WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Billionaire Elon Musk said on Friday he would support Ron DeSantis in 2024 if the Florida governor were to run for president.
"Yes", Musk said in a tweet when asked if he would support DeSantis in 2024.
"My preference for the 2024 presidency is someone sensible and centrist. I had hoped that would the case for the Biden administration, but have been disappointed so far," Musk said earlier.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Kim Coghill)
Donald Trump significantly harmed his position in his 2024 positioning against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by dining with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago, a longtime advisor admitted on Friday.
On Friday, NBC News reported, "despite Trump’s suggestion the event was “uneventful,” the fallout over his dinner with Fuentes appears to have thrown Trump’s campaign into damage control mode. The former president took hours to respond publicly after multiple media outlets reported that Fuentes was present at the dinner. Even the two Trump advisers winced at how a Holocaust denier like Fuentes was able to wind up with Trump at dinner — even if it was by mistake — along with the rapper, who had just had his Twitter account restored but lost major endorsement deals for making anti-Semitic remarks."
The rapper said Trump was "really impressed" with Fuentes.
"I like this guy, he gets me," Trump also reportedly said.
One longtime Trump adviser described it as a "f*cking nightmare."
"If people are looking at DeSantis to run against Trump, here's another reason why," the advisor explained.
Another potential 2024 GOP hopeful, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on Friday the Fuentes scandal was disqualifying.
Fuentes has said a number of controversial things, watch below or at this link:
He has also said, "having sex with women is gay."
Axios reporter Jonathan Swan has delivered new details about former President Donald Trump's dinner with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
Although Trump has tried to downplay his meeting with Fuentes, who came to Mar-a-Lago this week as a guest of anti-Semitic rapper Kanye West, Swan's sources say that the two men hit it off during their dinner discussion.
Trump was particularly taken by Fuentes' declaration that he would crush any other Republican running against him in 2024, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
"I really like this guy," Trump said of Fuentes, according to Swan's source. "He gets me."
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Even among far-right media influencers, Fuentes is a particularly toxic figure.
In addition to repeatedly calling the Holocaust a hoax, he has also called for a return to segregation and for taking away women's rights to vote.
Fuentes also marched at the notorious "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which featured torch-carrying neo-Nazis chanting, "Jews will not replace us."
In fact, Fuentes is so toxic that even Breitbart News, normally one of the most pro-Trump outlets in the right-wing media ecosystem, wrote a story that cast a critical eye on the meeting.
According to a report from the Washington Examiner, Donald Trump is getting praised for hiring solid professionals to run his bid to win the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination but there is a nagging fear it could all fall apart as the primary season begins to ramp up.
Following the midterm election, the former president announced his third bid for the presidency which was met with dismay in some Republican quarters after the predicted 'Red wave" failed to materialize -- in part because of the former president's interference in candidate selection.
As the Examiner's Brady Knox, wrote, Trump is getting better marks for his picks to oversee his third bid.
Writing that Trump is "largely ditching his 2020 campaign team," Knox added he has brought on "Susie Wiles, a campaign strategist largely credited with possible 2024 challenger Ron DeSantis's (R) wildly successful 2018 campaign for Florida governor," as well as "Another successful GOP veteran, Chris LaCivita," and "former White House Political Affairs Director Brian Jack, longtime pollster Tony Fabrizio, former White House Assistant Communications Director Steven Cheung, former Republican National Committee spokeswoman Liz Harrington, Republican fundraiser Sergio Gor, and conservative digital ad strategist Gary Colby remain in close contact for the campaign as well."
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With 2020 mainstays like former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani having been sidelined, Knox reports that one former Trump White House official expressed concern things may not stay that way.
"The list right now is impressive, it’s serious,” the insider explained. "A key question mark for people is: Can Trump resist the impulse to reach out to sh*theads and trust the people he’s with that are solid?”
You can read more here.
During the pre-MAGA years, countless conservatives and libertarians slammed liberals and conservatives for pushing what they saw as a message of victimhood. The late economist, author and columnist Walter E. Williams, a right-wing libertarian/conservative, used to argue that as a Black man, he was tired of being portrayed as a victim by the left. As Williams saw it, libertarian and conservative ideology offered African-Americans a message of empowerment that they weren’t getting from the left.
Similarly, conservative columnist/author Mona Charen argued that feminism wasn’t empowering women but rather, was doing women a disservice by teaching them to think of themselves as victims. The message of Reagan conservatives of the 1980s and 1990s was: Life is hard, life is tough, life’s a bitch — get over it.
