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Tag: 2024 presidential election

  • Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp says GOP can’t be ‘distracted’ by Trump investigations if it wants to win in 2024 | CNN Politics

    Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp says GOP can’t be ‘distracted’ by Trump investigations if it wants to win in 2024 | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has a message for his fellow Republicans looking to win back the White House: “We cannot get distracted.”

    “We have to tell people, No. 1, what we’re for. No. 2, that we’re going to be focused on the future and what we’re going to do for the voters in our state or the American people. And then, No. 3, we have to do a simple thing: We have to win,” Kemp told CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday on “State of the Union.”

    The governor’s remarks came a day after he’d told donors at a Republican National Committee retreat in Nashville that the GOP needed to move on from the 2020 presidential election. In his speech, Kemp offered a thinly veiled dig at former President Donald Trump and his continued election grievances, without naming him, saying, “Not a single swing voter will vote for our nominee if they choose to talk about the 2020 election being stolen.”

    Trump, currently seen as the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, has repeatedly argued since leaving office that Republicans cannot succeed – either at the ballot box or legislatively – if they turn a blind eye to the past. But candidates who backed his false election claims did poorly in the midterm elections last fall in key swing states Trump will need to win back the White House in 2024.

    Trump is also under a cloud of legal woes. In New York, a hush money payment to an adult-film star shortly before the 2016 election has resulted in his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury over his alleged role in the scheme. And in Atlanta, a select grand jury has investigated efforts by Trump and allies to overturn his election loss in Georgia in 2020.

    “I can’t control what the judicial branch is doing or what a local prosecutor is doing in many ways, but what we can control … is what we’re focused on,” Kemp said Sunday.

    “If we get distracted and talk about other things that the Democrats want to talk about, like these investigations – regardless of what you think about the politics of those – if we get distracted every day and let the media just talk about that, that only helps Joe Biden,” he added. “It does not give us a path for Republicans to win.”

    Asked by Tapper if Trump was unelectable nationwide, Kemp demurred.

    “That’s for the people to decide,” he said.

    Tension between Trump and Kemp has been simmering for years. When Kemp refused to overturn Biden’s 2020 win in Georgia, Trump made the governor his No. 1 enemy, publicly railing against him throughout 2021 and recruiting former US Sen. David Perdue to challenge Kemp in a GOP primary. Through it all, Trump failed to draw Kemp into a fight, and the governor won his 2022 primary overwhelmingly before handily defeating Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams in the November general election.

    Kemp said Sunday that Republicans will need to draw a distinction with what he referred to as “the disaster of the Biden administration” to win next year, pointing to border security, high inflation and energy policy.

    “I think we’re going to have a lot of good candidates that, if they focus on those things, we have got a great chance of winning the White House in 2024,” the governor said.

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  • Senate Republicans confront 2024 primary challenges and Trump’s influence | CNN Politics

    Senate Republicans confront 2024 primary challenges and Trump’s influence | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Kari Lake – the unapologetic supporter of former President Donald Trump and vanquished candidate for Arizona governor – privately made a trip to National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters in February where she discussed the prospects of shaking up the map and running for Senate.

    But Lake, who has faced blowback over pushing baseless accusations of election fraud, was given this suggestion from NRSC officials: Shift to more effective messaging and away from claims about a stolen election, according to sources familiar with the matter.

    The meeting, which was described as a positive one, focused on how Senate bids often turn on issues that are different than governor’s races, multiple sources said. Top Republicans quietly acknowledge Lake could become a frontrunner if she runs in the primary, hoping to steer her towards a viable campaign if she mounts one, even as Arizona’s Pinal County sheriff is expected to soon jump into the race while independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema actively prepares a reelection bid herself.

    And that’s just one state.

    The Arizona race is one of several landmines that Republican leaders are navigating as they work behind the scenes to avoid a repeat of the 2022 debacle that saw weaker candidates emerge from contested primaries – only to peter out and collapse in the general election and hand Democrats a 51-49 Senate majority. Several of those candidates were backed by Trump as the NRSC – run at the time by Florida Sen. Rick Scott – opted to stay away from Republican primaries.

    Now, the NRSC – run by Sen. Steve Daines of Montana – has taken a much more hands-on approach to primaries, actively working on candidate recruitment and vetting. And the committee is weighing whether to spend big bucks in primaries to help root out weaker candidates, a move that risks setting up a clash with hard-right candidates aligning themselves with Trump.

    “You need to learn from your past mistakes,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, told CNN. “If you don’t make adjustments, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome, it’s insanity.”

    Privately, Daines has spoken multiple times with Trump and has been in touch with his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., while national Republicans point to the NRSC’s early endorsement and fundraising for Rep. Jim Banks in the Indiana Senate race as an example of how the party’s warring wings can try to avoid messy primaries.

    The goal, GOP sources say, is to keep Trump aligned with Republican leadership – even as the former president has furiously attacked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the aftermath of the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, and as the Senate GOP leader has stayed silent amid the former president’s indictment on 34 felony charges in New York. Daines, however, has been vocal in his defense of Trump.

    “I have a very good relationship with the president. We talk, and it’s no secret we’ve been friends for a long time,” Daines told CNN when asked about the Senate races. “And he provides great insights. And I also provide my thoughts as well. And we have open lines of communication.”

    Daines added: “Wherever we can find common ground is a good thing.”

    That relationship could be put to the test in key battleground states. In West Virginia, Republican leaders are preparing to close ranks behind Gov. Jim Justice, who is seriously weighing a run for the seat occupied by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. A Justice bid would put him against Rep. Alex Mooney, who had won Trump’s backing in a competitive House race in the last cycle but now has the support of the conservative Club for Growth’s political arm.

    In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano – the controversial candidate who lost a bid for governor last fall but had the support of Trump in the primary – says he’s “still praying” on whether to mount a bid for the Senate, something Republicans in Washington fear. The NRSC plans to put its muscle behind the potential candidacy of David McCormick, the hedge fund executive who narrowly lost the Pennsylvania Senate GOP primary in 2022, according to Republican sources who view him as their best bet at picking up the seat next year.

    “I haven’t decided yet on 2024. I’m thinking about it,” McCormick told CNN. “You run for office … because you think you have something to contribute. You think it’s a moment where you might be able to serve, and if you lose, that motivation doesn’t necessarily go away.”

    And in Montana, Rep. Matt Rosendale, a member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, is weighing a run in a race that could put him up against two other potential candidates viewed by senior Republicans as more electable – Montana attorney general Austin Knudsen and businessman Tim Sheehy – against Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. Rosendale attended an event last Tuesday in Mar-a-Lago following Trump’s arraignment in New York, a sign one Trump adviser saw as an effort to secure an endorsement ahead of a potential bid.

    Rosendale told CNN he’s in no rush to make a decision.

    “We’re just taking a nice slow time to let the people in Montana decide who they want to replace him with,” Rosendale said of Tester. “I feel very sure he will be replaced.” He added that Daines “is my senator” and that “I see him regularly.”

    Tester contended that the Republican nominee makes little difference to him.

    “I think the person who runs against me is the person McConnell chooses,” Tester said. “Whoever that is, I don’t think it matters much: Same election.”

    Top Republicans say they will have to make key strategic decisions on how to engage in some of these races – or whether to stay out altogether, as they might in Ohio as party leaders view the emerging field as full of electable candidates against Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.

    If they come in too aggressively, it could prompt blowback and rally the right behind a potentially weaker candidate. But if they disengage, they could see their favored candidate struggle to gain traction.

    In Wisconsin, Republican officials are urging Rep. Mike Gallagher to run, though he could face a potential primary there as well, as former Senate candidate Eric Hovde and others weigh a run. Gallagher, who is chairing a House panel focused on China, said of a potential run against Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin: “I’m not thinking about it at present,” citing his legislative work and family commitments. But he left the door open.

    “I’d never conceived of this as a long-term thing; I don’t think Congress should be a career,” Gallagher said, adding: “I’m going to weigh all those factors and see where I can make the best impact.”

    In interviews with roughly a dozen top senators, nearly all of them agreed they need to be hyper-focused this cycle on helping candidates who can win not only a primary election, but a general election — repeatedly referencing “candidate quality” as their 2024 motto.

    Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a member of Senate GOP leadership and former NRSC chairman, has long had to contend with primary fights between the party establishment and activist base – battles that had effectively cost them the chance at the Senate majority in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles, in addition to 2022.

    “It never goes away,” Cornyn said of the primary complications. “Republicans need to make up their mind. Do we want to win, or do we want to lose? And I think that it’s that simple, and I think people are tired of losing.”

    Yet some on the right are warning against party leaders picking and choosing their candidates – including Scott, who defends his hands-off approach in the last cycle.

    “I believe the citizens of the state ought to pick,” Scott said, adding: “A lot of these weaker candidates often are the ones who actually win. I was not the establishment candidate.”

    Scott’s fellow Florida Republican, Marco Rubio, was not backed by the NRSC in the 2010 election cycle. But he galvanized the GOP base and defeated Charlie Crist, who later became a Democrat.

    “I’m not a big believer that you can determine who the weaker candidate is. A lot of people up here then would not have been their choice,” Rubio told CNN. “Obviously there might be some exceptions here or there, but generally the NRSC should be engaged in helping whoever the Republican nominee is to win the general election.”

    Unlike the last cycle — when the McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund and the Rick Scott-run NRSC clashed publicly over the approach to expanding the Senate map — this time, the two committees are largely aligned. Republicans are betting that their preferred chances will vastly improve with the help of big donors and nationwide fundraising – and potentially an aggressive ad campaign in the primary to derail weaker opponents.

    “As we look across the country and look at different traces, it’s pretty straightforward,” Daines said. “We want to see candidates who can win a primary election and also win a general.”

