US President Joe Biden released a TV spot Friday targeting voters of Nikki Haley, as he seeks to rebuild the coalition that won him the last election by wooing the moderates who preferred her to Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.
The ad shows Trump -- the Republicans' 2024 standard-bearer -- repeatedly mocking the former UN ambassador and telling a reporter he can win without pursuing her supporters.
"She's gone crazy. She's a very angry person," Trump is heard saying during the 30-second commercial, punctuated with social media posts in which the Republican claims he "will not accept" her supporters and threatens to kick them out of his political movement.
Biden posted the video on social media alongside the caption: "Nikki Haley voters, Donald Trump doesn't want your vote. I want to be clear: There is a place for you in my campaign."
Biden has built up a campaign war chest in excess of $70 million ahead of November's rematch with Trump, more than doubling his predecessor's fundraising haul and giving allies more latitude to spend big on TV advertising.
The president raised an estimated $26 million on Thursday at a New York event with former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
Trump has had to divide his time between campaign stops and court appearances as he defends himself against 88 felony counts.
He has also had to dedicate tens of millions of dollars in donations that could have boosted his campaign on legal fees.
But he benefits greatly from free coverage as he turns his many appearances at courthouses into campaign events.
The 77-year-old, who has been indicted four times -- mostly over alleged attempts to cheat in elections -- is expected to raise $33 million from a fundraiser on April 6 in Florida, according to the Financial Times.
Trump secured the Republican nomination at the beginning of March after defeating Haley by wide margins in all the early voting and "Super Tuesday" states -- including her home turf of South Carolina.
But large swaths of Republican primary voters -- upwards of 40 percent in some states -- did not support Trump, raising fears that he will not be able to win the moderates he will need to take back the White House.
The TV spot will run for three weeks in eight key battleground states, targeting Haley voters in predominantly suburban districts where she performed best against Trump.
The ad will also appear across a wide array of digital platforms including those owned by Meta -- parent company of Facebook and Instagram -- and YouTube.
"As Trump loses ground, derides women, and threatens to ban abortion nationwide -- Joe Biden is reaching across the aisle to Haley voters, inviting them to join his growing and winning coalition of voters who will decide this election," the president's campaign said.
A man who was convicted of sexual assault on a child in 2006 has sued multiple conservative groups over the past two years over their texts and robocalls, claiming it's illegal to contact him since his phone number is on the National Do Not Call Registry.
The total of William J. Hunsaker Jr.'s suits amounted to $100,000 over two years.
Hunsaker Jr., a registered sex offender and registered Democrat, sued Turning Point USA for $1,500 in damages back in 2022 before he voluntarily dropped the lawsuit. It's not known if a settlement was reached. Speaking to Forbes, Hunsaker said he was greatly annoyed at fundraising groups blowing up his phone.
“It gets annoying, where your entire first page and even second page on your cell phone, all your text messages are a bunch of friggin’ political messages where they’re running people down and begging for money,” Hunsaker said.
Months later he filed two more similar lawsuits, one targeting the Denver Gazette for $9,000 in damages and another targeting Save America and two other Donald Trump fundraising groups for the same amount. According to Forbes, Save America ended up paying Hunsaker $3,900. Again, little information about the details of the lawsuit were provided.
Last year, Hunsaker filed seven lawsuits targeting 12 groups over alleged violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Among those he sued were the campaigns for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Harriet Hageman (R-WY) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY), along with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and again, Save America, as well as others.
In each of these lawsuit, he asked for $10,500. He also sued Nikki Haley’s Stand for America PAC for $21,000 over two texts he claimed to have received, and sued one of her fundraising committees for an additional $10,500.
Forbes reported, "While political calls are exempt from complying with the National Do Not Call registry, FCC rules prohibit autodialed or prerecorded calls and texts going to a mobile device without the called party’s prior express consent. Entities that illegally call numbers in the registry can be fined up to $50,000 per call. Meanwhile, recipients can sue the caller for $500 per each alleged violation, or $1,500 if they also claim the caller 'willfully or knowingly' violated the regulations."
A person looking through Trump’s filings with the Federal Election Commission discovered payments to Hunsaker and dug into his background and found that in 2003, when he was working as a personal attorney, he was charged with two counts of sexual assault on a child, two counts of sexual assault on a child with a pattern of abuse and two counts of conspiracy to commit sexual assault.
After failing to appear at a pre-trial court appearance, Hunsaker was found six months later in Costa Rica and extradited back to Colorado. He was acquitted of four charges in his first trial. At his second trial in 2006, he was convicted of one count each of sexual assault on a child and sexual assault with a pattern of abuse and was sentenced to 16 years-to-life. He was paroled in 2019 — the same year he added his number to the National Do Not Call registry.
According to Forbes, Hunsaker didn't think any of the groups he sued knew about his sexual offender status.
“I don't know if they would have said, ‘Well, we're not going to pay you because you’ve got a felony conviction for sexual assault 20 years ago,” Hunsaker said. “I guess they might have said that. It’s not relevant to the claim. They violated the law in my opinion. And so I filed a lawsuit against them.”
