'He's deeply lazy': Trump’s ghostwriter pours cold water on the idea of him running again in 2024

Appearing on CNN on Friday morning, the ghostwriter behind Donald Trump's bestselling "Art of the Deal" said he wasn't taking the president's boasts that he would run again in 2024 too seriously, saying a lot can happen in four years.

Using reports that Trump would announce a bid for the GOP presidential nomination immediately after President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in in January of 2021, author Tony Schwartz told CNN's Jim Sciutto he was skeptical.

After saying, "I don't believe Trump actually ever has an end goal, it's ... he lives literally in each moment," Schwartz added, " He is just trying to stay in our attention and to seem both to himself and to us as powerful, and that's what's driving him in every moment. 'What can keep me from feeling the deep emptiness and weakness,' that is actually underneath all of this bluster."

Asked about 2024, Schwartz explained there are a lot of variables.

"I think that's so critical to him that I think it is a viable possibility," he suggested. "I think he is deeply lazy and he is getting older -- he has lost more than one step and so the idea that he could mobilize that effort by himself, that's inconceivable. But, on the other hand, he has a lot of people around him in the Republican Party and, you know, allies outside the party that could help him -- for example, I keep thinking that he might take over for Rush Limbaugh, that would be a nice perch for him."

Pressed whether the president is serious about another run after losing to Biden, the author conceded, "There is no question that he has the rabid support of nearly half the country. We're now seeing that it wasn't -- the vote wasn't as close as we thought it would be, but he still has enormous support and it's very emotional, it's very passionate and, yes, I think he could run."

"I also think four years is like 400 years was 50 years ago, meaning that so many things can and will happen over the next four years that even the sense of distress and anxiety that I'm feeling right now and I think many Americans are, you know, could change in a moment when Biden comes in," he added.

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