    The map heavily favors the GOP – with 23 Democratic and independent seats in cycle compared to just 11 Republicans facing re-election. But Republicans, burnt by their past failures, are well aware that defeating an incumbent is a difficult task and could grow more challenging in a presidential election year, especially in swing states if Trump is the nominee. Behind the scenes, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is trying to limit Democratic retirements.

    And Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, was skeptical that a more aggressive GOP intervention from Washington would solve Republican woes.

    “I’m not sure who the Republicans will put forward as their nominees, but normally the folks who get to determine who the nominee is are the voters in those individual states in the primaries,” Peters said in an interview. “If we look at what happened last cycle, those primary voters tended to pick highly flawed candidates, and I expect that will happen again.”

    The fight for the seat occupied by Sinema has quickly emerged as the messiest affair – for both parties.

    Sinema’s recent change in party identification — switching from a Democrat to an independent — poses a fresh challenge that party leaders will have to navigate, as it could set up an unpredictable three-way race. Sinema has not yet said if she will run again, but she has been raising enormous sums in preparation for a potential bid and has been meeting with strategists and advisers to map out plans for a possible campaign.

    And Democratic leaders are worried that backing a fellow Democrat in the primary could end up alienating Sinema and potentially lead her to caucus with the GOP, forcing them to stay neutral for now.

    “She’s a very effective legislator,” Schumer, who so far is neutral in the race, said when asked about Sinema recently.

    On the GOP side, several candidates who tried — and failed — to win statewide races last cycle are also complicating that strategy, making it a key source of anxiety among many top Republicans and the Senate committees, according to Republican sources.

    Those candidates include Lake and the 2020 Senate GOP nominee, Blake Masters, two of the most Trumpian candidates who lost last year. Both Lake and Masters garnered enormous support among the GOP base for leaning into 2020 election denials and the populist ideals that Trump touted throughout his presidency. Masters has discussed a potential 2024 Senate bid with several Republicans, though it’s unclear whether he will run, GOP sources say.

    Lake met with the NRSC for roughly an hour in February and is expected to meet with them again in the coming weeks, sources familiar with the meeting told CNN. The issue of focusing on claims of a stolen election was one point discussed at the meeting, the sources said.

    “The point that has been brought up, which Kari knows, is that the issue sets are different from a governor’s race. She knows you can’t run on that because it’s not something, as a senator, that you can fix,” a source close to Lake said, referencing her rhetoric around stolen elections. “The conversation was more about how the issues are different between a governor’s race and a Senate race.”

    Senior Republicans acknowledge that her ultimate decision on whether to enter the race could freeze out other candidates, particularly those wanting to run in the same lane, with the source close to Lake saying establishment-minded Republicans have been reaching out to her about a potential run. The source said Lake has a 200,000-plus donor list she could pull support from and believes she would have “widespread support” if she decides to run.

    But many in the top ranks are skeptical about her chances.

    “If you take a look at the race, where Sen. Sinema is probably going to take some of the right, left and center, it’s going to make for a difficult path for a Republican in that state in any scenario,” North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis told CNN. “The party there is, I think, set on Lake if she decides to run with it, but, I mean, we just have to see how well she performs.”

    Tillis added that, given the “three-way race dynamic,” Lake “is not going to be able to make a lot of headway there.”

    Cornyn said of Lake: “Her recent track record doesn’t indicate that she would be successful. We need candidates who can broaden their appeal beyond the base and win a general.”

    Masters, meanwhile, has quietly reached out to some advisers about what another Senate run would look like and has spoken with some senior GOP officials about a 2024 run.

    Other potential GOP candidates include Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, who is expected to announce a Senate run as soon as this week and is viewed favorably by some top Republicans, according to GOP sources. Abe Hamadeh, formerly the Republican nominee for Arizona attorney general, is also weighing a run. And both Lamb and Hamadeh met recently with NRSC officials, but they have not met directly with Daines, according to a source familiar with the meetings.

    Two other Republicans, Jim Lamon and Karrin Taylor Robson, are also considering jumping into the race, sources familiar with the matter say. Lamon and Robson, who ran in 2022 for Senate and governor respectively, did not receive Trump’s support.

    Robson recently met with the NRSC, and many within the GOP committee “like her and see her as a quality candidate,” a source familiar with the meeting said. Lamon has not yet met with the NRSC, but is expected to set up a meeting in the coming months.

    Arizona’s Senate primary is not until August 6, 2024, and the filing deadline to enter is April 8, 2024 — giving them a long runway to decide whether or not to run — further complicating GOP leadership’s calculus on how to navigate the race dynamics.

    “I just think we’re, we’re more likely to get people elected if they’re focused on the future, as opposed to focusing on what happened in 2020,” Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican of Utah, said when asked about a potential Lake candidacy. “I think the American people have made their judgment about the election and want to move on. So, let’s talk about the future and where we’re headed, and if we’ve got a candidate that is consumed with his or her past, it’s most likely a losing candidate.”

    Caroline Wren, a senior adviser to Lake, told CNN, “There’s no doubt Kari Lake is a formidable force in the Republican party right now, but she’s still focused on her lawsuit in Arizona,” referring to her efforts to dispute her loss in the governor’s race.

    Rubio said that Lake could be a strong Senate candidate, despite her shortfall last year.

    “She was a very competitive candidate. I think I trust the Republican voters in Arizona to pick the nominee,” Rubio said. “I don’t think Washington should be stepping in to do it.”

    But Democrats believe that a Lake candidacy will only bolster their chances, even if Sinema decides to run.

    Rep. Ruben Gallego, the Arizona Democrat running for his party’s nomination in the Senate race, suggested to CNN he was praying for a Lake candidacy.

    “I’m a practicing Catholic – so I have these votive candles for different things,” Gallego said. “I have a special candle for Kari Lake to jump in.”

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  • In 2024 Republicans may complete a historic foreign policy reversal | CNN Politics

    In 2024 Republicans may complete a historic foreign policy reversal | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The GOP in 2024 is moving toward a reprise of its most consequential foreign policy debate ever in a presidential primary. Only this time, the results may be reversed.

    The 1952 GOP presidential nomination fight proved a turning point in the party’s history, when Dwight Eisenhower, a champion of internationalism and alliance with Europe to contain the Soviet Union, defeated Sen. Robert Taft, a skeptic of international alliances who wanted to shift America’s focus from defending Europe toward confronting communist China.

    A similar divide is opening within the GOP now. In a distant echo of Taft, former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the race’s two front-runners have both declared that defending Ukraine against Russia is not an American “vital interest” and “distracts” (as DeSantis put it) from the more important challenge of confronting China. Other likely 2024 candidates, such as former Vice President Mike Pence and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, come closer to upholding the Eisenhower position that the US must remain steadfast in protecting Europe against Russian aggression – and insisting that abandoning Ukraine would embolden China and other potential US adversaries.

    After Eisenhower’s landmark victory over Taft in 1952, every Republican presidential nominee over the next six decades – a list that extended from Richard Nixon through Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney – identified more with the internationalist than isolationist wing of the party.

    But Trump broke that streak when he won the nomination in 2016 behind a message of brusque economic nationalism and skepticism of international alliances. Now, the GOP appears on track for a 2024 nomination fight which may demonstrate that Trump’s rise has lastingly shifted the party’s balance of power on foreign policy – and ended the long era of GOP internationalism Eisenhower’s victory began.

    The fact that DeSantis unveiled his views about Ukraine in a statement to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a fierce opponent of American engagement with allies, underscored the governor’s determination to court Trump’s base with his provocative remarks. After several days of intense criticism from Republican internationalists, DeSantis retreated last week from his description of the war as a “territorial dispute” and called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a war criminal,” much harsher language than Trump has ever used. But DeSantis, in his interview with British journalist Piers Morgan for another Fox outlet, also reiterated his skepticism of open-ended US support for Ukraine. “I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement,” the governor said.

    Even with his qualifying statements last week, DeSantis’ skeptical posture toward Ukraine shows the magnetic pull that Trump has exerted on his party, tugging it away from the Eisenhower tradition.

    “Trump-ism is the dominant tendency in Republican foreign policy and it’s isolationist, its unilateralist, its amoral,” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and former director of policy planning at the State Department under George W. Bush. The “traditional institutional approach to the world [which was] … the dominant Republican approach since World War II … has clearly been eclipsed for now,” said Haass, who also held foreign policy positions in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.

    Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former US permanent representative to NATO under Barack Obama, agrees. The fact that both 2024 GOP front-runners are expressing a broad skepticism about US engagement abroad, he said, raises the possibility that Republican “internationalists have not only lost in ’16 and ‘20” when Trump headed the GOP ticket, “but have lost the party forever.”

    The 1952 presidential election, by contrast, was the moment when GOP internationalists seemed to win the party forever. Leading into World War II, the party had been closely split between an internationalist wing determined to counter Adolf Hitler and imperial Japan and an isolationist faction resistant to entanglement in the intensifying confrontation with fascism, especially in Europe. The divide was both ideological and geographic, pitting generally more moderate internationalist East Coast Republicans (many of them tied to Wall Street and international finance) against more conservative isolationist forces centered in the small towns and small businesses of the Midwest and the far West.

    The Japanese surprise attack that triggered the US entry into World War II ended the political viability of a purely isolationist stance.

    “After Pearl Harbor there was no way to be a strict isolationist and a national political [figure],” said Joyce Mao, an associate professor of history at Middlebury College and author of the book “Asia First,” which recounts the GOP foreign policy debates of that era.

    After World War II, Republican internationalists joined with Democratic presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman to build the international institutions meant to prevent another global war: the United Nations, the Marshall Plan to economically rebuild Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to militarily defend it from the Soviet Union. Eisenhower, who had organized the Allied invasion of Europe on D-Day in 1944, was firmly in that camp and, in fact, returned to Europe in January 1951 to serve as NATO’s first supreme commander.