Hunsaker has met resistance to his suits. “We have not reached a settlement, nor do we plan to,” NRSC spokesperson Tate Mitchell told Forbes. “The NRSC does not settle Telephone Consumer Protection Act lawsuits.”
Donald Trump's megalomania will either spell "electoral calamity" for Republicans in the 2024 election or the beginning of American carnage the likes of which the world has never seen, an expert on neoconservatives said Friday.
Jacob Heilbrunn, author of "America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators," raised his serious concerns with Salon Friday over the Republicans who have lined up behind a presumptive nominee he warns could dismantle democracy at home and abroad.
"The most disturbing thing remains Trump’s enablers — the incense-burners, the bootlickers, the pursuivants who can ensure that his tyrannical ambitions are realized," Heilbrunn told Salon. "It would be the beginning, not the end, of American carnage."
Heilbrunn detailed a dystopian future — drawing a direct comparison to novelist Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America" — that would see European democracies in Europe dismantled under his likely Secretary of State Richard Grenell, concentration camps built on the southern U.S. border and economic turbulence on the scale of the Great Depression.
"The democracies of Western Europe would become sitting ducks," Heilbrunn said. "Trashing the international order would gut the dollar as a reserve currency, rattle the stock market and return us to the instability of the 1930s."
Yet Heilbrunn believes there is a silver lining around the dark cloud looming over the 2024 election year, and that's the "megalomania" trap he believes may snare politicians and pundits rather than the voters Trump needs to claim victory.
"I remain convinced," Heilbrunn said, "that Trump’s megalomania — his growing radicalism, his frequent threats, his general odiousness — represents a path to electoral calamity in 2024 for the GOP."
A significant portion of Republican primary voters continue to reject Donald Trump despite there being no viable alternatives on the ballot, and his supporters are rationalizing that lackluster performance with election fraud conspiracy theories.
Trump secured just 75 percent of the vote in the Kansas primary on March 19, but Nikki Haley drew 16 percent of the vote despite dropping out nearly two weeks earlier and "none of the names shown" picked up 5 percent, and the numbers were similar that same day in Arizona and Ohio, reported The Daily Beast.
“There’s still residual hostility about Trump and his tweets. In my own family, that's discussed quite a bit,” said Dave Smith, the chairman of the Pima County GOP in Arizona. “Remember out West, too, that New York persona — the in-your-face persona — it’s got an abrasiveness to it.”
Some non-Trump voters had mailed in their ballots before Haley dropped out March 6, but thousands of non-Trump voters cast ballots to express their dissatisfaction with the presumptive Republican Party nominee.
“For those who voted after she dropped out, it was simply, the way you get your messages to your national party is how you vote,” Smith said. "[It was] an internal communication document, really.”
Although the former president faces no GOP challengers, 16 presidential primary contests remain on the calendar in states such as Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin, and Republicans in those states expect similar results.
“There will be a lot of people voting against Trump,” said Ed Baecher, the chairman of the Fishkill, New York, GOP committee. “These are centrist Americans, people in the center, they’re not the crazy liberals. Trump does a very good job – he does a very good job at disenfranchising people.”
However, die-hard Trump supporters aren't buying those explanations and instead say that Haley votes are evidence of a long-running election fraud scheme.
“Unaffiliated voters are allowed to declare at the polls in Kansas,” said Maria Holiday, GOP chair in Johnson County, Kansas. “Democrats make a habit of being Unaffiliated so they can vote in Republican primaries. Simple explanation really. Kansas is Trump country though.”
Chris Christie won't roll up the sleeves to take on Donald Trump as a third party candidate.
The Washington Post reported the former New Jersey governor scratched his name off of the list of potentials that No Labels hopes to formalize ahead of the November 5 election to rival President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
“I appreciate the encouragement I’ve gotten to pursue a third-party candidacy,” Christie informed The Post on Wednesday. “While I believe this is a conversation that needs to be had with the American people, I also believe that if there is not a pathway to win and if my candidacy in any way, shape or form would help Donald Trump become president again, then it is not the way forward.”
The thunderous candidate who challenged an absentee Trump during GOP debates while vying for the nomination early on in a crowded field had reportedly joined his team over the last few weeks mulling the possibility of embarking on the stump as the No Labels candidate.
The Post reported that Christie's team did a lot of homework, running polls in 13 states about a third bid, calculating a potential campaign budget, and mapping out a winning strategy.
To nab the election away from Biden and Trump, Christie's third-party bid would need to steal 20 to 25 states, according to clued in sources who spoke to The Post.
While Christie enjoyed the idea of running for the election as a third-party candidate, the numbers apparently didn't compute to a victorious route.
Among the factors at play involved the late start to raise capital, getting his name on the ballot in enough key states, and fearing his run would help Trump and take votes away from Biden, according to the Post sources.
Christie had been a vehement foe of the former president, who remains the presumptive GOP nominee after former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley suspended her campaign after winning only two states in the primary election.
Founding Chair of No Labels and Former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who passed away today, had been hoping to reveal candidates for its "bipartisan unity ticket" by the beginning of spring.
