Former Energy Secretary Rick Perry would not support former President Donald Trump in his reelection campaign when asked on Sunday, though he did tease the possibility of running for president himself.
When asked in an interview with CNN if he believes Trump deserves to be the Republican nominee in 2024, the once-Trump Cabinet member said, “I’m still trying to sort that out for myself.” Perry also said he hasn’t “written off” the idea of running for president next year, saying there is “a lot of time” before he needs to make a decision.
Perry ran for president in 2012 and 2016 but found little success in his efforts. His latter attempt presented him with a foe that he and the rest of the Republican nominees found extremely formidable: Trump.
The man who led Texas as governor from 2000 to 2015 made note of the two’s squabbles as he reminisced on the lead-up to the 2016 elections and weighed his options for 2024.
“He may get to hear me call him names again,” Perry quipped. “If you’ll recall, I didn’t announce for president in 2011 until August, so we’ve got a lot of time left.”
In 2017, Trump picked Perry as his energy secretary, and he held the position he held until he resigned in 2019 after being embroiled in the scandal of the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine. The scandal involved Perry’s knowledge of Trump’s July 25, 2019, phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump pushed his counterpart to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden.
But scrutiny over Perry’s efforts in Washington did not end there. Members of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol identified Perry as the author of a text message sent to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows the day after the 2020 election pushing an “AGRESSIVE (sic) STRATEGY” for three state legislatures to ignore the will of their voters and deliver their states’ electors to Trump, reported at the time. Other texts between Perry and Meadows regarding how to overturn the election were also investigated. On Sunday, Perry said he did not send the text message to Meadows, calling it “misinformation.”
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, ambassador to the United Nations under the Trump administration, has declared for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, making her and Perry two of several former Trump allies not to endorse the former president to be commander in chief once again.