But victimhood has been a core message of Donald Trump’s MAGA movement. And conservative journalist Rich Lowry, in an op-ed published by Politico on November 23, emphasizes that Trump is continuing to push that message with his 2024 presidential campaign.
“There are many words that presidential candidates commonly seek to apply to themselves — ‘brave,’ ‘principled,’ ‘independent’ and the like — but ‘victim’ is rarely one of them,” explains Lowry, who is editor-in-chief of the National Review as well as a freelancer for Politico. “Donald Trump, though, is unafraid of the word; indeed, he has an affinity for it. ‘I am a victim,’ he said in his speech announcing his presidential run. ‘I will tell you, I’m a victim.’”
Lowry describes “victimhood” as “a status that conservatives disdain in every other context” but one that Trump “has used to his advantage.”
“Trump has created a dynamic for his supporters where the more seemingly victimized he is, the better,” Lowry observes. “He’s a victim because he’s strong and has stirred the hornet’s nest in a way no one else would dare. He’s a victim because the system is rigged against him and anyone who challenges it. He’s a victim because he’s so closely identified with his supporters, who have been, likewise, allegedly treated unfairly by large-scale economic and social forces.”
One of the ways in which Trump fires up his base, according to Lowry, is by convincing them that when he is victimized, they are victimized along with him.
READ MORE: Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are already duking it out in Pennsylvania
“Trump’s self-described victimhood accords with his populism, which tends to see people, writ large, as being victimized by a corrupt elite,” Lowry notes. “It is also clearly a deeply ingrained aspect of his persona. One might assume that someone who has become so rich, famous and powerful would be filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude, but Trump has always believed, whether as a businessman or candidate, that he’s being treated unfairly.”
Republican Mike Pompeo was a staunch defender of Trump when he was serving as secretary of state in his administration, but after Trump announced his 2024 campaign, Pompeo criticized the former president without actually mentioning him by name. Pompeo commented, “We need more seriousness, less noise, and leaders who are looking forward, not staring in the rearview mirror claiming victimhood.”
“Trump must consider his former secretary of state taking potshots at him as yet another item in the long, growing catalogue of his unfair treatment,” Lowry writes. “The ultimate indignity would, of course, be if Republicans denied him the nomination. At that point, Trump would transform from I’ll-fight-and-die-for-you victim to unadorned loser.”
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In an interview with the Washington Post, one of Donald Trump's former Surgeons General expressed frustration with the path his career has taken due to his ties to the former president that took place during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
As the report notes, Dr. Jerome Adams and his wife have pinned his struggles to find a landing spot commensurate with his experience on what they call they call the "Trump Effect" which is not abating now that the former president has launched a third run for the presidency.
According to the report, "It followed them from Washington to their home in the Indianapolis suburbs. They felt it when he was exploring jobs in academia, where he would receive polite rejections from university officials who worried that someone who served in the administration of the the former president would be badly received by their left-leaning student bodies. They felt it when corporations decided he was too tainted to employ."
In an interview, he explained that Trump is “a force that really does take the air out of the room,” before adding, "The Trump hangover is still impacting me in significant ways.”
READ MORE: How Ron DeSantis could bribe Trump into backing him if he won the GOP nomination: analysis
As the Post's Manuel Roig-Franzia wrote, "The former surgeon general’s predicament underscores one of the givens of today’s political environment: Association with Trump becomes a permanent tarnish, a kind of reverse Midas touch. Whether indicted or shunned or marginalized, a cavalcade of former Trump World figures have foundered in the aftermath of one of the more chaotic presidencies in modern American history."
Saying he is not complaining, Adams stated, "People still are afraid to touch anything that is associated with Trump."
The Post report adds that Adams did finally land a spot in September 2021, when "Purdue University President Mitch Daniels, a former Indiana governor and Republican stalwart, hired Adams as the first executive director of health equity initiatives at the school."
However, as Roig-Franzia notes, the spectre of association with Trump still haunts the doctor.
"Even as Adams was seeking to define the next chapter of his life, he was engaged in an almost constant battle on social media. His frequent tweets about everything from his personal life to public health issues have invariably drawn attacks from both the right and the left. Rather than ignore his critics, he has often punched back, engaging in Twitter spats that stretch for days," the journalist wrote.
According to a column by longtime political observer Jonathan Chait, it would be in Donald Trump's best interests to make peace --and work out a deal -- with Gov. Ron DeSantis if the Florida Republican comes from behind and wins the Republican Party 2024 presidential nomination.