    But Robert Taft led a block of “old guard” congressional Republicans that remained much more skeptical of European commitments. Taft, a senator from Ohio and the son of former Republican president William Howard Taft, had generally opposed American aid to Europe before Pearl Harbor and even after the war he pushed to reduce the Marshall Plan and voted against the creation of NATO. Like many of the Republicans who initially resisted involvement in World War II, Mao noted, Robert Taft in the post-war period tried to separate himself both from that isolationist past and the contemporary priorities of GOP internationalists like Eisenhower by arguing for an “Asia First” foreign policy that would shift resources and emphasis from defending Europe to confronting the Communists who had seized control of China.

    “Eisenhower was viewed by Taft and his colleagues as much too moderate,” Mao said. “His European focus was deemed by that conservative wing of the party as much too similar to the liberal Democrats. If this was going to be a moment for conservatism to reassert itself not only against liberalism but also against the moderates in the Republican Party, China provided an ideal plank” to do so.

    All these strains culminated in the landmark battle for the 1952 GOP presidential nomination. Taft, the Republican Senate leader, was a passionate favorite of conservatives. Eisenhower, still in Europe as NATO supreme commander, was in many respects a reluctant candidate. But as Stephen Ambrose showed in his classic biography, Eisenhower felt compelled to run largely from fear that Taft would lead the US out of NATO, while simultaneously risking a catastrophic war in China. (Eisenhower was also deeply disenchanted with Truman’s leadership.) Eisenhower resigned his NATO position, returned to the US, mobilized enough support from the GOP’s internationalist wing to beat Taft at the 1952 Republican convention, and then decisively won the presidency that November. “Eisenhower became president precisely because he did not trust this version of isolationism in Taft,” said Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who served as a senior adviser for strategic planning on the National Security Council under George W. Bush.

    Both as a general election candidate and as president, Eisenhower tried to minimize his public conflicts with his party’s “old guard.” But he unmistakably steered the party (and the nation) toward acceptance of American global leadership within a robust international system of alliances. With only modest variation, that became the dominant foreign policy ideology of the GOP for the next 60 years under Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Late in that period, George W. Bush offered a different emphasis by stressing unilateral American action over coordination with allies, but even he emphasized the need for the US to remain engaged with the world. “It’s a pretty unbroken streak,” said Geoffrey Kabaservice, author of “Rule and Ruin,” a history of the struggles between GOP conservatives and moderates.

    Taft-like isolationism, coupled with nativist opposition to immigration and protectionist opposition to free trade, first resurfaced as a major force in the GOP with the long-shot presidential campaigns of conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan in 1992 and 1996. Two decades later, Trump revived that same triumvirate of isolationism, protectionism and nativism – what scholars sometimes call “defensive nationalism” – in his winning drive for the 2016 GOP nomination.

    Though some traditional GOP internationalists had hoped that Trump in office might moderate those impulses, as president he barreled down all those roads, repeatedly clashing with traditional allies. Now, DeSantis’ choice to echo Trump in devaluing Ukraine – following the calls from so many House conservatives to reduce the US commitment there – is deflating another hope of the GOP’s beleaguered internationalist wing: that Trump’s ascent represented a temporary detour and the party would snap back to its traditional support for international engagement once he left office.

    “Trump-ism has to be taken seriously,” as a long-term force in GOP thinking about the world, Haass said. The foreign policy center of gravity in the Republican Party, he added, has moved toward “a much more pinched or minimal American relationship with the world, [with] not a lot of interest in contributing to global responses to challenges like climate change or pandemics.”

    Even before DeSantis qualified his comments in the interview with Morgan, Feaver believed the Florida governor was trying to find a position on Ukraine somewhere between Trump’s undiluted skepticism and the unreserved support of Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. But, Feaver said, by including such inflammatory language as “territorial dispute” in his initial comments, DeSantis demonstrated the risks of pursuing such a strategy of “triangulation.”

    “Triangulation is a risky game because if you get the language off, you may commit yourself in a campaign to a line that makes no sense when you are governing,” Feaver said. “This is one of the hardest problems for newcomers and challengers when they are campaigning for president. By giving applause lines that work for the narrow segments of ideologically hardened factions that they are trying to win over for the primary, they can lock themselves into policy positions that are not sound when they actually win.”

    As an example, Feaver said DeSantis’ insistence that the US should shift more attention from countering Russia to containing China – an argument he repeated with Morgan – was illogical because “abandoning Ukraine assists China’s most significant ally, Russia.” Haley made a similar case in her recent Wall Street Journal article criticizing DeSantis (though not by name) for his comments to Carlson. “It’s naive to think we can counter China by ignoring Russia,” Haley wrote.

    Daalder points out another logical flaw in the updated “Asia First” arguments from DeSantis and Trump. “If the US were to abandon its allies in Europe … our allies in Asia are going to ask, ‘What’s to say they are not going to do the same with regards to China?’” Daalder said. “By demonstrating your willingness to stand up to Russia you are also strengthening the view that in Asia that when it comes to it that we will be there to help them.”

    But polls leave no doubt that both prongs of the modern Robert Taft position – that the US should reduce its commitment to Europe-focused international alliances and harden its resistance to China – have a substantial base of support in the contemporary Republican coalition. In a Gallup poll released earlier this month, by a lopsided margin of 76% to 12%, Republican voters were more likely to identify China than Russia as the principal US adversary in the world. (More Democrats picked Russia than China.) Polls have also found a steady decline in Republican support for US aid to Ukraine: polls this year by both the Pew Research Center and Quinnipiac University found that the share of GOP voters who believe the US is doing too much now equals the combined percentage who think it is doing too little or the right amount. (Quinnipiac found big majorities of Democrats and independents still believe the US is doing the right amount or not enough.)

    The latest Chicago Council on Global Affairs annual survey also tracks a broader retreat from the world among GOP voters. In that poll, conducted last November, the share of Republicans who said the US should take an active role in world affairs fell to 55% – the lowest the survey has ever recorded. Underscoring that erosion, a slight majority of Republicans in the poll said the costs of an active US international role now exceed the benefits.

    Opinions in the GOP about whether the US should do more or less in Ukraine don’t vary much along lines of education or age, the Pew poll found. But generally, these surveys show that the turn away from global leadership is most powerful among two distinct groups of Republicans: those who are younger, and those who lack college degrees. While a solid three-fifths of Republicans with a college degree in the Chicago Council poll said the benefits of US leadership exceed the costs, for instance, a majority of non-college Republicans disagreed. Younger Republicans were also much more likely than those over 60 to say the costs exceed the benefits.

    It’s probably no coincidence that those two groups – Republicans without a college degree and those who are younger – have consistently registered as Trump’s strongest supporters in early polls about the 2024 race.

    Trump is signaling that in a second term he will likely push even further in an isolationist and protectionist direction. John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, has said he believed the former president came close to withdrawing the US from NATO and would likely do so if elected to a second term. Trump certainly hinted at that possibility in a recent campaign video in which he declared, “we have to finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally reevaluating NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission.” Trump has also said he would impose a four-year plan “to phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods, everything from electronics to steel to pharmaceuticals.” That would be a wrenching change in the global economy.

    In all these ways, Trump is promising to fulfill Robert Taft’s vision from seven decades ago – and to erase Eisenhower’s lasting victory in setting the GOP’s direction. DeSantis does not appear to have decided to jump entirely on that Trump train – but neither is he lying down on the tracks to stop it. With these two men far ahead of any potential rival, it seems highly likely that the GOP in 2024 will continue to move away from Eisenhower-style international cooperation toward a volatile compound of isolationism and unilateralism. And that could generate enormous turbulence across the globe.

    Trump’s first term, as Daalder noted, was a chaotic time for the international order and traditional US alliances. But “If an isolationist leader gets elected president in 2024,” Daalder added, “you haven’t seen nothing yet.”

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  • Trump leans into extremism at first 2024 rally as legal woes mount | CNN Politics

    Trump leans into extremism at first 2024 rally as legal woes mount | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump is igniting his White House bid at a moment of unprecedented peril in the criminal investigations against him – a confluence that could send America into a new political and legal collision.

    Trump’s wild rhetoric at his first official 2024 campaign rally Saturday previewed the divisive national moment ahead should he be indicted in any of multiple criminal probes. As he whipped up a demagogic fervor in Waco, Texas, to try to secure a new presidency dedicated to “retribution,” Trump’s extremism – laced with suggestions of violence – left no doubt he would be willing to take the country to a dark place to save himself.

    Yet Trump’s chilling warnings that the Biden administration’s “thugs and criminals” have created a “Stalinist Russia horror show” by “weaponizing” justice against him also spelled electoral danger for a GOP hurt by his authoritarianism in recent elections. An extraordinary prolonged character attack on Ron DeSantis, in which Trump depicted his biggest potential rival of 2024 tearfully begging for his endorsement in 2018, demonstrated the political firestorm the Florida governor will have to deal with if he jumps into the White House campaign.

    Even with the ex-president’s reputation for hyperbole and inflammatory rhetoric, such demagoguery has never previously been heard in the first official rally of any modern American election campaign.

    Meanwhile, House committee chairs eager to appeal to the Trump base are increasing their efforts to use the power of their Republican majority to thwart Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s inquiry into Trump – even before it releases any possible indictment or evidence. House Oversight Chair James Comer told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the GOP moves were justified because the investigation into Trump’s alleged role in a hush money scheme to pay an adult film actress was based purely on politics.

    “This is the, for better or worse, leading contender for the Republican nomination of the presidential election next year, as well as a former president of the United States,” the Kentucky Republican told Jake Tapper.

    Many legal experts have questioned whether the potential Bragg investigation will produce the strongest of cases against Trump, who’s also facing several other probes over his actions around the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents. (Trump, who maintains he’s done nothing wrong, so far has not been charged in any of the criminal probes against him.)

