A veteran political reporter explained his chief concern about President Donald Trump as he discussed a new book about his 2024 campaign and the early days of his second term.
ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl appeared Tuesday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to discuss his newly published book, "Retribution," and Politico's Jonathan Martin asked what the president's intentions were for the rest of his term and beyond.
"For folks who are watching this rightnow, they know you as aprominent TV figure on adifferent channel, but theydon't know, perhaps that you also have covered Donald Trump when you were a cubreporter at the New York Post," Martin said. "You've known Donald Trumpperhaps longer than anybodyelse in the White House presscorps, going back for 30-plusyears. The question I think allof us have, that all of us getalmost every day from people, isthis, and I want your your viewon this: Will Donald Trumpvoluntarily leave thepresidency in 2028?"
"Everythingyou know about this man, all these years you interactwith him still almost dailytoday in Washington," Martin added. "You seehim in person, you talk to him.Tell me where you think thisall ends."
Karl had a two-part answer to Martin's question.
"One is, I do thinkthat the reason why he keepsbringing up Trump 2028: He'sgot the hats," Karl said. "He showseverybody in the White House. Imean, it's trolling, it isabsolutely trolling, andfrankly, Steve Bannon, who wasthe one that really started toget this going, is trolling notjust in, you know, Trump'scritics and Democrats. He'salso trolling JD Vance – Bannon,privately, not a big JD Vancefan at all."
Host Joe Scarborough interjected to say publicly musing to run for an unconstitutional third term and selling hats announcing those plans was also a way to tamp down his lame duck status, and Karl agreed.
"Idon't think that Trump has anydesigns on actually staying,you know, past the end of thisterm," Karl said. "He tells people privately,people close to him, 'No, no,I'm, you know, I'm done,' and healso, by the way, he's starteddoing this thing where he willespecially go down to Air Force One. He'll go to people [and] say, 'Sowhat do you think, JD or Marco,JD or Marco?'"
Martin said he's noticed that, as well, saying that Trump brought up Secretary of State Marco Rubio's name unprompted whenever he's asked the question, but Karl admitted he couldn't envision the president voluntarily giving up the power he's amassed.
"But here's thething. I don't know how hevoluntarily goes lame duck," Karl said. "Idon't know how he, at whatpoint does he actually make itclear? 'No, I'm not running andit's one of these guys, or it'sthat guy,' and now all theattention shifts. I covered the Obama White House, right? Youknow what it's like in late2015, 2016 when you're a lameduck, nobody pays any attention.Yeah, certainly not the kind ofattention Trump wants. So so Idon't know how he voluntarilypasses the baton."