Donald Trump has learned a “very valuable lesson” from his failed efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, Michael Steele warned on Tuesday.
The former president likely won’t let lawyers again thwart his attempt to subvert democracy if he becomes the Republican nominee in 2024, the former Republican National Committee chair told MSNBC’s Katie Phang.
Instead, Steele said next time around they will just tell Trump: “Yes, sir, how do you need this done? When does it need to be done? And how do we corral the forces across the country to make sure it sticks?”
Steele’s prediction came during a discussion about former senior Justice Department official Richard Donoghue, who this week revealed he’d been interviewed by special counsel Jack Smith’s office as part of the investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn the election.
Donoghue, during testimony to the House last year, said he’d rejected Trump’s efforts to flip the result. Donoghue’s stance against Trump was important “to understand just how thin that line was for us in 2020 and why that line will be obliterated should he get re-elected in ’24,” said Steele.
Trump won’t face such opposition next time around, Steele suggested.
Trump has already reportedly vowed to seize presidential authority “over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House,” according to a New York Times article.
NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss this week warned it would mean Trump’s second term would be a “presidential dictatorship.”
Smith is reportedly close to indicting Trump, who last week said he’d received a target letter from the special counsel.