Few people can claim to have as close access to “Trumpworld” — the circle of advisors around Donald Trump — as Jason Miller. In fact, he spoke to the former president himself just yesterday.
Having been the chief campaign spokesman for the 2016 Trump campaign, Miller was drafted back for the final months of the re-election campaign, in June 2020. He co-presented a podcast, The War Room, with Steve Bannon, which was removed from YouTube following the Capitol Hill violence on January 6th, and he is currently CEO of a new social media platform, Gettr.
My first question: how likely is it that Donald Trump will run for President again in 2024?
“You know, if you’d asked me when President Trump first left office, what the odds were of him running again in in 2024, I probably would have said 50-50. But I think in recent weeks, seeing him back out on the campaign trail, it’s kind of the inverse effect, where the more that the media is attacking him and saying that he’s politically finished, I think the more that he wants to go and run for office. I’d probably put it at two to one odds that that he does go and run in 2024. So that’s making it more likely, in my estimation that he’s going to run in 2024.”
Given Miller’s ringside seat on the final months of the Trump Presidency, I asked him about some of the key moments on the inside. As a key advisor to the campaign – why did he lose? When did it all go wrong?
On the BLM protests
Eventually, we knew that the BLM movement would go too far. It didn’t go too far quick enough, though, if that makes sense. So we did see the number shift during the protests and such over the summer with Hispanic and Latino voters…. And probably you know, the election goes another month or so the way that things were trending in the overreach with the BLM move, we’re getting a little too crazy, I think President Trump wins.
- Jason Miller, UnHerd
On Anthony Fauci
When you take a look at COVID I think the one strategic mistake that was made was the elevation of Dr. Anthony Fauci and some of the healthcare professionals… Here’s the problem, the administration inadvertently made Dr. Anthony Fauci a superstar, not just a superstar in the US but he became a global superstar. I personally think that Fauci is a clown, and he should have been fired… He’s effectively a bureaucrat, what he’s good at is keeping his job…. Anthony Fauci, in many ways, was Joe Biden’s most effective campaign trail surrogate, he was the single best ally that Joe Biden had for third party validator because he would constantly undermine President Trump.
- Jason Miller, UnHerd
On getting the campaign messaging wrong
The biggest group where we underperformed were with people who had a negative image of both candidates, that was a group that President Trump won 90 to 10 over Crooked Hillary Clinton in 2016. But we lost with that group. And in 2020, and primarily, a lot of those folks who had negative opinions of both candidates. These are non political people, they don’t really care about the politics, what they want is to get life back to normal… If we’d made that pivot maybe several weeks earlier, with the simple message of “we’re gonna get life back to normal, Joe Biden’s gonna keep you in the basement” make it very simple. Make the binary choice, Biden basement, Trump life back to normal.
- Jason Miller, UnHerd
On the events of January 6th
I know, when I chatted with the President that morning, he said, “Hey, what does the crowd size look like?” Then I heard Fox News on in the background say it looks pretty packed, they have a correspondent down there. But as far as the actual Capitol dynamic, what then ensued that with the violence and such, that literally was not anyone’s mind… The aspect of the whole rally at the Capitol and outside dynamics, nobody knew that part — within the Trump key advisors, we were all focused on what was going to happen when Vice President Pence got to those specific states. Okay, so there were people outside of that we’re going to be having a rally, okay, big deal. That’s in our minds, that was just okay. They’ll be there. They’ll have some banners, and they’ll cheer, that kind of thing. What then ensued, though, at the Capitol, nobody expected it. The Capitol Police didn’t expect it. Nobody on the Republican or Democrat side expected it. The focus was on what was going to be happening inside the Capitol that day.
- Jason Miller, UnHerd
What should Trump have done differently?
Could the President had been more definitive? Could he have said things an hour earlier say than he did? Of course. I mean, every little thing has an impact. Would that have fundamentally changed either what happened that day, or the way that the media portrayed it? … I don’t think it ultimately would have changed.
