Former Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry hinted at the possibility of running for president during a recent interview with CNN.
While politicians like Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) and former Governor Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) have officially entered the presidential race, Perry suggested he is in no rush whatsoever.
As he told CNN’s Jim Acosta, “If you’ll recall, I didn’t announce for president in 2011 until August, so we’ve got a lot of time left.”
Maybe the third time is indeed the charm for Perry, who fell short in his previous bids for the presidency in 2012 and 2016.
An op-ed from the Houston Chronicle suggested that Perry joining the race wouldn’t be such a terrible thing, noting his record-breaking run as Texas governor and “the Texas miracle guy” between 2000 and 2015.
As for who Perry would support as a nominee in the 2024 election, he said it is too soon to tell that as well.
“It’s early in the process, I think, for any of us to sit back and say, ‘I’m for this person or that person,’” Perry told Acosta, according to CNN.
Perry’s relationship with presidential hopeful Donald Trump has been off and on, with Perry calling Trump a “cancer on conservatism” leading up to the 2016 election and then serving in his administration from 2017 to 2019 as energy secretary, according to The Hill.
As The Dallas Express reported, Trump kicked off his election campaign in Waco back in March and has been trying to gain momentum among GOP nominating states ever since.
But so has Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who is reportedly announcing that he is entering the presidential race on Wednesday.
Perry currently keeps busy by tending to his five special-needs dogs on his 50-acre property shared with friends in Central Texas and serving on the board of Dallas billionaire Kelcy Warren’s firm Energy Transfer Partners, according to an interview conducted earlier this month with Axios Dallas.
This is perhaps why Perry told CNN that despite him leaving the door slightly ajar for his own candidacy, the chances of him joining the presidential race “are probably a little bit slim.”
