(Headline USA) Former President Donald Trump was snubbed from a banquet for prospective GOP presidential candidates, set to be held next month, according to reports.
The prominent conservative fundraising group Club for Growth invited a number of potential 2024 contenders to its annual donor retreat next month, but deliberately left Trump off of its guest list, the New York Times revealed.
David McIntosh, president of the group, said the snub wasn’t meant to be a personal slight, but noted that Trump could drag down the party’s chances of winning the 2024 election.
“The party should be open to another candidate,” he said on Monday. “Trump was on the ballot [during the midterms]. So I worry that when we get into a general election, if Trump is the nominee, they’re going to be able to take a chunk of Republican votes.”
Six likely candidates invited to the banquet include: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
It is not clear if any of these leaders have accepted the invitation to attend the banquet.
Trump is the only candidate thus far to announce his bid for the White House, though Haley is also expected to launch her presidential bid within the next few months.
Club for Growth has clashed with Trump multiple times over the past two years. Just before the former president launched his 2024 bid, the group promoted internal polling that showed him lagging behind DeSantis with voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Trump blasted the organization in a statement on Tuesday, calling it the “Club for NO Growth.”
“The Club For NO Growth, an assemblage of political misfits, globalists, and losers, fought me incessantly and rather viciously during my presidential run in 2016. They said I couldn’t win, I did, and won even bigger in 2020, with millions of more votes than ‘16, but the election was rigged and stolen,” he wrote on Truth Social.
