While the 2020 election is over (whether the current president will admit it or not), Donald Trump still has over a month left in office. And with his remaining time, POTUS has been floating some ideas around that have left some people concerned. For one thing, The Apprentice alum has already pardoned former national security advisor Michael Flynn of “any and all possible offenses” in connection to the Mueller investigation, per Politico, and is discussing preemptively pardoning his three oldest children — Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump — in addition to Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner (via The New York Times).
There is even talk of the president pardoning himself, which is unprecedented — meaning the issue could be taken to the Supreme Court to decide, The New York Times reports. However, perhaps even more troubling to some is the threat that Trump may run for president again in 2024. Per The Guardian, he casually indicated this potential plan at the White House’s recent holiday reception. In fact, according to NPR, anonymous sources claim that Trump is very seriously considering a run in four years.
Among the news anchors, writers, and commentators who have responded to this possibility is one Whoopi Goldberg, who had a message for Trump on The View on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020, saying: “You’re not going to run if you’re in jail.”
What Whoopi Goldberg has to say about Donald Trump's potential run in 2024
Like others, the hosts of The View admittedly don’t know for sure the true scope of the president’s pardoning power. However, this didn’t stop them from poking holes in Donald Trump’s potential exit strategy after Sean Hannity said he should do just that on Fox News.
For her part, Whoopi Goldberg started by saying that, if POTUS could pardon himself, Richard Nixon would likely have exercised that power instead of stepping down and having his then-vice president, Gerald Ford, pardon him. The conversation then turned to the other limits of the presidential pardon, namely that the president can issue federal pardons though he cannot pardon others — or by extension, himself — on the state level. This leaves a post-presidential Trump (pardoned or not) at the mercy of the state courts — including Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York, who’s been working a case against the Trump Organization. For his part, Trump and his organization have continually “denied any wrongdoing” during his time in office, per ABC News.
In Goldberg’s own words: “There are all these people waiting, [like] Letitia James … waiting for him to make a step out. Because he keeps saying he’s going to run in 2024. You’re not going to run if you’re in jail, my friend, and that is something you must also think of. I’m just saying.”
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