The Republican National Committee's new interview question which asks potential employees if they believe the 2020 election was stolen is designed to help former President Donald Trump court a very specific voter bloc, a campaign expert believes — the "extra crazy."
Democratic political consultant Chuck Rocha made this bold analysis of Trump's campaign strategy during a CNN panel Wednesday to discuss the new RNC question that has already begun raising eyebrows and making headlines.
"He's also trying to bring new people in by being extra crazy," Rocha said, "and get the extra crazy people who never volunteer."
Rocha argued this decision could blow up in Republicans' faces, pointing to his own outreach with American voters during daily focus groups.
While the question may have earned Trump some newsy headlines and may well build campaign momentum, come election day, Rocha believes voters will put policy before politics.
"I ask voters, what are they looking for in the presidential elections?" Rocha explained. "Democrat, Republican or independent want to know, 'What are you going to do and what is your plan to help me and my family?'"
Rocha was joined on the panel Wednesday by conservative CNN commentator Scott Jennings, who argued the incendiary interview question was not serving as a litmus test for Chris LaCivita, a Trump advisor named chief of staff amid an RNC bloodbath earlier this month.
"I doubt that they are using it as the sole criteria (sic) for hiring people," Jennings said. "The RNC is looking for the most experienced political operatives [LaCivita] can find to help win this election."
Host Alisyn Camerota tried to pivot the conversation toward Trump's most recent campaign cash gambit — signed bibles going for $60 a pop — joking that headline was one that should appeared in "The Onion" and not the mainstream media.
But panelist Ron Brownstein, a CNN senior political analyst, brushed the topic aside with a quick comment — "Trump has been, you know, shameless throughout his whole career" — then took the conversation back to the RNC interviews.
Brownstein argued that Trump risked isolating the 25 percent of Republican voters who understand there is no evidence to support Trump's claim that the 2020 presidential was stolen.
The CNN analyst contends President Joe Biden is well placed to snatch up those voters who threw their support behind former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in her doomed campaign to be the Republican presidential nominee.
"They are a critical constituency for Biden to cut into to further his gains," said Brownstein. "When Trump is basically saying at the RNC, only people who believe the election is stolen belong in my Republican Party, that is exactly the wedge."
WASHINGTON — Some of former President Donald Trump’s fiercest allies in Congress may be multi-millionaires, but that doesn’t mean they’re opening up their wallets for the reality TV star turned contestant for America's most indicted.
“There’s only so much money,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told Raw Story.
With creditors demanding a $454 million bond as his appeals slowly wind through the courts, Trump’s personal deficits have been the talk of the Capitol in recent days.
“Hopefully, I never get into that problem myself,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told Raw Story while riding an elevator in the Capitol.
“You’re not planning to cut him a check?” Raw Story asked.
“No. I don't have enough. Mine would be just a blip,” Tuberville — who’s been estimated to have a net worth of around $20 million — said. “But if I could help, I’d help, maybe.”
Most Republicans on Capitol Hill now parrot the former president’s rhetoric, dismissing Trump’s legal problems as “lawfare” — think lawsuits instead of bullets — by the left and presenting him as a modern day martyr.
“Listen, I’m sympathetic with the lawfare that is being waged against him. Actually quite sympathetic. This is the price he's paying for being involved in politics and running for the office again,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Raw Story. “You could argue it's grossly unfair for him to have to pick up the full tab, so I personally don't have a problem with him explicitly asking for support.”
“Are you gonna donate?” Raw Story asked the former CEO worth an estimated $78 million.
“I've paid my price,” Johnson — who the Select Jan. 6 Committee implicated in helping carry out Wisconsin Republicans’ fake elector scheme in 2021 — said through a smile and chuckle.
While Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) is estimated to be worth more than $300 million — making him the wealthiest sitting U.S. senator — Trump shouldn’t come shaking his tin cup around the former chief executive of the Sunshine State.
“I’m optimistic he’ll figure it out. He's a pretty resourceful guy,” Scott (R-FL) told reporters just off the Senate floor Thursday.
“Would you donate?” Raw Story asked.
“He's a resourceful guy,” Scott answered with a laugh before heading into the chamber to vote.
Personal and political money troubles collide
Trump hasn’t directly asked his Senate allies to chip in to help him pay his civil penalties, fines and lawyers, which now top half a billion dollars — including interest, which Forbes reports is ticking up at $111,984 a day.
But the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee finds himself in a potentially cataclysmic financial mess that mixes both his personal fortune and the finances of his presidential campaign.
During the past two years, Trump’s political operation has spent upward of $80 million on legal fees — an astounding sum for anyone, let alone a presidential candidate. Every dollar Trump’s political machine spends on his four separate criminal cases and various civil court matters is a dollar not spent on attacking Democrats or boosting Republicans.
Conversations in conservative circles have often focused on fundraising for Trump’s legal defense instead of beating President Joe Biden, which has some Republicans fearing the GOP will suffer up and down the ballot come November.
And while it’s still early in this general election and Trump’s poll numbers have looked decent, his fundraising has been anemic. Similarly, Biden’s poll numbers are lagging, even as his campaign coffers are overflowing.