With the two GOP heavyweights headed for a showdown now that the midterms are past and the field for 2024 shapes up, there have been concerns among some Republicans that the former president, should he not win the nomination, would run as an independent, thus making it almost impossible for DeSantis to win with a fractured electorate.
As Chait notes, despite the former president's well-established history of narcissism and score-settling, Trump is also pragmatic when it comes to his financial well-being and staying out of jail.
That is where a President DeSantis, buoyed by a full-throated endorsement from Trump, could come into play.
READ MORE: Christian Trump event left evangelical pastor 'absolutely terrified and horrified'
"I have seen commentators treat it as something like a certainty that would doom a Ron DeSantis or any other non-Trump alternative," Chait wrote. "But I think this idea misunderstands both Trump and the incentive structure of the Republican Party... it would be uncharacteristic for Trump to allow his grudges to get in the way of his clear self-interest. Trump does lash out wildly at anybody who disrespects him, but he also turns on a dime and makes friends with his former enemies... What interests would Trump have in common with DeSantis?"
"DeSantis could offer Trump legal protection — either pardons or immunity from additional prosecution," he proposed. "Second, DeSantis already commands a massive fundraising network, and as the Republican nominee, he would hold enormous power over various revenue streams around the party, ranging from its scam PACs to its media outlets. DeSantis would be in a position to make sure Trump is very well compensated in return for an endorsement."
According to Chait, it would be in the best interests of all parties to bury the hatchet after a brutal primary season, writing, "The breach between Trump and his former loyalists is not nearly as deep as it may appear at the moment. They have every incentive to play up their differences now, and they may even believe what they’re saying. But their common interests will eventually win out over whatever antagonism may develop."
You can read more here.
According to The Economist, Wall Street is turning its back on Donald Trump.
More and more financiers who've historically donated to Trump are voicing displeasure with him, especially after he announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election as the 2022 midterms were still being contested.
"On November 16th Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of Blackstone, a private-equity company, said he would back someone from a 'new generation' of Republicans in 2024," the Economists' op-ed pointed out. "The same day Thomas Peterffy, founder and chairman of Interactive Brokers, said the party needed a 'fresh face.' Ken Griffin, chief executive of Citadel, a hedge fund, was bluntest. On November 15th he branded Mr Trump a 'three-time loser' and announced his support for Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida."
Speaking to The Economist, GOP strategist Reed Galen said Wall Street financiers and Trump always had a marriage of convenience. Even though they sometimes didn't like Trump's rhetoric, they believed he would help usher in pro-Wall Street lawmakers. "That largely paid off—but many financiers now fret that Mr Trump’s anti-trade and anti-immigrant populism has bolstered the party’s business-sceptical wing," writes The Economist.
Even though Republicans gave a less-than-stellar performance in the midterms, the exit of Wall Street donors may not have as negative an effect as some would think.
"Many financiers favour Democratic presidential candidates anyway, in part because their industry is concentrated in deep-blue cities, primarily New York. And Mr Trump has triumphed without financiers’ cash before," The Economist explains, adding that Trump has already "amassed a warchest of around $100m to fight the 2024 primary. He is still hugely popular with the Republican base."
Read the full article over at The Economist.
Normally, a candidate facing a criminal indictment would see their political prospects drastically reduced.
Conservative pundit Rich Lowry, however, thinks that the Republican base might love former President Donald Trump even more if he gets indicted as part of the multiple criminal investigations he's now facing.
As Lowry writes in his latest Politico essay, Trump has long trained his voters to see both him and themselves as perpetual victims of a corrupt elite who are conspiring to stop them from making America great again.
"The way Trump uses victimhood accounts for his bizarre ability to reverse the usual political physics of events," he writes. "Until Trump came along, having the FBI search your residence as part of a federal investigation would have been a major blow, if not the end of the target’s presidential ambitions. It helped Trump. An indictment might help him (at least in the short term) even more."
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Lowry notes, of course, that there is rich irony to Trump supporters' belief that he is both perpetually victimized and that he also has superhuman powers that make him single-handedly capable of taking on a cabal of nefarious globalists.
In fact, the only way Lowry thinks this spell can be broken is if another Republican, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, beats him for the nomination.
"The ultimate indignity would, of course, be if Republicans denied him the nomination," he concludes. "At that point, Trump would transform from I’ll-fight-and-die-for-you victim to unadorned loser."
Donald Trump's early 2024 campaign announcement didn't clear the field, and instead seemed to invite a bevy of potential Republican challengers.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is widely believed to be planning to run, and so are Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo, and GOP strategists and Trump allies see the field shaping up with a similar dynamic to 2016, reported The Daily Beast.
