Former Democratic Party leader Howard Dean said he hopes Donald Trump is the Republican nominee in the 2024 election, arguing that the former president’s brand is “in bad shape” among people who aren’t directly in his base and that he’ll be more likely to lose than another GOP candidate.
“He is incredibly divisive, he exhausts people, he’s in deep criminal trouble, and it’s going to take a long time apparently before that gets sorted out,” Dean told MSNBC’s Ari Melber on Wednesday.
Trump has teased a third run for president on multiple occasions but has yet to confirm his position.
Dean’s comments came during a discussion on “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance’s victory in Ohio’s Republican Senate primary and how Trump-backed candidates will perform in the 2022 midterms.
Dean dismissed Vance — who has transformed from a self-confessed “Never Trumper” into one of the former president’s staunchest defenders — as “a second-rate writer” and “a huckster.”
He likened Vance to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), describing them both by saying: “A lot of B.S., not much loyalty to the United States of America, slick.”
Watch Dean’s comments in full here:
Support HuffPost
Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.