Old Trump gang getting back together

Former aides and advisers to Donald Trump have formed a group to keep his populist agenda alive.

Donald Trump has refused to say whether he will run in 2024. Picrture: AFP

Former aides and advisers to Donald Trump have formed a group to keep his populist agenda alive as he leaves America guessing over whether he will run for the White House.

Leading figures in the America First Policy Institute have met Mr Trump, 74, to discuss their progress. Axios, the news website, says it is the largest pro-Trump group after the former president’s own operation at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

AFPI president Brooke Rollins said that it was being launched to continue the “transformative changes” of the past four years. “We know what the insider approach is — it’s failure,” she said. “It’s the outsider approach that wins and we saw it first hand.”

Ms Rollins, 49, was the head of Trump’s domestic policy council. The AFPI has offices in Fort Worth, Miami and New York and is looking at offices near the Capitol in Washington.

It will have a $US20m ($26m) budget but hopes to double that by the end of next year. She told Axios that she wanted her staff of 35 to 40 members of Trump’s former White House team to be “dreamers and … risk-takers”.

Other members include Linda McMahon, 72, Mr Trump’s small business tsar; Larry Kudlow, 73, his economic adviser; and Rick Perry, 71, his energy secretary and the former governor of Texas. Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter, and her husband, Jared Kushner, are believed to have been lined up as advisers.

Mr Trump has refused to say whether he will run in 2024.

The Times