“The political landscape is very similar to 2016," said a GOP strategist. "The establishment donors, ‘Never Trump’ media and political consultants are lining up against him yet again. A crowded field benefits Trump, who is already the clear frontrunner."
Trump has seen his support drop among Republicans, but his inner circle believes that a crowded field would allow him to skate through regardless.
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“Depending on which poll strikes your fancy, up to 45 percent of likely Republican primary voters back President Trump," said a source close to Trump. "Any way you slice it, Trump would have to be favored to win a primary with four or more candidates. With a dozen-plus, like the 2016 primary, he would be unbeatable.”
“Nobody loves a presidential primary more than Republicans, and we will have a wide range of candidates to choose from, just like 2016,” that person added. “That’s healthy and strengthens our party. And like most Trump supporters, I say the more the merrier.”
But some members of the Republican National Committee have doubts that Trump can galvanize the base like he did in his first campaign.
“There’s some thought out there that he will crash and burn before the primary,” said one RNC member. “I think people are tired of him. I’ve had a lot of calls from people who consider themselves Trumpers, but they don’t think he should do it again.”
Back on May 24, an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 schoolchildren and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Even in a country where mass shootings are as common as they are in the United States, that one was a shocker. Just as shocking was the government response to the shooting.
Even as the local government stonewalled the press, virtually the entire top level of state leadership, led by Gov. Greg Abbott, descended on Uvalde to hold a town meeting just days after the event. They praised the "first responders" and angrily denounced anyone who suggested that maybe it was a bad idea to allow disturbed 18-year-olds to acquire semiautomatic weapons.
Months later, there are only a few more answers for the families of those slain children and the teachers who tried to protect them. There was a massive cover-up that is only now coming to light. But 60% of the citizens of Uvalde voted for Greg Abbott anyway. His Democratic rival, Beto O'Rourke, ran on a gun safety platform and apparently the good people of that community couldn't abide that, even as 19 children from their own community were lying in their graves. That is the power of America's gun culture.
I will confess that vote shook me. I would have thought that at least in that town the reality of unfettered gun access would have hit home.
The Gun Violence Archive has recorded at least at least 601 mass shootings through mid-November of this year. Of those shootings, 20 involved five or more fatalities. Many were carried out either by people with some twisted agenda of their own, like the Uvalde killer, or were motivated by some personal grudge. But there has been a spate of mass shootings in recent years that appear to be the direct result of right-wing propaganda as well, particularly the onslaught of online hate, where what was once fringe is now mainstream.
Rarely have we seen the mainstreaming of right-wing propaganda and the fetish for guns come together so perfectly as we did this past weekend in Colorado Springs, when an angry young man stepped into a gay bar and started shooting, killing five people and wounding 19.
The accused shooter is 22 years old and, according to a recent court filing, identifies as nonbinary. This individual already had run-ins with police after a bomb threat that led to a standoff at their family home in El Paso County, which includes Colorado Springs. There is video of that incident showing the alleged shooter rampaging through the house in combat gear, daring the police to come and get them. But those charges were dropped and the case was sealed, for unclear reasons. But as Tim Miller of The Bulwark reports, we can certainly make a reasonable guess. Even though 80% of Colorado citizens backed the "red flag" signed by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, 37 of the 64 counties in the state have decided to ignore it, calling themselves "Second Amendment sanctuaries." El Paso County is one of them.
In other words, local officials could have prevented this accused killer from legally purchasing guns if they had followed the state's duly enacted laws instead of acting like defiant criminals themselves. They won't even try to keep lethal weapons out of the hands of someone who has demonstrated an eagerness for violent confrontation with police. It's inexplicable.
Then there is the target of this attack, a gay bar and restaurant called Club Q that was hosting a drag show the night before the Transgender Day of Remembrance — a day honoring the many trans people killed in horrific hate crimes. Drag performances have been around for generations, but over the past couple of years, as the right-wing media has become obsessed transgender people, conservative politicians both locally and nationally have seized on them as a way to gin up some old-fashioned gay-bashing. They have apparently managed to convince millions of Americans that LGBTQ people are somehow "grooming" children into becoming trans, after one of their rising-star propagandists decided this was an excellent way to get the base excited. Drag shows are suddenly enemy No. 1.
So we have seen Republican Senate candidates shouting incoherently about pronouns and others babbling about "grooming," which might seem like bizarre fringe behavior if it weren't for the violence and bullying being inflicted on many highly vulnerable LGBTQ people in our families and communities.
