Republican former President Donald Trump has told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he has made up his mind about whether he will run for president again in 2024.
Trump made his comment during a Fox News town hall that Hannity hosted on Wednesday night.
"I have to ask, where are you in the process of," Hannity began before finally asking, "Without giving the answer what the answer is, have you made up your mind?"
"Yes," Trump responded.
"It's not that I want to," Trump later clarified. "The country needs it. We have to take care of this country. It isn't fun, fighting constantly, fighting always."
Trump has never publicly revealed whether he will run for president in 2024. Behind the scenes, some Republicans worry that if he runs, he may potentially harm moderate Republican candidates running in state races or reignite discussions around his role in the January 6 Capitol riots.
Even before he lost the 2020 presidential race, Trump claimed that he would lose due to an unprecedented conspiracy of voter fraud. He has since repeated the claim even though over 60 fraud claims filed by his campaign and GOP officials have been dismissed from courts due to a lack of evidence.
Several people arrested for rioting at the Capitol on January 6 have said they were acting under Trump's orders to stop the election's certification.
Nevertheless, far-right GOP Congress members, like Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, have hailed Trump as the future of the party. Meanwhile, other GOP congress members, like Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger and Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, have rejected Trump as a dangerous and anti-democratic influence.
A late-May poll from Quinnipiac University found that 66 percent of Republican voters would like Trump to run in 2024. Only 30 percent opposed the idea. The results reversed when all voters responded. Among all voters, 66 percent opposed Trump running again and only 30 percent supported it.
The same poll found that 85 percent of Republican voters wanted future GOP candidates to agree with Trump on policy issues.
On May 20, Trump said he was "very strongly considering" running for president again during an interview with the conservative talk show host Joe Pags.
"Everybody wants me to do it, the polls are all saying I have to do it," Trump said. He added that he would most likely announce his final decision right after the 2022 midterm elections.
"We have the elections coming up, I'm focused on that, we want to get the House members in," he said. "We can actually pick up a couple of senators but I want to focus on that."
During the rest of the town hall, Trump and Hannity discussed the opioid crisis, immigration at the nation's southern border and what Hannity called Democratic President Joe Biden's "cognitive decline."
Newsweek contacted Trump's office for comment.
