‘I hope that happens’: Donald Trump says he would consider running against Meghan Markle in 2024

Donald Trump has spoken out about Meghan Markle’s political future in the wake of her bombshell Oprah interview.

Donald Trump says he would strongly consider running again in 2024 if Meghan Markle threw her hat in the ring, saying he’s “not a fan of hers”.

Speaking to Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Tuesday night, the former President was asked to comment on reports in recent days that the Duchess of Sussex had been networking with Democrat operatives for a possible run for the White House.

According to UK’s Mail on Sunday, the 39-year-old has ambitions to become the first female president, and hopes her and Prince Harry’s bombshell tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey will strengthen her support in the US.

“Well I hope that happens, because if that happened then I’d be – I think I’d have an even stronger feeling toward running,” Mr Trump told Bartiromo.

“I’m not a fan of hers, I think that what she talks about the royal family and the Queen – I happen to think, I know the Queen, as you know I’ve met with the Queen, and I think the Queen is a tremendous person and I am not a fan of Meghan.”

His comments echo a similar response he gave to reporters in September last year, when asked about Ms Markle effectively encouraging people to vote for Joe Biden.

“I’m not a fan of hers,” he said at the time. “And I would say this – and she probably has heard that – but I wish a lot of luck to Harry, because he’s going to need it.”

Donald Trump and Queen Elizabeth in 2019. Picture: Chris Jackson-WPA Pool/Getty Images

Earlier in the interview on Tuesday night, Mr Trump had refused to commit to a 2024 run. “Based on every poll they want me to run again, but we’re going to take a look and we’ll see,” he said.

“First steps first, we have to see what we can do with the House (in 2022). I think we have a very good chance of taking back the House, we did a great job (in 2020) … we ended up winning 15 seats instead of losing potentially 25 seats, and it almost cost Nancy Pelosi her job. I think we have a chance to do better in the Senate, we need leadership in the Senate, which frankly we don’t have. We have a chance of taking back the Senate, and frankly we’ll make our decision after that.”

But Mr Trump warned that Republicans “will have a very hard time getting elected” ever again if Democrats’ sweeping voting reform bill – which would vastly expand mail-in voting and give the federal government more say over how states run their elections – becomes law.

The bill, which the Associated Press noted “touches on virtually every aspect of the electoral process”, passed the House earlier this month on a nearly party-line 220-210 vote.

“If it’s allowed to happen I think Republicans will have a very hard time getting elected,” Mr Trump said. “They will be able to do what they did in the 2020 election and potentially even worse. They have to stop that bill.”

Asked if there were any frontrunners behind him he would favour if he decided not to run, Mr Trump declined to name names.

Meghan Markle reportedly wants to run for president.

According to a straw poll conducted at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference, the most popular runners-up behind Mr Trump himself are Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, followed by South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem – both of whom have earned praise from Republicans but criticism from Democrats for their resistance to tough COVID-19 restrictions in their states.

“I like a lot of them and a lot of them I’ve been responsible for,” Mr Trump told Bartiromo. “I’ve endorsed people that won, I’ve endorsed people that didn’t have a chance and they went up by many, many points and they won. It seems the endorsements carry a lot of weight and that’s good.”

The 74-year-old discussed the coronavirus vaccine, touting his administration’s success with Operation Warp Speed.

He encouraged his supporters to get the vaccine – something called for by the country’s top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci on Sunday – even while acknowledging many of them may be hesitant.

Mr Trump and wife Melania both received the Pfizer vaccine before leaving the White House in January, it was reported earlier this month.

Dr Fauci had been responding to a new poll that found around half of US men who identified as Republican said they had no plan to get the vaccine.

“I would, I would recommend it,” Mr Trump said, after Bartiromo raised the question.

“And I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me frankly, but again we have our freedoms and we have to live with that and I agree with that also, but it’s a safe vaccine and something that works.”

Mr Trump urged his supporters to get the vaccine. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

During the wide-ranging interview, Mr Trump also slammed President Biden’s reversal of his immigration policies, saying the new administration had created a crisis on the southern border with Mexico.

“They’re destroying our country, people are coming in by the hundreds of thousands, young children are coming in … frankly our country can’t handle it,” he said.

“It’s a crisis like we’ve never seen. It’s going to get much, much worse.”

He also warned that the Biden administration’s energy policies, which included the cancellation of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada, were already hurting American consumers at the petrol pump.

“We were energy independent, very shortly we will no longer be energy independent, gas prices are going up,” he said.

“They’ll be going up by $1, $2, $3 – if you look at that, that’s bigger than a tax increase. To the consumer, you get a dollar increase in gasoline, that’s bigger than a tax hike, so it’s a terrible thing that’s happening.”

Mr Trump predicted that the Democrats would soon be bringing in “the biggest tax increase in the history of our country to pay for everything”.

He also touched on Monday’s retraction by The Washington Post of a January story that had used false quotes attributed to Mr Trump during a phone call with Georgia’s top elections investigator.

The newspaper was forced to admit it had misquoted Mr Trump, based on information provided by an anonymous source, after a recording of the call was published by The Wall Street Journal last week.

“It made me sound bad,” Mr Trump said.

“When I heard it I said, ‘That’s ridiculous, I never said that.’ When you hear the tape you may say, ‘Donald Trump may be the most honest person.’ It was a beautiful and perfect statement.”

[e-mail]