Mark Meadows says all the top 2024 GOP candidates 'have Trump as their last name'
- Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told Fox News on Thursday night that the top GOP 2024 presidential contenders are all named Trump.
- Meadows said Donald Trump's CPAC speech on Sunday will offer a glimpse of "what the future may look like."
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told Fox News on Thursday night that the Republican Party is already looking ahead to the 2024 presidential election and that the top GOP contenders are all named Trump.
Meadows, who said he talked with former President Donald Trump on Wednesday, said the former president's speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday in Orlando, Florida will offer a glimpse of "what the future may look like." He added that Trump remains the leader of the divided party.
"On Sunday, we will see the start of planning for the next administration and I can tell you, the people that are at the top of that list, all of them have Trump as their last name," Meadows told opinion host and Trump ally Sean Hannity.
Trump has reportedly said he plans to run for reelection in 2024 and his two eldest children, Ivanka and Don Jr., are both widely viewed as potential future candidates for office.
Since leaving office, Trump has continued to spread lies that he won the 2020 presidential election and that Democrats engaged in widespread voter fraud. Meadows said Trump will take about his "America First" agenda and attack President Joe Biden's actions in office. It will be Trump's first speech since he left office and was impeached for inciting the deadly January 6 Capitol riot.
"You're going to see a speech on Sunday that talks about not only the beginning, but what the future may look like, and I'm excited about it," said Meadows, formerly the chair of the House Freedom Caucus.
Also during Hannity's Thursday night program, Trump Jr. mocked Republican politicians who "lose gracefully" and said his father showed "you don't have to do that, you can actually push back." And he insisted that his father remains the most powerful figure in the GOP.
"If you're reading the room and you're intelligent, you realize that Donald Trump is still the future of the Republican party," he said.