FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures at a campaign rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, U.S., September 21, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Donald Trump said that he will not make a fourth consecutive run for the U.S. presidency if he loses the Nov. 5 election, saying "that will be it" in an interview released on Sunday.
Asked if he saw himself running again in four years if he is not successful in his third consecutive bid for the White House, the 78-year-old former president told Sharyl Attkisson's "Full Measure" program: "No I don't. I think that will be — that will be it. I don't see that at all. Hopefully, we will be successful."
Trump faces a tight race against Democratic U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, with polls showing the two neck-and-neck in key battleground states that are likely to be decisive in determining the winner, even as Harris has begun to edge up in nationwide polls.
Trump launched his first reelection bid for the 2020 election the same day he was inaugurated in 2017 and announced his latest White House bid two years ago in November 2022.
Trump has continued to falsely blame his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden on widespread voter fraud and faces federal and state criminal charges over efforts to overturn the election results. He denies any wrongdoing and has cast his indictments as a political attack against him while embracing increasingly dystopian rhetoric if he were to lose in 2024.
He has also launched a number of businesses ventures amid his latest campaign, including Trump Media, NFTs, and Trump branded sneakers, coins and crypto.
Harris, 59, meanwhile, has cast the race as a critical moment for U.S. democracy even as she seeks to focus on kitchen-table issues such as costs for families and housing.
Asked whether the four year break helped him regroup and figure out who he could trust as allies, Trump said: "It would have been easier if I did it ... contiguous."
"But the benefit is more than anything else, it shows how bad they were," he added.
Trump, who spoke with Attkisson at his Florida resort, also said it was "too early" to make deals with people for any position in his White House cabinet should he win in November.
(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien and Susan Heavey; Editing by Scott Malone and Chris Reese)
