Trump teases 2024 announcement, but is he just playing the media?

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Howard Kurtz: Media have already moved on from Afghanistan crisis

'MediaBuzz' host Howard Kurtz joins Martha MacCallum to weigh in on the media stepping back from continuing to cover the crisis in Afghanistan after the U.S. exit on 'The Story'

It may be the big move or it may be a head fake, but Donald Trump wants you to believe he’s about to start running for president.

And he’s getting the media to bite.

Trump has dropped all sorts of hints that he’ll run for his old job in 2024, when he would be 78 years old (and Joe Biden, of course, will be 82). But this seemed more in line with the flirtations of every potential candidate: keeping the options open, not ruling it out, as a way of staying relevant and drawing media coverage.

The conventional wisdom has been that the former president would raise a ton of money, help MAGA candidates defeat non-Trumpy Republicans in the primaries, take credit for GOP gains in the midterms, and then jump into the race.

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But since when has Trump been conventional about anything?

Given his stolen-election claims that still play to the faithful, Trump is obviously hungering for a rematch. But I’m not sure I see the advantages of making it official now. Declaring for president 3-1/2 years before the election might help him with fundraising, but he’s already taking in truckloads of cash. Candidate status could spur the media into covering him more, but he knows how to make news now, even without the Twitter and Facebook megaphone. 

Trump is obviously hungering for a rematch.

Besides, the press doesn’t need much prodding to focus on Trump, a box-office draw even for the news outlets that can’t stand him. It’s no secret that major media organizations have seen their ratings and traffic plummet in the Biden era.

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Either way, Trump wins. If this is just saber-rattling, he gets coverage. If it’s serious, he gets even more coverage. And Trump knows the value of the guessing game, having teased possible White House runs for decades before taking the plunge in 2016. He did it with me back in 1987, when he was publicizing "The Art of the Deal."

Smoke signal

The latest smoke signal came from reporter Lauren Windsor at the Undercurrent, who quoted Jim Jordan as saying Trump would get in "any day now." A spokesman for the Republican congressman flatly denied it. But then a cell phone video surfaced late last week of Jordan saying pretty much that (though not the exact quote reported by Windsor). 

Trump knows the value of the guessing game, having teased possible White House runs for decades before taking the plunge in 2016. 

"I talked to him yesterday. He's about ready to announce after all of this craziness in Afghanistan," Jordan is seen saying.

Longtime Trump adviser Jason Miller, in an interview with Cheddar, put the chances of Trump running against "somewhere between 99 and 100 percent. I think he is definitely running in 2024," Miller said a day after speaking with his ex-boss. "He has not said the magical words to me, but if you talk to him for a few minutes it’s pretty clear that he’s running."

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Now Miller is a pro who wouldn’t go rogue on something like that, so the former guy wants this out there — for whatever reason.

‘Biden is on the ropes’

Politico dives in with a report on Trump building what an unnamed associate describes as a "turnkey operation," which can be activated as soon as he decided to get in the race. It isn’t much — a couple of hires in Iowa, intensified fundraising and online advertising, more interviews, and press statements — but it adds to the sense that this is happening. (So far, at least, the interviews are mainly with Fox opinion hosts, Newsmax and OAN.)

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Rep. Matt Gaetz is quoted as saying that "Trump sees Biden is on the ropes. He wants to throw punches as a combatant, not a heckler from the stands." Yet the Florida congressman contradicts the any-day-now thesis by saying Trump is in no rush to announce.

No candidate has ever needed the traditional infrastructure less than Trump if he tries to become only the second president, after Grover Cleveland, to regain the office he had occupied. It’s hard to imagine him not getting the GOP nomination, in part because some heavyweights won’t run if he does.

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The mere suggestion of a Trump candidacy freezes the field. He has 100% name recognition. The loyalty of the base, except for the Never-Trumpers who have left the party, seems unshakable. The fall election, of course, would be another story.

The Afghanistan disaster may well have prompted Trump to move up his timetable. That, at least, is what he wants the media to think. We’ll find out soon enough whether he’s actually ready to pull the trigger.