    And given the greater national impact of those other investigations, a possible attempt to use a business accounting violation in this yearslong hush money case to suggest a possible violation of campaign finance law could be especially controversial. Yet Comer’s comments also created the implication that an ex-president or White House candidate could be protected from investigation even if they had committed a criminal offense. This gets to the core of the possible cases against Trump: Would failing to investigate him and charge him, if the evidence justifies such a step, mean an ex-president is above the law? Or would some attempts to call him to account risk subjecting him to a level of scrutiny that other citizens might not face?

    Comer and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who were among the three committee chairs writing to Bragg this weekend with intensifying demands for his testimony, won a warm shout-out from Trump at his rally in Texas, reflecting the way the new House GOP is acting as a political tool for the ex-president and his radical campaign. Bragg responded to the chairmen in a statement saying it was not appropriate for Congress to interfere with local investigations and vowed to be guided by the rule of law. He was backed up this weekend by nearly 200 former federal prosecutors who wrote a letter denouncing efforts to intimidate him.

    The grand jury in the Trump case is expected to reconvene on Monday, following a week of rampant public speculation over whether Bragg would call more witnesses and whether the case was sufficiently serious to merit the potential first indictment ever of an ex-president. Trump falsely predicted earlier this month that he would be arrested last Tuesday – a move that fired up an effort by his allies to intimidate Bragg. But the week came and went without any indictment news.

    CNN reported last week that the district attorney’s office was trying to determine whether to call back Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, to refute the testimony provided by attorney Robert Costello, who appeared at the request of Trump lawyers – or to call an additional witness to buttress its case before the grand jurors consider a vote on whether to indict the former president.

    The escalating confrontation over Bragg’s inquiry came as other investigations around Trump seemed to be nearing their own conclusions.

    In a totally separate case on Friday, Trump’s primary defense attorney, Evan Corcoran, appeared before a grand jury in Washington, DC, that is hearing evidence over the ex-president’s handling of classified documents at his home in Florida, including possible obstruction of justice when the government tried to get those documents back. Prosecutors have made clear in court proceedings that are still under seal that they believe Trump tried to use Corcoran to advance a crime.

    Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Friday that Corcoran’s appearance represented a serious development for Trump. “That is an unprecedented thing that we’re seeing, and Evan Corcoran is in a position to provide unbelievably damaging testimony against him,” he said.

    Besides looking into the documents issue, special counsel Jack Smith is investigating Trump’s conduct around the 2020 election – which even this weekend the former president again falsely claimed he had won – and in the run-up to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

    In another probe related to the 2020 election, a district attorney in Georgia said at the end of January that decisions were “imminent” in the investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in the key swing state. CNN reported last week that prosecutors are considering bringing racketeering and conspiracy charges.

    Charges in any one of these investigations would test the strength of the country’s political and judicial institutions, given that an ex-president and current presidential candidate is involved. And the fact that Trump is showing such willingness to inflame the country’s politics in his own defense makes this a deeply serious moment for the nation.

    Trump’s fiery rally in Waco pulsated with falsehoods about the 2020 election and his one-term presidency and misrepresented the legal cases against him. Coming a day after he warned in a social media post about “death and destruction” if he is indicted, his speech boiled with conspiracy theories and personal resentments – rhetoric that is especially dangerous in the aftermath of January 6. It wasn’t lost on observers that his event coincided with the 30th anniversary of a law enforcement raid on a cult compound in Waco that’s seen on the far right as a symbol of government overreach, although the campaign maintained the location had been chosen for convenience.

    The ex-president has often used extremist speeches to try to get more time in the limelight or more attention, whether from adoring onlookers or outraged critics. It is too early to judge how well his tactic is working in the 2024 campaign and as his legal plight seems to worsen. To date, there have been no big protests of the kind Trump has repeatedly called for. The price his supporters could pay for turning violent has also been demonstrated by the hundreds of convictions of those who invaded the Capitol more than two years ago after his big Washington rally. So there is at least the possibility that while Trump remains widely popular with his GOP base, his angry rhetoric lacks the power that it once did.

    But it is also clear after this first campaign rally that Trump, who is still leading the Republican pack for 2024, has crossed a new political line. He is painting a picture of a decrepit and powerless nation – plagued by corruption, rigged elections and the criminal manipulation of the law against his supporters – that is far more extreme than the “American carnage” he invoked in his inaugural address in 2017.

    “The abuses of power that are currently with us at all levels of government will go down as among the most shameful, corrupt and depraved chapters in all of American history,” Trump said, lashing the US as a “third world banana republic.”

    “Either the deep state destroys America, or we destroy the deep state,” he said at one point.

    And while Trump’s intent is to shock, history suggests that authoritarians seeking power follow exactly the same playbook of populist nationalism – discrediting free elections, demonizing the legal system and taking aim at vulnerable sectors of society – that Trump is pioneering in his new campaign.

    His rally was also notable for the fact that it was almost totally dominated by his grievances and complaints, which may well hint at a sense of foreboding over his legal position. “Every piece of my personal life, financial life, business life and public life has been turned upside down and dissected like no one in the history of our country,” Trump said.

    This raises a question of whether he’s offering a message, rooted in his obsessions, that a majority of Republican voters would actually want to sign up for, even those who considered his presidency a success. In 2016, Trump emerged as an unlikely but highly skilled vehicle for the conservative grassroots, much of which felt patronized by politicians and left behind in a wave of globalization that sent millions of blue-collar jobs overseas.

    DeSantis may be trying something similar in 2024. In the early moves of his yet-to-be-declared campaign, the Florida governor has positioned himself as the champion of conservative voters who believe their way of life is under attack from liberals and multiculturalists pushing a “woke” ideology. One of the key questions of the GOP primary campaign will be whether this approach could appeal to more Republican voters than Trump’s incessant attempts to portray investigations into him as a symptom of a wider attack by a corrupt government on his followers.

    But ahead of yet another potentially pivotal week, Trump is proving that he will not turn away from the defining tactic of his political career: subjecting the country’s institutions to ever more intense and unprecedented stress tests.

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  • 2024 GOP field tests their messages — while largely avoiding conflict with Trump | CNN Politics

    2024 GOP field tests their messages — while largely avoiding conflict with Trump | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    As former President Donald Trump heads to Texas on Saturday for his first major campaign rally, the handbrake remains on for most of his potential 2024 rivals.

    Trump will appear in Waco just a week after he predicted his own arrest in connection with a hush money case from 2016. In the days since, anticipation grew over a potential indictment from a Manhattan grand jury, with Trump warning early Friday of “potential death and destruction” if he’s charged, though no action was taken this week.

    This latest melodrama for the former president is unfolding during an uneasy period for the rest of the 2024 GOP presidential field, which is mostly frozen in place as a host of rumored contenders travel the country to test-run their messages while also seeking to avoid conflict with Trump.

    The former president, though, operates on his own schedule and, along with his allies, used his own announcement about a coming indictment to test the loyalties of his fellow Republicans.

    “We all need to be speaking up against the political persecution of President Trump,” right-wing Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert tweeted last weekend. “This is not the time for silence.”

    What Trump and his supporters eventually heard was a field of would-be opponents rushing to their defense – yet another sign that former president’s grip on the Republican Party remains firmly in place.

    Former Vice President Mike Pence, who has at times harshly criticized Trump over the latter’s role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, fell into line almost immediately after Trump’s prediction last week.

    “The fact that the Manhattan DA thinks that indicting President Trump is his top priority, I think, it just tells you everything you need to know about the radical left in this country,” Pence said in an ABC News interview last Sunday. “It just feels like a politically charged prosecution here.”

    Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, remains the only other candidate with an established national profile to formally enter the race. She too backed Trump after he floated his expected arrest, saying the potential case against him was “more about revenge than it is about justice.”

    Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has projected a warrior-like persona in the run-up to his own expected campaign, is still months out from an announcement. Though he took a sharper, snarkier tone when discussing Trump’s legal troubles this week, it came as he faced the fallout from his own messy, conflicting series of remarks on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, another potential contender, parried questions about Trump, and whether he was concerned by the behavior underlying the hush money case. Instead, he turned his ire on reporters and President Joe Biden.

    “You know, one of the things I’d say is that red-on-red violence, so to speak, is something that the mass media enjoys,” Scott said on Fox New Thursday. “The road to socialism runs through a divided Republican Party. One thing we should do is keep our focus on the actual problem: That is President Biden.”

    Further complicating DeSantis’s bid to shave support from Trump while energizing his own conservative base, his other would-be rivals – led by Haley and Pence – are increasingly framing him as a carbon copy of the former president.

    The main difference: They can go after DeSantis without fear of reprisal from Trump or his supporters.

    Pence has taken aim at DeSantis over the Florida governor’s home state war with Disney, which he targeted after the company pushed back against state GOP legislation banning certain instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom, dubbed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

    The former vice president argued that DeSantis’ revocation of Disney’s special tax status went too far, and that such interventions violated his principles as a “limited government Republican.”

    Both Pence and Haley have also insisted that “entitlement reform,” in the form of cutting benefits for seniors in an effort to combat what they’ve described as a funding crisis, would be on the table if they were elected. That position separates them from Trump and DeSantis – at least rhetorically – who have both pledged not to touch popular programs like Medicare and Social Security.

    For his part, DeSantis has ignored pokes from more establishment-aligned Republicans, instead attempting to land subtle jabs on Trump. Asked about the rumors of Trump’s coming indictment, DeSantis on Monday said he “no interest in getting involved in some type of manufactured circus by some Soros DA,” a reference to Democrat Alvin Bragg and billionaire liberal donor George Soros.

    But he followed that with a dig that raised the hackles of Trump and his top advisers.

    “I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” DeSantis said to laughs from some in the press corps. “I just, I can’t speak to that.”

    Trump promptly responded by posting a series of personal attacks against DeSantis on social media.

    “Ron DeSanctimonious will probably find out about FALSE ACCUSATIONS & FAKE STORIES sometime in the future, as he gets older, wiser, and better known, when he’s unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates that are ‘underage’ (or possibly a man!),” Trump wrote. “I’m sure he will want to fight these misfits just like I do!”