Biden’s warchest is currently triple that of Trump's. The latest Federal Election Commission filings show Biden’s campaign and joint fundraising committee are sitting on $155 million compared to the $41.9 million cash on hand at Trump’s disposal. Such figures don't include money raised by committees the candidates don't directly control, such as supportive super PACs.
Trump may have had a good fundraising month in February, netting upward of $20 million in tandem with his joint fundraising committee, but he still found himself outraised by $3 million by former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) before she dropped out of the GOP presidential primary — withholding both her endorsement and her dollars.
“I think we just have to look at the hard math. Democrats are hitting on all cylinders in terms of fundraising, so we've already got a structural challenge where we're not raising as much as them,” Sen. Tillis of North Carolina said as he entered an elevator in the Capitol. “These races are big races. They cost a lot of money. You gotta mobilize voters, so I'm sure it's a concern for them, too.”
Besides begging for longshot loans, selling off assets and engaging in other creative monetary maneuvers, the former president is now leaning on the sale of $399 gold sneakers and a GoFundMe with an eye-popping $355 million goal.
It’s still unclear if Trump can wiggle out of the straight jacket ensnaring him through the newly announced merger between his fledgling social media company, Truth Social, and Digital World Acquisition Corporation. While the deal could eventually net Trump some $3 billion, his hands are currently tied by an agreement constraining him from selling his shares for the next six months — when the earliest of 2024 early votes are slated to be cast.
Instead of focusing on his reelection, Fox News hosts, such as Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin, have been pushing their massive audiences to donate to Trump’s legal fund.
They’re not the only ones thinking about Donald’s debt these days.
'Trump’s a movement'
Per his usual, Trump has his fierce defenders who say everything’s fine.
“Trump’s a movement. It’s not just the candidate. He’s a movement,” Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) — who served as Trump’s first Interior secretary until scandals ended his tenure in the executive branch — told Raw Story. “I'm not worried.”
“You gonna cut a check for his legal fund?” Raw Story inquired.
“I’ll support my president,” Zinke — who’s estimated to own assets topping $30 million — said.
Other rich Republicans also aren’t entirely slamming the door shut on providing future legal aid to Trump.
“I am confident the [former] president will be able to figure out how to manage his campaign and finances to be successful,” Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) told Raw Story while walking through the Capitol.
While he may not be as wealthy as his Senate counterparts, Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) has made millions through his gun store and firing range, which means he can’t give Trump in-kind donations because it’s illegal for the former president to even “receive” a firearm or ammunition while under felony indictments.
Budd’s not looking to arm Trump for warfare though.
“Oh my goodness, it's complete lawfare,” Budd (R-NC) told Raw Story on his way to a Senate vote.
The freshman senator dismisses fears from some in the GOP that Trump’s legal fundraising is handicapping the party ahead of November.
“No. Completely separate,” Budd said.
Many in the GOP are banking on Biden foiling his own reelection bid. They expect the grassroots to be there for Trump — no matter the mind-numbing sums he’s scrambling to raise — just as they’ve been there for him in past fundraising appeals.
“I think that his support that he has at the grassroots will give him the money he needs,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Raw Story. “And I think that there's a big anti-Biden movement. A downturn in money's not going to make a big difference.”
Other Republicans are indifferent or awkwardly distancing themselves from the troubled Trump — and the entire GOP through him, the party’s defendant-in-chief — brand.
“I haven’t thought about it at all,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told Raw Story.
“I didn't know about that either,” Collins said in reference to the “bloodbath” earlier this month when Trump ousted Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and installed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as Republican National Committee — or RNC — co-chairwoman.
“Oh, yeah?” Raw Story asked. “Are you still a Republican?”
“It’s not uncommon when there's a new chair for there to be a major staff turnover,” Collins replied without answering our question.
RNC shakeup sends shivers through old Republican guard
Campaigns are more than dollars and cents though, and Trump’s ongoing personal shakeup of the RNC has unsettled many veteran Republicans.
Among country club Republicans and critics alike, this is just par for Trump’s political course.
“I don't think there's any norm or barrier that former President Trump won't be ready and willing to cross if it's in his personal, financial or egotistical interest,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) told Raw Story while walking to a vote on the Senate floor.
Romney is dismissed as a disloyal “Never Trump”-er by many in his own party. Besides McDaniel being his niece, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee is retiring at the end of this term.
Romney may be a critic, but he says he’s not given up on his party yet, even as the Republican Party has morphed into something unrecognizable from his time as the GOP standard-bearer.
Romney says he loves his party and fears Trump’s self-serving moves will be felt by conservatives for decades.
“The party has to exist beyond and after Donald Trump and I are gone, and so weakening the party, making it a personal appendage, is not a good thing,” Romney — who’s estimated to be worth more than $170 million, making him one of the top 10 wealthiest senators — said.
Even though he lost to then-President Barack Obama in 2012, Romney credits the RNC with helping turn out his supporters.