- Jason Miller, UnHerd
On GETTR and the challenge to first amendment rights
The President of the United States gets his first amendment rights completely knocked out and undercut kicked off of all platforms after January 6, effectively saying that he has a lifetime ban of being able to use his first amendment rights. And I think that is a I think that’s dangerous. Then you see even where we are now we have the White House saying, “Well, if you’ve been kicked off of one platform, you should probably kicked off of all the platforms,” — you have the White House of the United States of America, advocating that people lose all of their first amendment rights.
- Jason Miller, UnHerd
Will Donald Trump join the platform?
Most of the conversations go to what compensation or what might be in it for President Trump to join the platform… It’s ready to go now and we want to get out and get it launched. Even if President Trump isn’t on board day one, let’s get it launched. Let’s make it successful. And hopefully we can get him to join us.
- Jason Miller, UnHerd
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Subscribe‘And what about the Trump Voters?’ ‘The roughly half the country who supported him, what are they thinking?’ is in Freddie’s opening statement, and so…..
We are devastated, we are thinking we lost a war we did not know was being fought, and the side against America seems to have won thus far.
We see the Nation we love being intentionally destroyed by the hard Left, The multicultural nation being broken into pieces by a manufactured Racist policy created to divide all the peoples into opposite camps, and bring in hate where tolerance once was (CRT, 1619, BLM, gender issues, and so on). We see crime being purposefully increased so a police state may be established by stealth, as Police, Courts, and Prisons are said to be Racist and so must be reduced, and thus cameras, and surveillance of every kind are required instead. The criminal comes ahead of the victim now. The Criminal IS the victum – according to the Left.
We see the nation’s economy being destroyed by insane levels of Fiscal stimulus money printing, and crazy monetary policy, driving inflation sky high wile interest being kept zero so all savings will be destroyed, and the people more and more dependent on Government hand outs. We see the USA $ being devalued soon, possibly the ‘ USA $ Reserve Status’ being lost and Poverty coming. then soon a CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) so all must have ‘Digital Wallets’ on phones we must carry, and accounts with the FED instead of private banks, so every moment of our lives, every penny in or out, every GPS movement is tracked and accounted – and thus UBI will begin, and so total control.
We see the Billionaire, Tech, Social Media, MSM, Entertainment and Education industry joining with the radical Left Democrats to lock the world for ever into a socialist prison.
We see open borders. (Being a tradesman our money and jobs are GONE unless you are a skilled, lead, person – otherwise illegals will take all the unskilled jobs (They all ready have 50% of them here already)).
We see education being ‘Re-Education with the total re-writing of history, politics, literature, and school about social engineering instead of education.
We see 1984, or not, if the Radical Left can be pushed out and sanity return. In UK Corbyn took the Labour Party too left, too fast, and so they are gone from power for decades. The great hope is the same happens here, and the country can heal.
MAGA is our only hope.
I’m completely with you, Sanford. As a recent legal immigrant to the United States I am gobsmacked by how many supposedly-intelligent people have been ‘educated’ to hate their people and their country – all in the name of diversity and equity. There’s a level of mass stupidity here that comes not from simple ignorance, but from actively buying into an education and media complex that does nothing but spread lies.
For an outsider, American politics can be both interesting and mystifying. He of course touched on voter fraud as well. The fact that it was discussed yesterday that some of the foremost democracies in the world do not require ID at their voting stations, rocks me back on my heels.
South Africa, a poor new democracy at the tip of Africa requires voter registration beforehand and on the day, formal identification is required and your thumb is ‘indelibly’ inked across flesh and nail. People visit voting stations to vote and these are monitored.
Thanks Lesley
Interesting insights into the 2020 Trump campaign and I’m glad to hear about the creation of Getter. It’s one attempt to push back against the cancel culture promoted by Big Tech.
