A top donor to Republicans during the 2020 election cycle has indicated that they’ll not be supporting a 2024 Trump presidential campaign, should the former commander-in-chief decide to make a bid for the White House once more. Ken Griffin, the donor in question, works as a hedge fund manager, and during the previous election cycle, he gave $46 million to Republican causes, ending up the fourth-largest individual donor for Republicans across the entire cycle. In other words, this (financially speaking) isn’t just some guy — it’s someone who gave more than almost any other person in the entire country.
Speaking with Erik Schatzker at the Economic Club of Chicago on Monday, Griffin said that he feels as though it’s “time for America to move on.” He clarified that he had “never financially supported Trump,” per Bloomberg — which would presumably mean that he hadn’t directly contributed to the Trump campaign itself. Nevertheless, contributing to the GOP clearly meant at least de facto support for Trump throughout the entirety of the 2020 presidential campaign cycle. It’s not as though there was ever any real uncertainty about whether the party would back him. Money for the GOP went to the Trump cause — obviously.
Griffin was critical of Trump’s time in office, although he lauded the former president’s economic approach as “pretty damn good.” Trump, though, was “so pointlessly divisive,” the financial stalwart observed. Griffin also said that he was “appalled” by Trump’s racist rhetoric — although it’s not as though Trump suddenly wheeled that out once in power, surprising everyone. He has defined his time in the public spotlight with racist targeting of marginalized people right from the get-go, when he went after immigrants (among others). It was before he ever won a presidential election that he proposed banning Muslims from entering the United States.
As of this point, it’s unclear whether Trump will even opt to run again. Asked recently what might keep him from running again, Trump pointed to “a bad call from a doctor or something.” There have been speculations about his health for some time.
