Former US Attorney General Bill Barr said he does not believe Donald Trump will win the 2022 presidential bid because he is petty and divisive, and that his former boss is not his candidate for commander in chief.
Barr, 71, lambasted the former president during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tupper on Friday, admitting he knew Trump would lose in 2020 because of his short temper.
“He’s not my take on the president,” Barr said. “I felt that he would lose the election because he did not control himself.
“He let that pettiness come out and I feel like that’s one of his big failings.”
He added that while he believes the Republicans can win the 2024 presidential election, this can only be done without Trump.
“I think the Republicans can get a decisive majority, but I don’t think we can do that with Trump,” he said. “He’s too controversial a candidate.”
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Former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr said Donald Trump “doesn’t fit my idea of a president” and will lose the bid for the 2024 presidential election.
Barr criticized Trump (left) for being “shallow” and letting his temper get the better of him. Barr said that the Republican Party could lose the right to win the presidential election if Trump becomes their candidate.
Barr also condemned Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen and said he knew the former president would lose because “he was out of control.”
“He doesn’t fit my idea of a president and I felt he would lose the election because he wasn’t in control.”
They are joined by former Attorney General Bill Barr. @jaketapper to discuss his memoir, which highlights his role in helping former President Trump. pic.twitter.com/6vPrRRNCai
— CNN (@CNN) March 11, 2022
Barr’s comments come after he published his memoir, One Damn Thing After Another, earlier this week, in which he described Trump’s behavior as “erratic and manic.”
The former CEO noted that while Trump was seen by many as a strong candidate, his behavior has become something to put up with rather than celebrate.
“I think a lot of people agree with his policies. They love his strength and directness,” Barr said, “but to the extent that they support them, it’s in spite of this… this kind of unpleasant behavior, not because of it.”
While Barr said he would support Republicans who challenge Trump, he said he would end up backing his former boss if he won the GOP nomination.
He also backed unsubstantiated claims that mail-in voting was vulnerable to fraud in the 2020 presidential election, and also went on to denounce Trump’s claims that the election was stolen by rampant voter fraud.
Barr went on to discuss the episode at the White House during a protest following the killing of George Floyd in 2020, in which the president yelled at his staff, “You’re all losers,” as he got fed up with the protests and violence happening in the US
In response to an interview, Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington told CNN that “it’s not surprising that Barr will try to work against the will of the people, which he did in 2020.”
While Barr said he would support Republicans who challenge Trump (above), he said he would end up backing his former boss if he won the GOP nomination.
During an interview with CNN, Barr spoke about the episode when Trump snapped at his staff over the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests following the killing of George Floyd.
In his memoir, Barr explains why he doesn’t think Trump should be allowed to run for president again in 2024.
Friday’s interview was the latest spat between the two after Barr said he held Trump “morally responsible” for the January 6 riots but would not pursue him if he was still attorney general.
In a wide-ranging interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt, broadcast in full on Sunday night, Barr spoke about his last days in office and denied accusations that the presidential election was rigged.
“I do think he was responsible in the broadest sense of the word, because it seems like part of the plan was to send this group to the Hill,” Barr told Holt in an interview promoting the former attorney general’s new memoir. “I think the whole idea was to intimidate Congress. And I think it was wrong.
But Barr wouldn’t go after Trump if he was still the top US law enforcement official.
“I didn’t see anything that said he was legally responsible for this in terms of incitement,” he told NBC News.
The National Archives and Records Administration recently discovered that Trump took home 15 boxes of classified documents, but Barr shrugged when asked if the former Attorney General would prosecute him for it.
“To be honest, I probably wouldn’t,” Barr said. “The whole classification system was created by decree. This is the president. The president decides everything.
In an excerpt from the memoir, Barr recalled the dramatic moment when former President Trump slammed his palm on the table and ordered him to go home without delay after he contested allegations of electoral fraud.
During a tense meeting with Trump at the White House, Barr told him, “Our mission is to investigate and prosecute the actual fraud. The thing is, we’ve looked at the major claims your people are making, and they’re bullshit.”
Barr told The Associated Press that the Justice Department was investigating the claims but found no widespread issues that could overturn the result.
But you shouldn’t have said that! According to Barr, Trump barked. “You could just say, ‘No comment.’ It’s killing me – it’s killing me. It knocks the carpet out from under me.”
The president then said, speaking in the third person, “You must hate Trump.” You would only do this if you hate Trump.”
Barr resigned shortly before Christmas 2020, just a few weeks before the end of Trump’s presidency – an event that has since proven to be a sign of internal turmoil in the White House due to Trump’s attempts to press his allegations of fraud even after they were rejected. series of courts.
“And, you know, it was wrong to dig him up the way his team did. And he started asking me about different theories. And I had answers. I was able to tell him, “It’s wrong because of this,” Barr said.
The president got angrier and angrier as he spoke.
I said, “Okay, okay, listen, I understand that you are upset with me. And I am perfectly happy to resign,” Barr recalled, referring to the ex-president.
Earlier this week, in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Barr said he held Trump “morally responsible” for the January 6 riots.
This angered Trump, Barr told Holt.
And then – boom! He slapped the table and said, “Accepted!” Accepted!”
And then – boom! He hit again,” Barr said, slapping his arm for emphasis. ‘Accepted! Go home. Don’t go back to your office. Go home. Done,” he says, Trump told him.
The former president told NBC News that he fired Barr for not doing AG’s job properly and called him “lazy” and a “coward.”
“Former Attorney General Bill Barr wouldn’t have known about electoral fraud if they were looking him straight in the face — and they were,” Trump said in a statement Friday night.
“The fact is that he was weak, ineffective and completely afraid of impeachment, which was constantly threatened by the Democrats. They “broke” him.