    But his back-and-forth with Trump, which carried on after DeSantis landed a few more shots during an interview with Piers Morgan, was arguably less damaging to the Florida governor than his continued about-faces on Ukraine.

    After being met with a barrage of criticism from prominent Republicans for initially describing Russia’s war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” in a statement to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, DeSantis subsequently insisted to Morgan that he had only been addressing a longer-running part of the conflict focused in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

    “That’s some difficult fighting,” DeSantis said of the region, “and that’s what I was referring to. And so it wasn’t that I thought Russia had a right to that (land), and so if I should have made that more clear, I could have done it.”

    By Thursday, though, DeSantis has tracked back to a more populist position, saying in an interview with Newsmax that he cares “more about securing our own border in the United States than I do about the Russia-Ukraine border.”

    The back-and-forth over Ukraine invited reproaches from Pence and Haley, along with foreign policy hawks like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, who all at various times either mocked or scorned DeSantis’ comments

    “When the United States supports Ukraine in their fight against Putin, we follow the Reagan doctrine, and we support those who fight our enemies on their shores, so we will not have to fight them ourselves,” Pence said in a statement. “There is no room for Putin apologists in the Republican Party.”

    The broad backlash underscored DeSantis’ uniquely tricky path to the nomination. When he hewed to Trump’s position in his initial remarks, the party establishment and anti-Trump conservatives raced to condemn him.

    But because DeSantis largely shares a voter base with the former president, staking out a clear position opposing Trump would be politically untenable.

    It is a challenge he will need to meet – and solve – as the race becomes more intense and the waiting, for candidates and action in Trump’s legal cases, comes to an end.

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  • With Trump facing legal peril, DeSantis steps out and sharpens attacks | CNN Politics

    With Trump facing legal peril, DeSantis steps out and sharpens attacks | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has stylized himself as a political brawler willing to take on all comers, from Disney and the corporate media to high school students wearing masks.

    But his brewing battle with Donald Trump was for months a one-sided affair.

    That changed this week when DeSantis for the first time leaned into the burgeoning rivalry in earnest. In public remarks, DeSantis goaded the former president’s legal troubles and invited comparisons between their leadership style and character. He doubled down by granting a lengthy interview to Piers Morgan, a noted Trump supporter-turned-critic, and didn’t push back as the British television host assailed the former president as untruthful and intensely jealous of his one-time ally’s political success.

    The two laughed over Trump’s attempts to nickname DeSantis.

    “You can call me whatever you want,” DeSantis said in an excerpt of the interview published in the New York Post, “just as long as you also call me a winner.”

    DeSantis until now has mostly brushed off questions about his 2024 aspirations even as he makes moves toward a likely campaign for president. The noticeable shift in approach comes as the extraordinary legal troubles surrounding Trump have intensified in recent days, with the possibility of an indictment hanging over the former president and bringing unprecedented uncertainty to the looming GOP nominating contest.

    It also follows a coordinated campaign by Trump’s allies over the weekend to pressure potential Republican rivals to stand by the former president as a Manhattan grand jury considers evidence related to a hush-money payment scheme to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

    Other Republican presidential contenders came to Trump’s defense by leveling accusations at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the Democrat readying a decision on whether to indict Trump. Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is still weighing a bid, told ABC News, “It just feels like a politically charged prosecution here.” Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, a longshot candidate, called the grand jury probe “a textbook case of politicizing prosecutorial power.” And former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said it was “more about revenge than justice.”

    DeSantis, though, opted to poke the bear, telling a Panama City, Florida, crowd on Monday that he doesn’t “know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair.” Hours later, with Trump surrogates publicly fuming on social media, DeSantis stood by the quip during his interview with Morgan. He went on to tout the no-nonsense management of his administration, pandemic response and 19-point victory last fall – encouraging a contrast with Trump’s chaotic four years in office that culminated with a loss to Joe Biden.

    It was enough for Morgan to declare in the New York Post that the Florida governor had “finally taken the gloves off,” and Trump and his allies responded as if that was the case. Trump adviser and spokesman Jason Miller tweeted that DeSantis “has finally shown his true colors. An establishment Never Trumper who despises the MAGA base and was faking it the entire time.”

    Yet DeSantis’ criticism of Trump remained mostly implicit and shrouded in subtext – an uncharacteristically reserved counter punch for a political figure who once cosplayed as a “Top Gun” pilot to drive home the point he will “never back down from a fight” and ended his reelection campaign by suggesting he was created by God to be a fighter.

    Morgan’s frequent attempts to bait DeSantis into attacking Trump – at one point comparing their relationship to Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s monster – were mostly met with familiar dodges. DeSantis suggested that is unlikely to change even as he and Trump appear headed for a collision course.

    “If I were to run, I’m running against Biden,” DeSantis said. “Like (Trump and DeSantis) are competing for the Republican, potentially, I get that, but ultimately you know the guy I’m gonna focus on is Biden because I think he’s failed the country. I think the country wants a change. I think they want a fresh start and a new direction and so we’ll be very vocal about that.”

    Trump, meanwhile, has for weeks escalated attacks on DeSantis, characterizing the governor and former ally as ungrateful, disloyal and a mediocre political talent boosted by Florida’s sunshine. On Monday, Trump leveled a series of personal attacks against DeSantis and elevated a photo that suggested DeSantis had behaved inappropriately with teenage girls while teaching history in Georgia in his early 20s, an image the former president previously shared on social media.

    “It gets to the point where you’re a candidate by default and you have to engage,” one DeSantis adviser told CNN. “The governor can’t afford to be marginalized from the get go. He clearly made the calculus it was time to push back.”

    Even as DeSantis sharpens his critiques of Trump, he is pivoting elsewhere toward the former president as he inches closer to a bid for the White House. He has so far avoided outlining any significant policy differences between himself and his former ally-turned-future rival. Instead, DeSantis has ditched some long-held beliefs in favor of adopting Trump’s more populist leanings.

    Once an outspoken proponent of arming Ukraine as a member of Congress, DeSantis recently characterized Russia’s aggression in Eastern Europe as a “territorial dispute,” aligning himself with Trump. (After considerable blowback from his party, DeSantis told Morgan his words had been “mischaracterized” and clarified he believed “Russia was wrong to invade.”)

    Earlier this month, he asserted, “We’re not going to mess with Social Security as Republicans,” a clear break from his days as a tea party Republican who supported privatization of Social Security and raising the retirement age to 70. Trump recently declared that entitlement programs shouldn’t be included in federal budget negotiations.

    In his recent travel to early nominating states, DeSantis has also fashioned his likely candidacy on many of the most animating pillars of Trump’s first run for president, including immigration, attacking the media and questioning the security of elections. His moves against so-called “wokeness” in society are the ripples from Trump’s 2016 gripes against political correctness.

    DeSantis’ advisers and allies believe the chief challenge for DeSantis is not differing himself from Trump on policy, but demonstrating to Republican primary voters that he can be more effective at enacting a platform. Trump, without the baggage, as some have offered.

    Or, as Trump recently put it, “Whatever I want, he wants.”

    To many Republican primary voters, Trump and DeSantis are viewed as politically aligned, leaving voters with a choice centered on electability and less on policy differences. In a recent CNN poll of potential GOP voters, 40% say they would most likely back Trump and 36% would vote for DeSantis. No other candidate reached double digits.

    “What the Republican voters are going to look at at the end of the day is where is our best chance of winning because both men resonate with Republican voters on policy,” Chris Ager, the chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, told CNN in a recent interview. “If the policies are both good, then who has the best chance of winning and implementing them again? I think that’s going to be a bigger factor in many decisions.”

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  • DeSantis needles Trump as he breaks silence on hush money case | CNN Politics

    DeSantis needles Trump as he breaks silence on hush money case | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Breaking his silence on Donald Trump’s legal troubles, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday criticized the Manhattan district attorney who is pursuing charges against the former president and vowed his office would not be involved if the matter trickles into Trump’s adopted home state.

    But DeSantis, a rising rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, stopped well short of offering support for the former president and instead seemed to poke fun at the situation Trump has found himself in as he attempts a political comeback and a third campaign for the White House. A grand jury is in the final stages of determining whether Trump should face charges over an alleged payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels related to a supposed affair.

    “I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” DeSantis said as laughter broke out at a news conference in Panama City, Florida. “I just, I can’t speak to that.”

    DeSantis added: “I’ve got real issues to deal with here in the state of Florida.”

    The dismissive quips traveled quickly across the state to Mar-a-Lago, where Trump has decamped while he awaits for word on the New York grand jury’s findings. His allies immediately started attacking DeSantis across social media, suggesting he would face a political price for failing to recognize Republicans are rallying around Trump amid his mounting legal threats.

    Trump responded in a statement posted to his social media site, Truth Social, leveling a series of personal attacks against DeSantis.

    “Ron DeSanctimonious will probably find out about FALSE ACCUSATIONS & FAKE STORIES sometime in the future, as he gets older, wiser, and better known, when he’s unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates that are ‘underage’ (or possibly a man!). I’m sure he will want to fight these misfits just like I do!” Trump wrote.

    As part of the post Trump also shared a photo that suggested DeSantis had behaved inappropriately with teenage girls while teaching history in Georgia in his early 20s, an image the former president previously shared on social media to go after the Florida governor.

    The episode Monday was illustrative of the increasingly fraught rivalry between two of the GOP’s biggest stars as they battle for party supremacy — one made more awkward by their proximity inside the Sunshine State. Trump has suggested his arrest is forthcoming, and if he is in Florida at that moment, it could require a coordinated effort by police in DeSantis’ state.

    DeSantis said he is not aware of any arrangements with local law enforcement regarding Trump, and he said he had “no interest in getting involved in some type of manufactured circus.”

