GOP presidential candidate pool grows, but few fresh ideas

There are more than a dozen candidates running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Yahoo Finance Reporter Rick Newman discusses the growing GOP field and how they compare to former President Donald Trump.

Video Transcript

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AKIKO FUJITA: The pool of GOP presidential candidates for 2024 continues to grow. But the idea is coming to the surface seemed to be less abundant, at least that's the take from our very own Rick Newman, who's here with us at the desk. Rick, how many are we at now right now in terms of candidates?

RICK NEWMAN: You got a dozen on that. We've got an even dozen. There could probably be a couple more. You haven't heard of some of these people Perry Johnson. I think most people have heard of him. He's a businessman from Michigan. Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas, Doug Burgum, the current governor of North Dakota. But they're all-- they all think they can and deserve to be President, so, they're giving it a shot.

AKIKO FUJITA: And do they have different ideas?

RICK NEWMAN: Well, they're taking different approaches. The number one thing, they-- all these people, 11 of the 12, let's put it that way, have to do is they have to get Donald Trump out of the way. So some of them are doing this overtly. Chris Christie seems like the number one attack dog. He's going after Trump directly. And others are kind of doing it subtly. They're-- like Tim Scott, for example, the Senator from South Carolina, he's like a gentle-- a more gentlemanly Donald Trump. He's Trumpy in policy, but he's genial, and he's considered a nice guy. So he's not attacking Trump. He's just saying, you know, I'm a sunnier version of Trump.

So this is going to be a dogfight until we get into let's say this time next year. Who knows what's going to happen to Trump? I mean, he's clearly the frontrunner, but he is already mired in legal problems. And this is just going to get worse. So there's this assumption that everybody says don't, never underestimate Trump. But it's possible this really is going to be different in 2024, given all the legal problems he's going to have.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah. You mentioned those legal problems. More specifically, when do you see that coming as an issue for him, something that's going to come before the Republican nomination, or are we talking general election?

RICK NEWMAN: It's a problem right away. I mean, it's a problem now. And we're getting leaks and other types of information that there could soon be federal charges, federal indictment of Trump related to the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, possible obstruction of Justice in Georgia. The prosecutor there in Fulton County is indicating she's likely to charge Trump with election fraud by the end of the summer.

So Trump is going to probably be facing all these legal charges for a year or more going into the 2024 election. And we could also have trials. There's the one in New York that could get underway at some point early next year. Who knows how quickly this will take? I think at the federal level, it would probably be in the interest of prosecutors to do it quickly if they can, given how important it is for, you know, public purposes.

AKIKO FUJITA: One also don't want to be seen as being so political, right? That's going to be the spin either way.

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah. At least get a verdict, so voters can say he's guilty or not, and they can vote on that. But meanwhile, you know, the Republican primary is already underway, now that we have 12 candidates in. And we're going to have some debates starting within a month or two.

AKIKO FUJITA: Rick Newman, thanks so much for that.

RICK NEWMAN: Bye, guys.