Former Attorney General Bill Barr has expressed concern about what a second term for the former president might look like.
Barr, who served under Trump from 2019 to 2020, has suggested that his former boss has potential for a second presidency, but his candidacy could be even more turbulent than the first if he is surrounded by yes men.
Former AG Barr has emphasized that people around Trump need to express dissenting opinions and steer him in a more constructive direction.
He believes Trump's own advisers could influence his decisions, knowing that his actions during his final presidency would have few consequences.
Barr suggested in an interview Friday that Trump's “chaotic” governing style would pose challenges.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who served in the Trump administration from 2019 to 2020, has expressed fears about a second Trump term
Barr believes there will likely be a lack of people around Trump who can resist him and steer him in a more constructive direction. He is pictured in Iowa last week
“I worry that his style of governing, his continued exploitation of anger and frustration over a constructive approach to solving our problem, will be chaotic and not achieve much,” Barr told Fox News. “He’ll be a lame-duck president.”
Unlike his first term, Barr said there may not be an administration with a checks and balances that can keep Trump in check, noting that he needs “people around him to resist him and him help you stay on the right path.”
“Once he wins a second term, you don't know what considerations will be used to defend against bad ideas,” Barr said.
“I think for people going into this administration. I think they have to be prepared to resist the abuse of state power.”
Barr, who is not supporting Trump's bid for the 2024 Republican nomination, expressed concerns about the possible composition of Trump's Cabinet in a second term, recalling the high turnover and number of disagreements that characterized his first term.
“During his first term, the main way this could happen was by pointing out to him that it would hurt his prospects for a second term.” “Once he wins a second term, I don't know what considerations can be used to push back on bad ideas Barr explained.
In the past, Barr has been a fierce defender of Trump, even going so far as to appoint his own special counsel to investigate whether the FBI wrongly launched an investigation into Trump's 2016 presidential campaign over possible ties to Russia based on flimsy evidence . Pictured in 2019
While Barr acknowledged that Trump could easily fill a Cabinet, he questioned the quality of people he could select and the lack of guardrails that would be in place in a presidency where Trump feels he has no control to have to lose.
Barr left the administration after disagreeing with Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
He resigned on December 23, 2020 – also because he and Trump disagreed about the election results.
Trump's lawyers argued that the then-president was simply exercising his right to free speech when he questioned the results, but Barr said the argument was unconvincing.
Since leaving office, he has become a vocal critic of the former president, particularly focusing on Trump's actions leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“One of the reasons I’m against Trump [Republican National Committee] “I don’t think he’s going to move the country forward,” Barr said.
Previously, Barr had said that Trump had caused all the problems himself – which was one of the reasons he did not support his 2024 bid.
The veteran Justice Department official refused to say who he supports, insisting he will “pick my poison” in due course.
Despite Barr's own reservations, polls suggest Trump is maintaining his position as the Republican front-runner.
Trump still consistently ranks first in national and state polls
Recent polls suggest Republican voters would still put Trump in first place, with his lead nationally over the rest of the field growing by 7 points since November and a whopping 26 points since February.
With 69 percent support, Trump is far and away in the lead, while second-place Ron DeSantis only receives 12 percent – a whopping 57 points behind the ex-president and former ally.
Nikki Haley is in third place with 9 percent, meaning both she and DeSantis have lost 1 percent since November.
Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is in fourth place with 5 percent – he has lost 2 percent since the last poll in November – and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is in fifth place with just 2 percent.