    The delayed remarks by DeSantis stand in stark contrast to the forceful defense he offered on Trump’s behalf last August when federal authorities seized documents from the former president’s Palm Beach estate. Just hours after the raid, DeSantis on Twitter called the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago “another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves.”

    But there was no such tweet this time from DeSantis, who had remained quiet for days amid reports that a New York grand jury was interviewing witnesses and has largely avoided discussing Trump at all amid escalating attacks from the former president and his allies. DeSantis instead last week held events focused on relief for Hurricane Ian victims and the pandemic. He posted a picture from the World Baseball Classic picture standing next to the Miami Marlins mascot.

    Over the weekend, as other Republicans criticized Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, for pursuing charges in a case that dates back to the 2016 election, Trump allies engaged in a coordinated pressure campaign to get DeSantis to speak out in defense of the former president.

    “Thank you, Vice President @Mike_Pence and @VivekGRamaswamy, for pointing out how Radical Left Democrats are trying to divide our Country in the name of Partisan Politics,” Trump campaigdn adviser Jason Miller wrote on Twitter. “Radio silence from Gov. @RonDeSantisFL and Amb. @NikkiHaley.”

    Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., wrote in a tweet on Sunday: “Pay attention to which Republicans spoke out against this corrupt BS immediately and who sat on their hands and waited to see which way the wind was blowing.”

    MAGA, Inc sent several emails tracking which Republicans had commented on the potential criminal charges and hitting DeSantis for “remaining silent.” Trump allies acknowledged that this was a concerted effort to force DeSantis to weigh in on the matter, believing that he would have to offer support to Trump.

    When DeSantis finally weighed in Monday, it came during an unrelated press conference about central bank digital currencies, a recent area of concern among some conservatives but hardly the topic of the day, given the revelations about Trump’s legal case. He didn’t address Trump’s legal situation until asked by an individual from the Florida Standard, a conservative website friendly to DeSantis.

    DeSantis echoed other criticism of Bragg, accusing the Democrat of seeking charges against Trump for political reasons. He compared Bragg to the local state attorney in Tampa, Andrew Warren, who DeSantis controversially removed from office last year over his politics, and linked them both to George Soros, the Hungarian-born billionaire and progressive donor often at the center of conservative conspiracies.

    “If you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction, and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to use something about porn star hush money payments, you know, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office, and I think that that’s fundamentally wrong,” DeSantis said.

    But DeSantis also seemed to downplay Bragg’s pursuit of Trump as a lesser concern compared to issues related to crime in the city.

    “That’s bad, but the real victims are ordinary New Yorkers, ordinary Americans in all these different jurisdictions that they get victimized every day because of the reckless political agenda that the Soros DAs bring to their job,” he said. “They ignore crime and they empower criminals.”

    Haley weighed in later Monday, saying a prosecution of Trump would be “for political points.” The former South Carolina governor, who announced her White House campaign last month, told Fox News’ Bret Baier, “And I think what we know is that when you get into political prosecutions like this, it’s more about revenge than it is about justice.”

    “I think the country would be better off talking about things that the American public cares about than to sit there and have to deal with some revenge by some political people in New York,” added Haley, who served as ambassador to the United Nations under Trump.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Voters of color are a big reason Trump leads the GOP primary | CNN Politics

    Voters of color are a big reason Trump leads the GOP primary | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump holds an average double-digit advantage over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in national 2024 Republican primary surveys. That, in itself, isn’t notable given Trump, the frontrunner, has been ahead of DeSantis (by far his nearest competitor or potential competitor) since polling began about the race.

    But what may surprise is how Trump is ahead. An average of CNN/SSRS and Quinnipiac University polls released this week reveals that Trump’s lead may, in large part, be because of his clear edge among potential Republican primary voters of color.

    Trump was up an average of 55% to 26% over DeSantis among Republican (and Republican leaning independent) voters of color in an average of the two polls.

    Among White Republican voters, the race was well within the margin of error: Trump’s 38% to DeSantis’ 37%.

    I should note the combined voter of color sample size of the CNN/SSRS and Quinnipiac University is about 200 respondents. This isn’t particularly large, but it’s more than large enough to say with a high degree of statistical confidence that Trump is ahead among them and that he is doing better among them than he is among White Republicans.

    The fact that Trump is doing considerably better among Republican voters of color than White Republicans flies in the face of the fact that many Americans view Trump as racist. I noted in 2019 that more Americans described Trump as racist than the percentage of Americans who said that about segregationist and presidential candidate George Wallace in 1968.

    But Trump’s overperformance with Republican voters of color makes sense in another way. The Republican primary race right down is breaking down along class lines just like it did during the 2016 primary.

    Trump’s base is made up of Republicans whose households pull in less than $50,000 a year. He led this group of voters by 22 points over DeSantis in our CNN poll. He trailed DeSantis by 13 points among those GOP voters making at least $50,000 a year. This is a 35 point swing between these two income brackets.

    Republican voters of color are far more likely than White Republicans to have a household income of less than $50,000 a year. According to the CNN poll, 45% of Republican voters of color do compared to just 28% of White Republicans.

    Trump’s lead among Republican voters of color comes at a time when they’re becoming a larger part of the party. During the Republican primary season in 2016, voters of color were 13% of Republican voters. Today, they’re closer to 18%.

    To put that into some perspective, White voters with a college degree are about 28% of Republican potential primary voters. Trump, of course, has historically struggled among well educated White voters, even within own party.

    While voters of color don’t make up nearly the same share of the Republican party as White voters with a college degree, the difference isn’t all that large. This means that if Trump ultimately does as well with Republican voters of color as the current polling indicates, it would be a good counterbalance for his weakness among White voters with a college degree.

    Trump doing better among Republican voters of color now is after he dramatically improved among all voters of color during the 2020 general election. While he still lost among them in 2020 by 45 points to Joe Biden in exit poll data, this was down from his 53-point loss in the 2016 election to Hillary Clinton. (Other data shows a similar improvement for Trump.)

    Trump’s improvement with voters of color occurred even as his margin among White voters declined between 2020 and 2016. In fact, Trump probably would have won the 2020 election had he had slightly less slippage among White voters between 2016 and 2020.

    Indeed, the Republican Party as a whole has been improving among voters of color. The party’s 38-point loss among that bloc for the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms was a 5-point improvement from 2020. Its margin among White voters stayed the same in exit poll data.

    Put another way: The shift among voters of color from 2022 to 2020 could have provided the winning margin for Republicans to take back the House.

    The question going into 2024 is whether voters of color will continue their shift to the Republican Party and with Trump in particular. If they do, they could provide them both with a big boost.

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  • South Carolinians Haley and Scott aim to win over Christian conservatives in their home state | CNN Politics

    South Carolinians Haley and Scott aim to win over Christian conservatives in their home state | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    South Carolinians Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, along with other presidential hopefuls, are set to address a Christian conservative forum on Saturday and present their vision for 2024 as they eye the White House and aim to make their case to a crucial voting bloc in the early voting state.

    The forum, hosted by the Palmetto Family Council, is a chance for speakers to share their stances on issues and engage with conservative voters. But even as Haley, the Palmetto State’s former governor, and Scott, its junior US senator, look to win over their fellow South Carolinians, the two Republicans that have so far dominated the race are notably missing: former president Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

    Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, was the first Republican to challenge her former boss for the GOP presidential nomination. She kicked off her campaign last month in Charleston, calling for a new generation of leadership and recently spoke to a packed crowd at Myrtle Beach. She’s tried differentiating herself with her foreign policy experience and has centered her campaign on calling for congressional term limits, stronger border security, fiscal responsibility and increased domestic energy production.

    As for Scott, this forum is the latest sign that the Republican senator is testing the waters of the 2024 race. While he has dodged questions about whether he’s planning to run for president, Scott has been laying the groundwork for a campaign by taking his Faith in America “listening tour” to the key voting state of Iowa and South Carolina.

    On Saturday, Scott is expected to deliver a speech hitting several themes in the roughly 25 minutes allotted to him, according to a source familiar. The Republican senator will talk about his faith, the role it played in shaping him as an elected official, how he views the country’s direction, including sharp criticism of President Joe Biden’s agenda but ending with a message of redemption and “better days ahead,” the source told CNN.

    Speakers are allowed to use the time allotted to them however they wish – either delivering a speech, taking questions from the audience, or a combination of both, according to Justin Hall, Palmetto Family Council’s communications director.

    Haley and Scott long have been friends and political allies. In 2012, Haley appointed Scott to the vacant seat left by Sen. Jim DeMint, saying Scott had “earned the seat” from his personality and record. But after Haley announced her presidential bid, Scott declined to endorse her, according to The Post and Courier, in a sign that he could seek the presidency himself. Both had also attended the anti-tax group Club for Growth’s donor retreat in Palm Beach earlier this month alongside other potential GOP candidates.

    GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who’s been weighing a presidential run, will also speak at the forum. Former Vice President Mike Pence, another likely 2024 candidate, was invited but is speaking at a foreign policy panel in Iowa the same day. Other potential candidates who also were extended an invitation but don’t plan to attend include former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and South Dakota Gov. Kirsti Noem.

    Much of the early 2024 conversation has revolved around Trump and DeSantis, who isn’t yet a declared candidate. Both were invited to the Palmetto Family Council forum, but neither is expected to attend, according to Hall.

    Trump and DeSantis led a recent CNN poll of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents of who they’d most likely support for the 2024 Republican nomination. Haley trailed the two at 6%, while Scott was at 2%.

    South Carolina was key to Trump’s political rise in 2016. He won the Republican primary there, solidifying his status in a crowded Republican field as the frontrunner. Trump made the state one of his first stops in January in his first appearance on the campaign trail since announcing his bid for reelection.

    DeSantis, meanwhile, intends to wait until after the Florida legislative session concludes to decide whether to run for president. His national book tour had stops in Iowa and Nevada, but he has yet to visit South Carolina.