“It was a very helpful organization in turning out the vote, so it helped raise money for me and it turned out the vote. To win elections, it’s all about organization. Ground game still makes a difference,” Romney said. “Once I became the presumptive nominee, we worked hand in glove.”
Romney did that without placing any of his children at the helm of the RNC.
“Having family members serve in the administration looked like nepotism. Didn't seem to bother him. Didn't seem to bother the voters who put him there,” Romney said.
Not all Democrats are dancing
On the other side of the proverbial aisle, many liberal talking heads are giddy watching Trump scramble for millions and millions of pennies. But Democrats in tight races this fall know they can’t count on Trump’s legal woes to win.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) is fighting for his political life in Montana. He’s raised upwards of $5 million four quarters in a row now, and he’s not letting up just because of Trump’s mounting legal bills.
“I don’t know that it makes a lot of difference, actually,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) told Raw Story.
Democrats also have other fears.
“Depends on whether he’s busy raising money for his legal fees instead of for his campaign, but it does concern me that it will be added financial pressure compromising him,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told Raw Story on his way to meetings on the Senate side of the Capitol Thursday.
Schiff, who recently clinched a spot on the ballot in California’s U.S. Senate general election in November, is a Harvard educated lawyer who was the impeachment manager for Trump’s first impeachment.
“He’s always been all about the money,” Schiff said. “But now there will be even greater risk that he trades American interests for money.”
Former President Donald Trump appears to have an insurmountable grip on the Republican Party, emphasized by his easy victory for a third presidential nomination earlier this month.
But look closer, argued Trump-skeptic conservative analyst Charlie Sykes for MSNBC on Friday: the former president's grip on power is shakier than it appears.
"Trump’s outsize control in the party is formidable — but it’s far from complete. That means figures who could pry those fissures open — such as former congresswoman Liz Cheney and former Vice President Mike Pence — could have an outsize influence on the 2024 election," wrote Sykes. "An NBC exit poll in Ohio this week found that almost 1 out of 5 Republican primary voters — including nearly half of Nikki Haley’s supporters — say they will not vote for Trump in November."
"While 18% is not a majority, it’s not chopped liver either. And it’s consistent with what happened at ballot boxes across the country," he continued. "Even though Trump is running unopposed, large numbers of Republicans continue to refuse to vote for the ex-president. In Kansas, nearly a quarter (24.5%) of Republican voters came out to cast ballots for somebody else. In Florida, opponents who had dropped out of the race received 18.8% of the vote; in Ohio, it was 20.8%; in Illinois, 19.2%. And, in the crucial swing state of Arizona, 22.1% of Republicans voted for a non-Trump alternative, a result that led Haley’s zombie campaign to put out a congratulatory tweet."
All of this is occurring against the backdrop of Trump installing his own loyalists in the Republican National Committee leadership, and the party's new joint fundraising committee with Trump allows him to siphon off donor money for his legal expenses — an arrangement a large number of GOP officials had reportedly wanted for some time.
But a large number of Republican voters don't want it, Sykes said — enough that they could deny Trump victory in November. Particularly if disaffected GOP leaders like Liz Cheney step up and encourage it.
"Cheney and Pence are hardly alone. Just run through the extraordinary list of former Trump Cabinet members, chiefs of staff, defense secretaries and national security advisers who are refusing to endorse him," wrote Sykes. "Their warnings about the dangers of a second Trump presidency aren’t coming from Democrats or the hosts on MSNBC — they are coming from inside the house. And in a close election, that could make all the difference."
Appearing on CNN, Griffin said Trump bringing back Manafort struck her as particularly problematic.
"He was obviously implicated in the Russia investigation... he was singlehandedly responsible for taking support for Ukraine taken out of the Republican Party platform in 2016," she said. "He's somebody who's been consistently an anti-Ukraine warrior in Donald Trump's ear."
She went on to say that both Manafort and Stone have "a tremendous amount of sway" with Trump despite or because of the fact that they have been convicted on multiple felony charges, including money laundering, witness intimidation, and perjury.
She then explained why bringing them back could come back to haunt him.
"What Donald Trump needs to win, he needs Nikki Haley voters, he needs moderate Republicans and independents," she said. "Everybody that we just named is absolutely radioactive to a normie Republican, a Romney-Reagan-type Republican like me."
Berman then asked if people like Stone or Manafort would offer Trump pushback on some of his more extreme rhetoric and behavior and she immediately burst into laughter.
"Absolutely not!" she exclaimed, before adding that the only thing Trump could conceivably do to lose their support would be backing military aid for Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
Griffin then speculated that Trump is bringing back these "radioactive" allies is due to his "nostalgia for 2016," which she noted was "the last time he won anything," given the stinging defeats he and his handpicked candidates suffered in the 2018, 2020, and 2022 election cycles.
"To me, it signals that they're doubling down on the far-right angle," she said.
As part of his conversation with MSNBC on Thursday, Donald Trump's biographer noted that it has become clear that the national Republican Party could suffer the same problem as the Trump campaign when it comes to donors.
Last month, it was reported that Trump's campaign was hemorrhaging the people he needed the most to get through the election.