Here's an example of the rhetoric being bandied about, this time from the woman who seems to be pulling the strings behind the incoming speaker of the House of Representatives:
Just days after the mass shooting, Fox News celebrity Tucker Carlson featured a discussion that basically threatened more violence:
In case you think this is just coming from the likes of Greene or Carlson, consider new GOP dreamboat Ron DeSantis, who has banned classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida schools and took on one of the state's largest employers when it (belatedly) stood up for its LGBTQ employees and patrons. DeSantis is as mainstream as it gets in the modern-day GOP. For that matter, 37 of the 50 Republican senators voted against protecting same sex marriage just this week.
And let's not forget the gun-toting congresswoman from Colorado Springs, who perfectly encapsulates the convergence of nihilistic gun culture and loathing for LGBTQ people.
After the murders, Boebert tweeted that "the violence must end and end quickly," but I think we can be pretty sure she isn't talking about enforcing the gun laws in her state or disavowing the disgusting homophobia and anti-trans crusade that she has pushed ever since she entered politics.
No one seems to have told these people that this anti-trans crusade backfired on them badly in the midterm elections earlier this month. On the list of issues that motivated people to vote, gender-affirming care for trans youth or trans participation in sports was literally in last place. The right is getting no tangible benefits from all this, except the thrill that people they hate are under threat.
Normal people in this country agree with Richard Fierro, the heroic military veteran former soldier with four tours of combat under his belt who stopped the gunman in Club Q and saved countless lives. He was attending the drag show with his family and friends and told the New York Times, "These kids want to live that way, want to have a good time, have at it. I'm happy about it because that is what I fought for, so they can do whatever the hell they want."
The Republicans claim that they are the keepers and protectors of "traditional" American values, and in a certain sense they are. There is a long tradition of violent, hateful bigotry in this country. But Richard Fierro represents the values that decent Americans are proud to uphold.
Republican legislative leaders in Florida are publicly committing to change state law to "smooth the way" for the state's GOP governor to run for president in 2024, Politico reported Tuesday.
Gov. Ron DeSantis is reportedly considering joining the race, which already includes Donald Trump.
"Both House Speaker Paul Renner (R-Palm Coast) and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo (R-Naples), both of whom were sworn into their new posts on Tuesday, agreed it would be a 'good idea' to make it clear that DeSantis would not have to resign if he wound up becoming the GOP nominee," Politico reported.
DeSantis was re-elected to a second, four-year term in the midterms.
"Florida law requires anyone running for a new office to put in an irrevocable letter of resignation ahead of qualifying if the terms of the two offices overlap," Politico reported. "The law was changed in 2008 to open the door for then-Gov. Charlie Crist to seek the vice presidency, but legislators reversed course four years ago and put back in a place a requirement that someone seeking federal office would have to resign ahead of the actual election."
Trump, who officially resides at Mar-a-Lago, has lashed out at his governor as "Ron DeSanctimonious" and has hinted he has dirt on DeSantis.
"A Trump-DeSantis confrontation would likely split many Florida Republicans, with some, such as Rep. Matt Gaetz, who was part of DeSantis’s 2018 transition team, backing Trump," Politico reported. "Asked Tuesday to choose between Trump or DeSantis, a smiling [state Senate President] Passidomo said, 'What?' Asked a second time, 'Trump or DeSantis,' she again said, 'what?' and then returned to her office.
Read the full report.
A mother of a teen victim at the Parkland shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School has ousted a school board chair that was hand-picked by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The Miami Herald reported that Broward School Board member Lori Alhadeff was elected as the chair of the board at the meeting Tuesday.
Torey Alston, the DeSantis appointee was elected as the chair in August, but with a 6-2 vote, Alhadeff ousted the GOP ally. There was a brief attempt by Alston supporters to keep the chair, but it became moot.
“I believe we are the new school board that can set a new path forward to bring leadership, integrity, healing, stabilization, and respect back to this board,” Alhadeff said to audience applause. “Don’t get me wrong: We have a lot of work to do. And I know we might not always agree on items, but I know we’re all here with our hearts and our minds laser-focused on the success of our students.”
Alhadeff lost her 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa, at the mass shooting. Fellow board member Debra Hixon was elected as the vice chair. Her husband, Chris, was the athletic director and wrestling coach who was also killed on Feb. 14, 2018.
In Aug., DeSantis removed four board members after a grand jury recommended that they be removed over financial mismanagement. He then appointed four of his own people on the board, three of which were removed in the election by the voters.
Read the full report at the Miami Herald.
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