    The forum falls a little less than a year out from the crucial South Carolina GOP primary. Republican voters in the state have picked the eventual Republican nominee in nearly every cycle since 1980, except for 2012.

    “We believe that the road to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue runs straight through the Palmetto State,” Hall told CNN, adding that the forum “certainly could jumpstart the campaign push in South Carolina.”

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  • The two biggest 2024 Republican names would mean bad news for Ukraine | CNN Politics

    The two biggest 2024 Republican names would mean bad news for Ukraine | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Russia might be bogged down in its vicious onslaught on Ukraine, but President Vladimir Putin is winning big elsewhere – in the Republican presidential primary.

    The two highest-polling potential GOP nominees – former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – are making clear that if they make it to the White House, Ukraine’s lifeline of US weapons and ammunition would be in danger and the war could end on Putin’s terms. Their stands underscore rising antipathy among grassroots conservatives to the war and President Joe Biden’s marshaling of the West to bankroll Kyiv’s resistance to Putin’s unprovoked invasion.

    “The death and destruction must end now!” Trump wrote in replies to a questionnaire from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson about the war and US involvement. DeSantis, answering the same questions, countered with his most unequivocal signal yet that he’d downgrade US help for Ukraine if he wins the presidency. “We cannot prioritize intervention in an escalating foreign war over the defense of our own homeland,” he wrote.

    Trump’s warnings that only he can stop World War III and DeSantis’ main argument that saving Ukraine is not a core US national security interest will likely gain even more traction following one of the most alarming moments yet in the war on Tuesday. The apparent downing of a US drone by a Russian fighter jet over the Black Sea was a step closer to the scenario that everyone has dreaded since the war erupted a year ago – a direct clash between US and Russian forces.

    “This incident should serve as a wake-up call to isolationists in the United States that it is in our national interest to treat Putin as the threat he truly is,” Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said in a Tuesday statement that read as an implicit rebuke of his party’s leading presidential hopefuls. Others, like Texas Sen. John Cornyn, said DeSantis’ position “raises questions.”

    But the reproach from some senior Senate Republicans may not matter much in today’s GOP. As they fight to outdo one another’s skepticism of Western help for Ukraine, Trump and DeSantis are showing how “America First” Republicans have transformed a party that was led by President Ronald Reagan to victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Their influence is sure to deepen the split in the US House between traditional GOP hawks and followers of the ex-president that is already threatening future aid to Ukraine – even before the 2024 presidential election.

    That divide is playing out in the early exchanges of the GOP primary race as other candidates, including ex-UN ambassador Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence, warn that failing to stop Putin now could lead to disastrous confrontations later. Haley staked out a far more hawkish position on Ukraine in a statement on Tuesday. The former South Carolina governor warned that Russia’s goal was to wipe Ukraine off the map, and that if Kyiv “stopped fighting, Ukraine would no longer exist, and other countries would legitimately fear they would be next.”

    But her position might help explain why she’s trailing in early polls of the race. A new CNN/SSRS poll on Tuesday, for instance, found that 80% of Republicans or Republican-leaning independents thought it was important that the GOP nominee for president believe the US “should not be involved in the war between Russia and Ukraine.”

    GOP political calculations will have a profound geopolitical impact.

    Rising Republican skepticism of US aid to Ukraine presents President Volodymyr Zelensky with the most critical test yet of his international campaign for the weapons and ammunition Ukraine needs to survive. It will also bolster Putin’s apparent belief that he can outlast Western resolve and eventually crush Ukrainian resistance. The possibility that a Republican successor in the White House could abandon Ukraine will also become a bigger issue for Biden, increasing the pressure on him to shore up support among Americans for his policy in Ukraine, which polls show has ebbed a bit in recent months.

    If the war is still going on next year, the 2024 election could become a forum for a wide-ranging debate that will ask the American people to decide between twin impulses that have often divided the nation throughout its history – does the US have a duty to stand up for freedom and democracy anywhere, or should it indulge its more isolationist tendencies?

    Unless Trump or DeSantis fade in the coming months, Ukraine’s fate could effectively be on the ballot in primary races next year and in the November general election. And Biden’s vow to stick with Zelensky “for as long as it takes” could have an expiration date of January 20, 2025 – the next presidential inauguration.

    The rhetoric on Russia coming from the biggest 2024 names caused alarm on Capitol Hill, where many top Republican House committee chairman and senior senators are pressing Biden to do more to support Ukraine – including with the dispatch of F-16 fighter jets.

    Speaking on Hugh Hewitt’s radio program, Sen. Marco Rubio seemed to rebuke his state’s governor – arguing the US does have a national security interest in Ukraine and wondering whether DeSantis’ inexperience was a factor. “I don’t know what he’s trying to do or what the goal is. Obviously, he doesn’t deal with foreign policy every day as governor, so I’m not sure,” Rubio said.

    South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who’s already backed Trump’s 2024 White House bid, warned that those who said Ukraine didn’t matter were also effectively saying the same of war crimes.

    “We’re not invading Russia, we’re trying to expel the Russians from Ukraine, and no Americans are dying, and it is in our national interest to get this right,” Graham told CNN’s Manu Raju.

    Still, while Rubio and Graham represent traditional GOP foreign policy orthodoxy, their comments may only help DeSantis and Trump make their points since many pro-Trump voters often see them as part of a neo-conservative bloc in the party that led the US into years of war in the Middle East.

    South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, also said he disagreed with DeSantis, but he acknowledged that his own stance may not reflect where his party is now. “There are probably going to be other candidates in ’24 on our side who may share that view, and certainly it’s held by Republicans around the country,” Thune said of DeSantis’ perspective.

    The most noteworthy replies to Carlson’s questionnaire came from DeSantis, who has not yet officially launched a campaign, but was revealed by Tuesday’s CNN/SSRS poll to be Trump’s most threatening potential rival. The governor is encroaching on the ex-president’s ideological turf, and after speaking out more generally against current US policy in recent weeks, has now adopted a position apparently designed to hedge against the ex-president’s attacks on the issue.

    “While the U.S. has many vital national interests – securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party – becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” DeSantis said.

    In response to a question about whether the US should support “regime change” in Russia, the Florida governor appeared to suggest the US is engaged in such a policy, warning that any replacement for Putin might prove “even more ruthless.” There is no indication that the US government is engaged in any attempt to topple Putin. DeSantis did not specifically say he would halt US military aid to Ukraine, leaving himself some political leeway if he were elected president. There remains some doubt about his true beliefs since CNN’s KFile has reported that as a member of Congress he called for the US to send lethal aid to Ukraine.

    But his most recent comments were remarkable in echoing Putin’s talking points. By referring to a “territorial dispute,” the governor minimized Russia’s unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation that Putin insists has no right to exist. His answer on regime change also bolsters a yearslong claim by the Russian leader that Washington is trying to drive him from power, and may be highlighted by the propagandists in Moscow’s official media.

    DeSantis’ responses to Carlson on the war also underscore how the normal relationship between political leaders and media commentators has been inverted by Fox and its star anchor. Carlson warmly approved of DeSantis’ answers, which appeared calculated to win his approval. This put Carlson in the amazing position of potentially curating what could end up being US foreign policy on one of the most critical questions since the end of the Cold War.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy recently performed a similar genuflection, providing Carlson with exclusive access to US Capitol surveillance tapes from the January 6, 2021, insurrection, which the Fox anchor used to undermine the truth about the most serious attack on US democracy of the modern era.

    In his responses to Carlson, Trump repeated his unprovable claim that Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if he were president. He demanded an end to the fighting and peace talks that would effectively vindicate the invasion by Putin, to whom he often fawned when he was in the Oval Office. “The President must meet with each side, then both sides together, and quickly work out a deal. This can be easily done if conducted by the right President,” Trump said. “Both sides are weary and ready to make a deal,” he added, in a comment that does not reflect the reality of the war.

    Given that her views contradict Carlson’s, Haley publicly released her answers on Ukraine – and also accused DeSantis of copying Trump’s positions.

    “The Russian government is a powerful dictatorship that makes no secret of its hatred of America. Unlike other anti-American regimes, it is attempting to brutally expand by force into a neighboring pro-American country,” she wrote. “It also regularly threatens other American allies. America is far better off with a Ukrainian victory than a Russian victory.”

    Haley’s statement epitomized the divisions on the war that will animate Republican primary debates that begin later this year – and that will be closely watched in both Kyiv and Moscow. She wouldn’t be Putin’s preferred candidate.

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  • DeSantis moves his presidential ambitions into the open with Iowa visit | CNN Politics

    DeSantis moves his presidential ambitions into the open with Iowa visit | CNN Politics

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    Davenport, Iowa
    CNN
     — 

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made his first appearance in Iowa on Friday, an unmistakable flirtation for a top-tier Republican presidential contender that brings his expected bid for the White House a step closer to reality.

    Though DeSantis doesn’t plan to make a formal announcement on his political future until May or June, the Iowa visit, followed by a stop in Nevada on Saturday, highlighted the increasing priority of his presidential ambitions and a desire to send a clear signal to GOP donors, activists and potential campaign staff in early voting states about his intentions.

    At a stop at a casino in the eastern Iowa town of Davenport, DeSantis acknowledged it was his first time in the state, which typically lures political aspirants much sooner. He told the audience that his record in Florida compared favorably with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who is popular among Republicans here and has championed similar education policies.

    “I always tell my legislators, you watch Iowa – do not let them get ahead of us on any of this stuff,” DeSantis told a standing-room-only crowd.

    Reynolds introduced DeSantis at the event Friday and later joined him onstage to lead a conversation. She also traveled to Des Moines to appear with DeSantis at the State Fairgrounds later in the day.

    DeSantis did not speak to the buzz around his 2024 decision, though Reynolds hinted at it in her remarks.

    “He is just getting warmed up. This guy is a man on a mission,” she said in Davenport.