Former Republican lawmaker David Jolly quipped that it seems the gold sneakers aren't selling that well for Trump after all.
"Frankly, in the political space, no one wants to give money to the R.N.C. to pay Donald Trump's legal bills," Jolly explained. "They want to get Republicans elected. In this case, that's not where the money is going. Donald Trump and Republicans are in a lot of financial trouble going into November. Joe Biden and the Democrats are firing on all cylinders, and we'll see that play out for the next few months."
Host Alicia Menendez noted that it will hurt down-ballot candidates, but Trump biographer Tim O'Brien explained that the ex-president has never cared much about anyone else unless it benefitted him in some way.
"Every candidate who surges in either party has a right to leave their imprint on their operatives. You know, the R.N.C. should be at the disposal of the leading candidate. But that candidate should have the interest, as you note, and as David correctly noted, should have the interest of both the party itself and then down-ballot people running in for the Senate, the House, et cetera, et cetera, and Donald Trump has never had any concern even prior to this for down-ballot candidates unless they were there as loyalists to him," said O'Brien.
That's when he dropped the truth bomb on the impact Trump's presence is having on the G.O.P. as a whole.
"This is going to be a long slog. We will probably be talking about this in August and September," lamented O'Brien. "But he seems to be bleeding small-dollar donors, and I think that's very interesting."
The biographer explained that Trump's argument was that he had such a huge impact on the average voter that it made up for the fact that wealthy more establishment Republicans refused to support him. Those top Republican funders, instead, went to Nikki Haley. Now, there is a concern from some former Republican leaders that the typical funders won't want to give to the party, assuming it'll be taken by Trump.
"That meant Trump was more dependent on the small donors," O'Brien outlined. "Those were people that he spent on his legal defense after January 6th, and since then. And maybe they've gotten wise. If they've gotten wise, that's a warning sign for him. It's the financial equivalent of him bleeding voters to Nikki Haley at the 20% to 30% level, even after she's dropped out of the race."
Failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake confessed to "mistakes" when a reporter asked if she should have attacked so many Arizona conservatives after her loss.
But she tried to pass her fights off as being part of the "rough and tumble game" of politics — and added she hadn't intended to cause harm.
MSNBC reporter Vaughn Hill asked if it was a mistake to bash voters whose support she now needs as she battles to win a Senate seat in 2024.
"There has been a lot of talk about you extending olive branches to some conservatives in the state [whom] you had previously spurned," he prefaced. "Do you regret any of your past statements about Republicans in this state?"
Lake wouldn't quite admit she regretted it. Instead, she provided an excuse.
"You know what, we're all human. We make mistakes occasionally," said Lake. "I do as well. I'm not perfect. I never want to hurt anyone's feelings. But, you know, politics is a rough and tumble game and sometimes things are said. But right now, we have a lot of issues facing our country, and we need to come together as Americans to solve these problems. And I think we will."
Among her battles with state Republicans is her release of a recording of Arizona's GOP chairman who she said was trying to bribe her into getting out of the race so the party wouldn't lose the seat. She threatened him with releasing other tapes and he ultimately resigned.
Lake has also attacked former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on social media: "Nimrata Haley will suspend her campaign today after more humiliating, landslide (losses) on Super Tuesday."
Haley's official first name is actually spelled "Nimarata," though she goes by her middle name. Critics accused Lake of racism for the remark. It's a similar remark to Trump, who once implied his competitor wasn't from the United States.
She also called the former prisoner of war a "loser" and said his supporters should “get the hell out” of her campaign event.
Lake now says it was really all in "jest."
The younger McCain was unwilling to make nice.
"No peace, b----," she said on the social media platform X.
McCain later wrote, “Kari Lake is trying to walk back her continued attacks on my Dad (& family) and all of his loyal supporters. Guess she realized she can’t become a Senator without us. We see you for who you are and are repulsed by it.”
Nikki Haley's campaign may have been the last stand of the Reaganite wing of the GOP against the MAGA takeover, but one conservative said more traditional Republicans must consider doing the unthinkable and back President Joe Biden.
Mona Charen, a former White House staffer for Ronald Reagan and now a columnist for The Bulwark, called out another veteran of that presidential administration who lamented the choices in this year's election and concluded that a principled conservative must reject Trump in favor of a third-party challenger.
"The world might look very different if traditional Republicans had been willing to stand firm for their values when they came under assault from an ignorant, cruel demagogue," Charen wrote. "So I was briefly optimistic when I saw that an honest-to-goodness Reaganite, John Lehman, who served as secretary of the Navy under Reagan, had weighed in [with a Wall Street Journal op-ed]. The headline was promising: 'Reagan Would Never Vote for Trump.' But after that bold beginning, the subhead was deflating: 'He also didn’t care much for Biden. Like me, he’d be looking for a strong third-party candidate to support.'"
Charen agrees that Reagan, like most conservatives in the 1980s, were bothered by Biden's opposition to failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork and supported a nuclear freeze, but she's baffled that Lehman would not endorse the one candidate who actually has a chance of stopping a candidate he believes to be a genuine threat to constitutional order and democracy itself.