Otherwise, despite Freddie’s best attempts to draw him out, this was a slick and somewhat bland interview by a seasoned communications specialist. The chance of us ever learning anything new was always quite small.
This is the first Freddy guest where he did not so much try to ‘draw him out’ as to try to ‘Trip him up’. The many times in the middle of it when Freddy was demanding he give us a ‘Struggle Session’ and admit the failed court appeal attempts at fixing the corruption in the voting showed that the corruption in fact did not exist; (it did, but as the guest explained many times, the courts were just NOT going to overturn the illegal votes as the individuals made them not understanding the laws had been broken.) That the Jan 6 was Trump’s fault (it was not), that the campaign failed (despite the entire Social Media, Tech, and MSM being 100% partisan on Biden’s side, and rabidly against Trump’s)and so on, showed Freddy did wish to make this into as much of a debate as an interview….And I felt the Guest won.
But then Unherd did let the Trump side get some time, which is rare with virtually the entire MSM, Social Media, education, and entertainment industries being 100% pathologically anti Trump, and pro the Far Left Democrat side.
Please do not run again! No Trump 2024.
Why shouldn’t he run? Who are you to say who can and cannot run? You are not obliged to vote for him. I am getting a little tired of under-age yanks running around the world, telling all and sundry what they can and cannot do..
I think Cat Fan was expressing a heartfelt hope that he will not run again. Who are you to say that he/she cannot say that?
Apologies, I thought this was a comment section where I could post my opinion.
It would be useful to know why you have that opinion. A blank statement tells us nothing as to whether you want a different Republican to run, or whether you think Trump might be a threat to Democrats, or why you have a problem with Trump running. It’s all skin and no sausage.
As you asked, there are many reasons why I think he should not run. I would prefer a different Republican to get the nomination. Firstly, his age nullifies one of the Republicans main arguments against Biden (should Biden run again in 2024). Trump can’t help but make everything about him personally and this detracts from the issues, this probably cost the Republicans the run offs in Georgia. Trump also has a bad habit of throwing those who support him under a bus. Looking back at the 2020 election it is notable the gap between the results of the Republicans at the House and State level and his results. That said, there is a role for him and he has dedicated supporters who may not turn out to vote if he isn’t there. Ideally, he would support another candidate and encourage his supporters to as well.
Me too
“Apologies, I thought this was a comment section where I could post my opinion.”
Your first post was a partisan, political, statement, not an opinion. Your reply added nothing more.
An extremely interesting kind of poster floods much of ‘Comment sections’ elsewhere, one not many even have heard of, and is well worth a search – the Wumao, a member of ‘The Fifty Cent Army’ These are Chinese posters (they were said to receive a tiny bit of money for each post, hence the name, but in reality it was just something some people were expected to do)
Their posts were one liners very much along your line, and then the rest would post ‘I Agree!’, or ‘Yes, he is an idiot’, sort of posts, and the thread would be broken as no one could debate as the masses of jabber kept reasoned answers way down the page and unable to respond.
Only if it’s interesting or informative. Yours, sadly, was neither.
People in the center, like me, are going to decide the 2024 election. I don’t see Donald Trump capturing that cohort, however abysmal the Democratic candidate may be (this means you, Kamala). People will still remember with near despair the day-to-day Trump-fed chaos we lived through for four years. And, whatever this guy may say about the events of Jan 6, they easily COULD have led to an unprecedented governmental crisis if, for example, Nancy Pelosi got stomped on in her office. No, Trump did not ask his supporters to do this, but he was absolutely reckless in his post-election messaging. The Republicans have a unique opportunity in 2022 and 2024 to rescue us from the left-wing nonsense, but they need a responsible leader to carry the flag in this endeavour.
What many of us are witnessing from the outside is a significantly far worse USA under the Dems. And it is going downhill fast.
I hate to burst your bubble, Joe, but if you’re not going to vote for Trump “however abysmal the Democratic candidate may be”, then you’re not in the “center”, are you?