Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images
Michael Avenatti.
- Attorney Michael Avenatti is now teasing a 2020 presidential bid more than ever.
- "We can't relive 2016," Avenatti tweeted. "I love this country, our values and our people too much to sit by while they are destroyed."
Well it sure looks like attorney Michael Avenatti might run for president in 2020.
Avenatti, who is at the center of a number of the most prominent controversies involving President Donald Trump, tweeted Thursday that he "will run" for president if Trump seeks reelection, and that he believes no other candidate running on the Democratic side has a real shot at beating Trump. Avenatti said he'd run as a Democrat.
"We can't relive 2016," Avenatti tweeted. "I love this country, our values and our people too much to sit by while they are destroyed."
He believes that Democrats need a non-traditional candidate to take on Trump, whom Avenatti noted beat a field full of experienced politicians on his way toward claiming the Republican nomination in 2016.
"To those that claim that only a traditional politician with 'experience' can beat Trump, go back & look at the results from 2016," he tweeted. "He beat all 15 of those candidates that he faced (crushed many). If we go down the same path and are not smart, don't be surprised with the result."
Last week, Avenatti tweeted that it was "time for the Dems to be led by street fighters that are willing to engage and fight like hell."
"Otherwise, Trump will make 2016 look like a warm-up lap," he added.
How Avenatti is positioning himself for a run
Avenatti is the attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels, who who claims to have had an affair with Trump in 2006 and was paid before the election to keep silent. She is suing Trump and his longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, in California seeking to void the nondisclosure agreement. That payment is also at the center of a criminal investigation into Cohen taking place in the Southern District of New York.
More recently, Avenatti jumped into the border crisis, seeking to help both detained migrant families that have been split up as a part of the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy and whistleblowers working for law enforcement agencies and detention centers that have dealt with the recent influx of roughly 2,000 children who were separated from their parents as a part of the policy.
Late last week, Avenatti picked up another client who is wrapped up in a Trump news cycle: John Melendez, the comedian who successfully pranked called the president and was connected to him by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner.
Days earlier, Avenatti told Business Insider that he could "see why people might think" he is getting more involved politically.
"I haven't made any determination as to what I'm going to do on a go-forward basis other than what I've been doing for 18 years, which is representing my clients," he said.
Since then, he's been more aggressively pitching himself as a possible politician. Avenatti told Newsweek on Wednesday that he "absolutely" believes he could beat Trump in 2020.
"I think I would be his worst nightmare," he said, adding that "it would be an extremely contentious campaign, no holds barred, and very close."
Still, Avenatti said he is "a long way from deciding if I'm going to run or not."