"One might suppose that given all of that and so much more, Lehman would counsel that Trump’s reelection would be a disaster and accordingly, that he would vote for Biden," Charen wrote. "It would be bracing to hear people say, as Dick Cheney has, that 'In our nation’s 236-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.' But no, Lehman makes a feeble accusation in the final paragraph that Biden has 'turned his platform over to Bernie Sanders' and accordingly, Lehman will vote for the No Labels candidate."
"That’s rubbish. Biden has done no such thing," she added. "Lehman, like so many who should know better, is failing to take responsibility for the decision we must all make. He’s treating his vote as a resume item, unwilling to tarnish his conservative bona fides by voting for the internal enemy. His longing for purity is overwhelming his judgment. If Trump is reelected, none of the things he worked for as Navy secretary is safe. The country will be in secure hands with a reelected Biden. But with a reelected Trump, we risk our most cherished freedoms and traditions."
“Dark money” groups and shell companies are on track to steer more money from undisclosed sources to the 2023-2024 election than any prior cycle
In 2023 alone, shell companies and dark money groups injected over $162 million into political groups such as super PACs, surpassing the level of dark contributions seen at the same point in any prior election cycle, a new OpenSecrets analysis of Federal Election Commission data found.
OpenSecrets has tracked more than $2.8 billion in dark money spending & contributions reported to the FEC since the Supreme Court's Citizens United v. FEC decision in 2010.
While federal campaign finance law requires political committees including super PACs to disclose donors to the FEC, the ultimate source of funding can be concealed behind contributions from shell companies or dark money groups, such as 501(c)(4) nonprofits that do not disclose their donors
During the 2022 election, federal political committees reported taking in $616.8 million from such donors, more than any prior midterm cycle.
So far this election cycle, contributions from dark money groups and shell companies is outpacing all prior elections and may even surpass the roughly $660 million in contributions from unknown sources that flooded 2020 elections — a cycle that attracted over $1 billion in total dark money, counting political ad spending as well as contributions.
But more dark money is pouring into federal elections that is not disclosed to the FEC.
During the entire 2022 election cycle, 501(c)(4) nonprofits that don’t disclose their donors reported less than $25 million in spending to the FEC — the lowest total since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision rolled back restrictions on corporate political speech and the SpeechNow.org v. FEC ruling paved the way for super PACs to spend unlimited sums on independent expenditures.
This has led to a rise in “gray money” spending by groups like super PACs that are required to disclose their donors but are funded — at least partially — by entities like dark money groups and shell companies where the ultimate source of funding is not disclosed.
Democrats benefiting more from dark money
Super PACs and other political committees supporting Democrats have reported about $85 million in political contributions from dark money groups and shell companies during the 2024 cycle to date, while political committees supporting Republicans have reported about $74 million.
The 2024 election cycle is on track to be the fourth consecutive cycle where Democrats benefit from more dark money than Republicans, though a lot can change during an election year.
This trend began during the 2018 midterm cycle when liberal dark money groups first outspent their conservative counterparts. That’s despite Democratic rhetoric decrying dark money and a series of failed efforts by some members of the party to crackdown on political contributions from undisclosed sources.
Liberal political committees reported about $318 million in political contributions from dark money groups and shell companies during the 2022 cycle while conservative political committees reported roughly $263 million.
Presidential race drives dark money contributions
Dark money groups registered as 501(c) nonprofits have collectively reported about $2.3 million in spending to the FEC during the 2024 election cycle. The bulk of that spending was reported by Defending Democracy Together, a dark money group that opposes former President Donald Trump in the presidential race.
Defending Democracy Together poured another $2.5 million into contributions to super PACs. In December, the organization routed $2 million of that to Republican Accountability PAC, which shares leadership with the dark money group. The groups are part of a coalition that organized to fight against Trump, along with a super PAC that goes by Republican Voters Against Trump, which launched a $50 million campaign this week to fight the former president in the 2024 presidential race.
Another $500,000 of the dark money group’s contributions went to a June 2023 contribution to Tell It Like It Is PAC, a super PAC run by allies of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who dropped out of the 2024 presidential race in January.
With the 2024 presidential election set to be another showdown between President Joe Biden and Trump, outside spending and dark money are likely to continue pouring in.
Americans for Prosperity Action, a hybrid PAC at the center of a network of conservative donors and activists led by billionaire Charles Koch, has reported more contributions from dark money groups than any other political committee at this point in the 2024 election cycle.
As a hybrid PAC, also known as a Carey committee, AFP Action has the ability to operate both as a traditional PAC and a super PAC, as long as it maintains a separate bank account for contributions and another for independent expenditures.
AFP Action, which signaled its opposition to Trump in early 2023, endorsed Nikki Haley in November and spent nearly $50 million on the election before the former UN ambassador dropped out of the race. The super PAC reported receiving $25 million of that from Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, the flagship group at the center of the Koch political network.
Weeks before Haley dropped out, AFP Action halted its spending on the presidential race and said it will instead focus down the ballot on congressional races.
