Trump prepares 2024 run announcement one week after midterms

Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman explains the latest results from the midterm elections, challenges for Republicans and the Biden administration, and expectations for Trump to announce a 2024 presidential campaign.

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- In the meantime, turning to politics now, Democrat Katie Hobbs has won the race for governor of Arizona, this as Republicans inch closer to gaining control in the House after a series of victories on Monday night in California, Arizona, and New York State. They're now only one seat away from gaining that control. Someone who's been watching all of this very closely, Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman, who is here to discuss.

So Rick, this election was not broadly what was expected. The results, perhaps, are, but not the important nuances of all of these results. And that Katie Hobbs victory was one of those surprises.

RICK NEWMAN: Right, so a week after election day, it's almost over and we're finally finding out what's happening. So Kari Lake was one of Donald Trump's endorsees. And she lost. It was a close race, but she lost.

And I think the clearest takeaway from these elections-- a lot of muddled messages, but the clearest is that Trump's influence is just waning. Of course, he's going to probably announce tonight that he's going to run for president. It's unusual that any presidential candidate announces a bid two years ahead of time, one week after the prior midterm election.

But Trump wants to get a jump on this. He wants to box out Ron DeSantis and any others who might declare. And also, important to keep in mind, Trump is possibly facing some very serious legal issues, including possible federal and state-level indictments. And he may want to put himself in the position of being a presidential candidate as he faces those charges so that he can claim that it's politically motivated. So lots of theater.

- Yeah, lots of theater. I mean--

RICK NEWMAN: Elections aren't over. They never end anymore.

- It seems more broadly that it's not only necessarily a repudiation of Trump himself, but a repudiation of fringe, right, because it seems like it is the most extreme candidates in general who did not win. And that includes, by the way, things like secretaries of state, right, people who were expected to maybe contest election results in the future.

RICK NEWMAN: Right. We all want a single narrative out of an election. And let's accept the fact that maybe this is just going to be muddy. And we're not going to know exactly why.

But if you think about it, ordinary voters, I think it's plausible that they're just sick of hearing about 2020. I mean, it's two years ago. And if you're still upset about the election outcome in 2020, does that help you deal with inflation today? Does that help you deal with a declining real paycheck today?

I mean, voters do want solutions to problems they face in their real life. And if all you're doing is telling people they should remain angry forever about the last election, which is soon going to be two elections ago, and then it's going to be three elections ago, I mean, I just, I think that just runs out of runway with voters. I think they want to know, what are you going to do for me today?

- Well, you mentioned--

RICK NEWMAN: And they should.

- You mentioned Trump. You mentioned inflation. We have a little something for you. Earlier on I talked to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg about this potential Trump run. Take a listen.

PETE BUTTIGIEG: He can do whatever he likes. But here we're working on getting results for people. And I think part of what the results have shown in terms of the outcomes [AUDIO OUT]

- And Rick, there you have Pete Buttigieg, maybe some audio issues there again. But, nonetheless--

RICK NEWMAN: You need to unstick that audio [? machine. ?]

- Well, Pete Buttigieg saying essentially the Biden administration has done a lot to tackle inflation. Now, you've been covering this very closely. Do you think they have done enough?

RICK NEWMAN: No. No. They haven't. I mean, they haven't really done much at all, I mean, to be honest. But let me, I'm curious about, so did he, did Buttigieg ever say the word "Trump" when you interviewed him, Sozz?

- He did not say the word "Trump." He said he could do whatever he, he could do whatever he wants.

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah, so the Biden people are in this interesting-- I mean, they have--

- Like a Voldemort situation.

RICK NEWMAN: That's right, he whose name you shall not speak. I think they've come to realize, they have to-- everybody wants to ask them about Trump, including people want to ask Biden himself about Trump. So they realize that they have to address it. But he's doing, he's deflecting. And he's basically saying, why don't you give us credit for our record?

Inflation is coming down because all the problems that have been contributing to inflation are unwinding. And, by the way, it's not down enough. It needs to come down a lot more.

The interesting thing about the Biden administration is that Biden signed that absurdly named bill called the Inflation Reduction Act. And I thought, well, that's obviously an effort to say once inflation does come down, they can say, oh, we signed the Inflation Reduction Act. We did that.

But on the other hand, they got stuck in this position where inflation did not come down as much as they thought by election day. And it looked as if they signed the Inflation Reduction Act and it didn't work. So I guess what's going to happen with that bill is in 2024, if inflation is down 3%--

- Ah, then they can say--

RICK NEWMAN: Then they're going to say, see? We did that.

- It worked years out. Thanks so much, Rick Newman, for putting all of this in context and perspective for us. Appreciate it.