John Anthony Castro has not been shy about his dislike for former President Donald Trump.
Once a donor—he gave $1,700 to Trump's campaign after his shocking victory in the 2016 election—the Texas tax attorney and longshot 2024 Republican presidential candidate has since become one of his fiercest critics.
He has sued Trump several times, launching his campaign with a lawsuit against Trump in his adopted home state of Florida seeking to disqualify him from the ballot. He has campaigned opposite Trump numerous times, lending support to anti-Trump groups and candidates like the Lincoln Project and former Alabama Democratic Senator Doug Jones. And he's willing to invest millions to see Trump lose, loaning $20 million to his campaign ahead of an advertising blitz against the former president in early-voting states like New Hampshire.
But his campaign, he told Newsweek on Thursday, is just as much about ensuring Trump fails to earn the nomination as much as it is about helping the Republican Party regain a soul and a commitment to limited government and civil liberties he said it has lost.
"Realistically, I'm probably just going to be pigeonholed as the anti-Trump candidate, you know, the guy that's running to try to have him declared ineligible," he said. "But another thing I'm trying to do is I'm trying to steer the debate.
"Now we have this contest of who can be the most extreme, and it just keeps getting worse and worse. And it's icing out the moderates, which actually make up the vast majority of the Republican Party. And then they wonder why they keep losing."
It's a fight he says few candidates in the field are equipped for—particularly as the modern GOP has demonstrated an inability to move on from Trump.
While many voters in recent polling have shown a willingness to support other Republican candidates like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy or figures like South Carolinians Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, Castro said that few of them will be able to win over a plurality of voters in the 2024 general election—much less the Republican primaries—unless they can defy the losing tradition established under Trump.
At this point, Castro said, few are willing to do so—and are, therefore, unworthy of leading the party moving forward.
"Where [the other candidates] fall short is they're still kissing [Trump's] ass," Castro said. "I don't even mind that being quoted, because it sickens me that they don't have the guts to stand up to him.
"If you can't even take on Trump, how do you expect to ever be respected as commander-in-chief?"
It's exactly the reason Castro said he has centered his campaign around disqualifying Trump from the ballot.
In January, Castro more or less officially kicked off his burgeoning campaign with a lawsuit in Florida asking a judge to declare Trump constitutionally ineligible to hold office over allegations he'd provided aid and comfort to January 6 Capitol rioters in violation of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The lawsuit is under appeal after his standing in the case was contested by controversial Trump appointee Aileen Cannon, a central figure in an ongoing federal classified documents case involving the former president whom Castro said was randomly assigned his case—and subsequently denied his lawsuit—without any detailed legal justification.
"The fact that all the Trump cases keep getting assigned to Judge Cannon cannot be a coincidence," Castro said. "I'm a math person, and so I can just tell you like the Vegas odds of this are through the roof. You know what I mean? That's like lightning striking in the same place five times."
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) previously dismissed a similar lawsuit Castro filed against Trump, also ruling he lacked standing in the case.
Once again, Corrupt Judge Aileen Cannon is “randomly” assigned to a Trump case.
— 🇺🇸 John Anthony Castro (@realJohnACastro) June 9, 2023
She’s going to corruptly do everything in her power to protect him. DOJ needs to move to disqualify her and appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court!https://t.co/gUOR0z4rd3
There have been other suits, as well. Last month, Castro filed a suit against Trump in his home state of Texas on allegations that the former president "weaponized fanatical supporters" within the Internal Revenue Service in a failed "joint conspiracy" to surveil Castro and other "Never Trumpers" who had denounced Trump and supported his political rivals in the 2018 and 2020 election cycles.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign, which has not yet responded to the suit, via email for comment.
Beyond his legal battles, it's still open for debate whether Castro will be able to win over enough voters to make a dent in Trump's support. While alternative candidates like former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie have seen a surge in support on anti-Trump platforms, Castro is relatively unknown in national politics, and he has a mixed history even in his home state.
After some time as a registered Democrat—including a failed bid for a Texas county commissioner post in 2004—Castro was a donor to Republican candidates and causes as recently as 2017, according to FEC data, and led two unsuccessful bids for the U.S. Senate and House as a Republican in 2020 and 2021, when local news outlets reported he rarely appeared in person.
What makes this time different, he said, is money—$20 million worth, to be exact. He plans to use it wisely, punching holes in Trump's credibility in an effort to clear the field. That plan, he said, will begin in earnest this weekend in New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation primary state that will lay the foundation for who will likely maintain the ability to compete in states like Iowa and South Carolina.
However, he also plans not to spend it all at once, waiting either for a positive result for his lawsuits or—more likely—deploying his residual funds later in the campaign in an effort to deny Trump additional support in late-voting states and, potentially, leave him with some bargaining ability at the Republican convention.
"We're not in the business of burning everything that we built," Castro said. "Trump and DeSantis obviously control the vast majority of all GOP voters. But if Trump was gone, that would free up the ability of other candidates to have somewhat of a respectable performance in the primaries and maybe try to secure delegate votes to have some bargaining chips at the convention."
Still, there is peril in his strategy. Some, including his own campaign team, have pondered whether by eliminating Trump, they potentially set up Republican candidates he opposes to succeed.
While Trump remains the leader in the Republican primary field, most polls show he largely lacks viability in a general election against President Joe Biden, despite Biden continuing to suffer from anemic approval ratings even among voters in his own party. Other polling, meanwhile, suggests that a more hardline candidate like DeSantis could potentially beat Biden in a head-to-head matchup, potentially putting a more capable opponent in the White House.
Does Castro have the same concern defeating Trump could potentially clear a path for a more extreme version of the former president? Castro said yes, but he also said that if a more extreme candidate than Trump advances out of the primary, he plans to do everything he can to oppose them.
"That is a concern," he said. "What I tell people is, let's deal with one problem at a time. Let me take out Trump, and I will try to figure out how to deal with DeSantis. I haven't said that I would support DeSantis. I would say I loathe him on an equal level as Trump."