The League of Conservation Voters, a 501(c)(4) environmental advocacy group that does not disclose its funders, has also emerged as a top dark money contributor, steering more than $12.9 million to LCV Victory Fund, an associated super PAC.
While LCV Victory Fund has spent less than $750,000 to date — mostly on the race to replace ousted Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) — the super PAC is historically a major spender and is building a war chest to spend big money again in 2024.
During the 2022 midterms, LCV Victory Fund spent more than $33.3 million boosting Democrats and attacking Republicans in key swing states across the country, including Colorado, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Nevada and Wisconsin, according to independent expenditure reports.
Multiple groups boosting Biden in the presidential election are also among this cycle’s top brokers of dark money.
Future Forward USA Action, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group that does not disclose its donors, has steered millions to an associated super PAC run by former Biden aides and has spent millions more on its own ads.
In addition to being run by the president’s former aides, Biden White House advisers have publicly signaled to donors that the president supports Future Forward’s efforts.
Future Forward USA, the group’s hybrid PAC, has received over $8 million of the $25 million it raised from the closely-tied dark money group. While the super PAC has not reported any outside spending to the FEC as of March 11, Ad Impact has tracked more than $109 million in ad time reserved.
Future Forward USA Action launched a multimillion-dollar ad blitz in 2023. But since its ads stop short of explicitly urging viewers to vote for Biden’s reelection, the spending is not legally required to be disclosed to the FEC even though the ads tout Biden’s record along with B-roll footage of the president.
Future Forward became the third-largest funder of advertising in the 2020 presidential general election, with the super PAC spending $126.4 million during the final months of the 2020 election.
In January, the super PAC announced plans to reserve $250 million in advertising in battleground states, allocating $140 million to television and $110 million to digital ads. The ads are projected to start the day after the Democratic National Convention concludes in August, the New York Times reported.
The constellation of groups that have announced plans to support Biden also includes other super PACs funded in part by allied dark money groups.
In 2023, the American Bridge hybrid PAC announced it plans to spend $140 million on ads ahead of the 2024 election while Priorities USAplanned to drop another $75 million. Despite their big spending plans, neither super PAC has broken seven figures in spending during the 2024 cycle and are still ramping up operations.
Party groups steer dark money into 2024 elections
Groups affiliated with Democratic or Republican leadership in Congress have consistently ranked among the top-giving dark money groups each recent election cycle — and 2024 is no exception.
In 2023 alone, the four main groups affiliated with party leadership in the House and Senate steered more than $46.4 million to political committees such as super PACs that can spend unlimited sums on elections.
Majority Forward, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit aligned with Senate Democratic leadership that does not disclose its donors,spent over $18.7 million into contributions to federal political committees in the first year of the 2024 election cycle.
Senate Majority PAC, the main super PAC aligned with Senate Democrats, reported receiving about $16 million of Majority Forward’s contributions in 2023.
During the 2022 midterm cycle, Majority Forward contributed more money to federal political committees than any other dark money group, with its contributions nearing $76 million.
Duty and Country, a super PAC aligned with congressional Democrats that has been active in recent elections, was funded in 2020 by Duty and Honor, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit dark money group funded by and affiliated with Majority Forward. IRS filings indicate that the dark money appendage has since shuttered. Majority Forward is now funding the super PAC directly. In 2023, Majority Forward was Duty and Country’s sole donor.
Majority Forward is the sole donor funding Last Best Place PAC, a new super PAC that has spent on ads attacking former Navy SEAL and entrepreneur Tim Sheehy, who is running for the Senate seat held by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.).
While the super PAC’s advertising explicitly mentions Sheehy’s Senate campaign, it has yet to report any independent expenditures to the FEC. Instead, it reported all of its media spending as operating expenditures, lumping the spending on political ads together with salaries, office supplies and overhead costs — and resulting in the Campaign Legal Center filing an FEC complaint against Last Best Place PAC.
House Majority Forward, Majority Forward’s congressional counterpart aligned with Democratic U.S. House leadership, made another nearly $8.3 million in political contributions in 2023. All of those contributions went to House Majority PAC, the main super PAC aligned with House Democrats.
In addition to making political contributions to its closely-tied hybrid PAC, House Majority Forward has spent millions on ads and billboards targeting swing district House Republicans.
One Nation, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit aligned with Senate GOP leadership that poured more money from undisclosed sources into 2022 elections than any other group, made nearly $5.2 million into contributions in 2023.
During the 2022 cycle, the Senate GOP-aligned dark money group gave $75 million to Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC tied to retiring Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that shares staff and resources with the dark money group.
American Action Network, a 501(c)(4) group aligned with House Republican leadership, dropped another $82.2 million into federal elections during the 2022 election cycle. The dark money group steered at least $30.7 million of that into TV and online ads boosting Republican candidates, according to AdImpact data provided to OpenSecrets.
The 501(c)(4) group’s roughly $51.5 million in contributions largely went to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a hybrid PAC aligned with GOP House leadership that spent more than $227.3 million to boost Republicans in 2022 midterms.
American Action Network has also started spending on ads in battleground districts.
Committees Researcher Andrew Mayersohn contributed to this report.
