So far, the former president has flown the creation of a third-party movement that would enable him to support MAGA-friendly candidates in the mid-term terms of 2022 and beyond. He is also interested in ‘becoming the country’s leader on voting and integrity in the right to vote’, his senior adviser Jason Miller said in a podcast last Thursday.
But as Trump carefully portrays the next steps, he is increasingly doing it alone. Two of his most trusted confidants, Johnny McEntee and Hope Hicks, did not want to join him in Florida after spending years by his side on the campaign and in the West Wing.
“He did pretty well when he was in the private sector, so I think he’s just going to do his thing,” a former Trump official said of McEntee.
Many other assistants left his side and eager to start far away from their former boss again. White House assistants and administrative officials who once enjoyed their West Wing seats chased down remote getaways and earned a mountain of unused vacation time. Others ask former colleagues for help finding work while prioritizing their own careers over what chapter Trump is planning for himself.
“There are a lot of resumes that are passing and people just want to help people land on their feet,” a former White House official in Trump said.
It was not easy. Several through Trump’s reputation, several Trump aides have described an increasingly dark labor market, with virtually no chance of job cuts in America, and some have even seen promising clues disappear after the U.S. Capitol rush. A second former White House official said they know of ‘people who got jobs due January 6th. A Republican strategist was blunt.
“They were really fed up,” the strategist said, pointing to some top officials who held on to Trump to the bitter end. ‘The Hill scurrying, one of the few places where they would be welcomed, took place a month or so ago … They were repeatedly told to take their hand off the hot stove, and they did not want to listen . ‘
It is not just the staff members who work at lower and middle level. Two people familiar with his thinking said Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, who spent seven years in the House of Representatives before joining the White House, is even considering a position at the Trump organization due to a lack to options.
Confronted with these obstacles in the staff members distributed an informal directory of acceptable posts among themselves. Other Trump officials have decided to start their own businesses or have moved to Republican offices on Capitol Hill or appointed their former colleagues. Former White House Strategic Communications Director Alyssa Farah, for example, has appointed a former assistant to Vice President Mike Pence to join her new consulting firm, according to a person familiar with the move.
This is a very different reality than where Trump and his aides would have predicted them. A month ago, everything seemed crystal clear: he lost the 2020 election, but would soon launch a juggernaut campaign for the presidency in 2024, and his allies and inner circle would be there to help. Now the former president’s team is teaming up – willing to leave Washington, in some cases for red states like Texas and Florida, to increase their job prospects – while his own second act is clouded by uncertainty.
One former senior administration official noted that many in the White House waited until the Electoral College’s votes were counted to begin their job searches seriously, not to send further messages about Trump’s efforts to challenge the election results. But then the riots on Capitol Hill increased their plans.
‘They watched it [Jan. 6] at the end of the limbo state, people were moving on to the next thing, ”the former official said. “But the 6th shocked it.”