to the White House chief usher, who manages the building’s artifacts with the White House curator, because of questions raised by the images.

“Be reminded that staff have items of their own that they brought to the White House and can take those items home as they wish. Some items are on loan to staff and offices from other collections and will be returned to those collections,” he said in a statement.

People leave the Eisenhower Executive Office building with framed items, inside the White House complex, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021, in Washington. Photo: AP/Gerald Herbert

Earlier this week, reporters covering the president’s departure from the South Lawn spotted staff taking boxes into the residence for packing up the first family’s belongings.

And on Friday the packing continued, with moving crates and boxes dotting the floor of the office suite where senior press aides work steps from the Oval Office in the West Wing. Walls in the hallways outside that once featured a rotating gallery of enlarged photographs of the president and first lady framed in gold suddenly were bare, with only the hooks that held the picture frames left hanging.

Moving trucks pulled in and out of the driveway outside.

While some people have been asked to stick around by the incoming administration, the White House has been reduced to a skeleton crew, with more scheduled to depart on Friday. That includes White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. Come Monday, the press staff will be down to two.

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