    DeSantis’ visit to Iowa came amid high anticipation from state Republicans, who have watched him closely from afar and were eager to take his measure up close.

    “Our grandkids live in Florida, so we’ve had a chance to see and hear what he’s done down there,” Kim Schmett, a longtime Iowa GOP activist, told CNN before the visit. “But everyone in Florida tells us, we don’t want him to run for president because we want to keep him here. That’s a good thing to hear about somebody holding public office.”

    DeSantis’ carefully crafted travel schedule brought him to many of Iowa’s neighbors during last year’s midterm cycle and to friendly audiences from Staten Island to Southern California in recent weeks. But he had avoided public events in the GOP’s first nominating state and in New Hampshire, home of the party’s first primary.

    He broke the seal Friday, becoming the latest potential 2024 hopeful to begin courting Iowa’s Republican caucus voters in person. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who declared her candidacy last month, is wrapping up her own three-day tour of the state, and potential candidates such as South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu held events in Iowa as early as last year.

    At the outset of the year, sources close to the Florida governor were unsure if DeSantis would visit Iowa before he officially became a candidate. Reynolds, who attended his donor retreat in Palm Beach last month, personally urged DeSantis to visit the state sooner than later, her aides said. The release of his second book, “The Courage to Be Free,” and the ensuing national tour provided DeSantis the opportunity to touch down in Iowa on his terms.

    In Davenport, people lined up as early as 6 a.m. to enter the event room. DeSantis signed books after he concluded his remarks, which saw him recount many of his political battles of the past two years, from his management of the Covid-19 pandemic in Florida to fighting Disney over legislation that banned certain instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom.

    Besides the events in Davenport and Des Moines, DeSantis’ Friday itinerary was also filled with several private meetings with key Republican leaders.

    He met with a group of state legislators at the Capitol, where a robust debate has been underway all week on legislation similar to many of his signature proposals in Florida. Those involved in forming his political action committee had made calls to several influential Iowa Republicans, aides familiar with the conversations said, inviting them to meet with DeSantis on Friday.

    Top advisers to the Florida governor have spoken to several key Iowa GOP operatives about the possibility of joining his team in the state. No firm hiring decisions have been made, people familiar with the matter say, but veterans of Reynolds’ and former Gov. Terry Branstad’s campaigns are among those in discussions with Team DeSantis.

    At the same time, former President Donald Trump has been making his own calls into Iowa over the past two weeks – targeting some of the same legislators and longtime supporters and urging them to endorse his candidacy again.

    “President Trump is twisting arms and looking for endorsements, but many of us are keeping our powder dry for now,” a top Republican elected official told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid alienating the former president or the DeSantis team.

    Trump will hold his first Iowa event of the 2024 cycle in Davenport on Monday just days after DeSantis leaves town. Jeanita McNulty, chairwoman of the Scott County GOP, said many local Republicans are uncommitted and she expects to see familiar faces attend both the DeSantis and Trump events.

    “Republicans here are not closing a chapter or opening a new chapter,” she said. “They want to hear from both candidates, see what they have to say.”

    DeSantis did not mention Trump in his remarks in Davenport, but he contrasted his administration against the chaos and leaks that at times engulfed the Trump White House.

    “There’s no drama in our administration,” DeSantis said. “There’s no palace intrigue. (My staffers) basically just sit back and say, ‘OK, what’s the governor going to do next?’ And we roll out and we execute.”

    Nevertheless, in the state where the first votes of the Republican contest are expected to be cast early next year, caution signs abound for DeSantis.

    “He’s riding high for a lot of good reasons. He’s done a great job leading the state of Florida,” Bob Vander Plaats, president of influential Christian group The Family Leader, told CNN before the governor’s visit.

    “But in 2008, [Rudy] Giuliani was the nominee. In 2012, Rick Perry was the nominee. In 2016, Scott Walker was the nominee,” he said, referring to past candidates who failed to live up to lofty early expectations and fizzled before voting began. “For Gov. DeSantis, he has to not just take in all of the poll numbers right now but show he’s really willing to work.”

    Vander Plaats met privately with DeSantis near Naples, Florida, last month.

    In conversations with more than two dozen Republican voters and party activists this week in Iowa, DeSantis’ name came up again and again. To many, his decision to add Iowa to his national book tour highlights his intention to run, though he’s in no hurry to make it official.

    “Pushing a book in Iowa is a fishing expedition,” said Kelley Koch, chairwoman of the Dallas County Republican Party. “I think he will be pleasantly surprised to see how many people come out to the Fairgrounds to see him. People are very curious.”

    It remains unclear the extent to which DeSantis will prioritize Iowa and other early nominating states as he lays the groundwork for a campaign focused on outlasting Trump in the GOP primary. Two people with knowledge of the planning, who asked not to be named, said DeSantis’ political operation is plotting an ambitious, nationwide strategy that will focus as much on competing in Trump strongholds and large, winner-take-all contests as it will in the initial battlegrounds. His travel in recent days to Alabama, Texas and California is an early indication that DeSantis will not be singularly focused on winning over Iowa or New Hampshire, county by county.

    “I think you’ll see some things that are unconventional unfold in short order,” one source said.

    DeSantis has consistently flouted traditional political protocols amid his rise to become Trump’s top GOP rival, and there’s no playbook for challenging a former president in a primary. He has also built a fundraising juggernaut that is carrying over more than $70 million from his 2022 reelection and has raised another $10 million this year through his Florida political committee before even jumping into the mix. CNN previously reported that the governor’s political team expects to shift that money to a DeSantis-aligned federal committee should he run.

    Still, for a first-time presidential candidate who was unknown to most of the country two years ago, forging a national campaign out of the gate would be a precarious and expensive endeavor. It carries the added risk of turning off voters in early states such as Iowa.

    “They expect to meet the candidates, shake their hands and look them in the eye,” said McNulty, the Scott County GOP chairwoman. “That’s the beauty of the first-in-the-nation caucus. It would be unwise to overlook the power of retail politics here.”

    The most recent Republican winners of the Iowa caucuses – Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (2016), Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (2012) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (2008) – all spent considerable time in the state to secure victory. Though, none of them ultimately secured the Republican nomination.

    A source close to DeSantis’ political team said there is a sense among his operation that the political landscape has changed since 2016 to allow for a less conventional campaign.

    “Ron DeSantis has never been successful because he’s the best campaigner. He’s been successful because he’s been the best governor,” the source said. “Primary voters are less concerned if you’re having coffee with them than if you are authentic and doing what you say you’re going to do. I get it that Iowa and New Hampshire voters are used to a certain campaign style, and he’ll have to consider those factors. But Republican primary voters are so concerned with the direction of the country, and those things will be less important.”

    Routine favorable coverage from Fox News and other conservative outlets has allowed DeSantis to introduce himself to many prospective GOP voters already. He will spend much of the coming weeks promoting his book and creating reasons to speak to out-of-state voters, as he did when he rallied with law enforcement unions in New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois last month, sources said. Back home, a fully aligned GOP-led state legislature is expected to send to his desk a slate of ideological bills that will generate more headlines and could become a platform for his campaign.

    “Gov. DeSantis in some ways has an unfair advantage,” Vander Plaats said, “and that’s he’s governor of Florida. That is a large state, and he gets a lot of coverage.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • This is the dynamic that could decide the 2024 GOP race | CNN Politics

    This is the dynamic that could decide the 2024 GOP race | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The same fundamental dynamic that decided the 2016 Republican presidential primaries is already resurfacing as the 2024 contest takes shape.

    As in 2016, early polls of next year’s contest show the Republican electorate is again sharply dividing about former President Donald Trump along lines of education. In both state and national surveys measuring support for the next Republican nomination, Trump is consistently running much better among GOP voters without a college education than among those with a four-year or graduate college degree.

    Analysts have often described such an educational divide among primary voters as the wine track (centered on college-educated voters) and the beer track (revolving around those without degrees). Over the years, it’s been a much more consistent feature in Democratic than Republican presidential primaries. But the wine track/beer track divide emerged as the defining characteristic of the 2016 GOP race, when Trump’s extraordinary success at attracting Republicans without a college degree allowed him to overcome sustained resistance from the voters with one.

    Though the early 2024 polls have varied in whether they place Trump or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the lead overall (with the latest round tilting mostly toward Trump), that same overriding pattern of educational polarization is appearing in virtually all of those surveys, a review of public and private polling data reveals.

    “Trump does seem to have a special ability to make this sort of populist appeal [to non-college voters] and also have a special ability to make college-educated conservatives start thinking about alternatives,” GOP pollster Chris Wilson said in an email. “I think we’ll continue to see a big education divide in his support in 2024.”

    The stark educational split in attitudes toward Trump frames the strategic challenge for his potential rivals in the 2024 race.

    On paper, none of the leading candidates other than DeSantis himself seems particularly well positioned to threaten Trump’s hold on the non-college Republicans who have long been the most receptive audience for his blustery and belligerent messaging. By contrast, most of the current and potential field – including former Governors Nikki Haley and Chris Christie; current Governors Chris Sununu of New Hampshire and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia; former Vice President Mike Pence; and Sen. Tim Scott – appear better suited to attract the white-collar Republicans who have always been the most skeptical of Trump.

    That could create a situation in which there’s too little competition to Trump for voters on the “beer track” and too many options splintering the voters resistant to him on the “wine track.” That was the dynamic that allowed Trump to capture the nomination in 2016 even though nearly two-thirds of college-educated Republicans opposed him through the primaries, according to exit polls, and he didn’t reach 50% of the total vote in any state until the race was essentially decided.

    While the political obstacles facing Trump look greater now than they were then, his best chance of winning in 2024 would likely come from consolidating the “beer track” to a greater extent than anyone else unifies the “wine track” – just as he did in 2016. In each of the past three contested GOP presidential primaries, the electorate have split almost exactly in half between voters with and without college degrees, analyses of the exit polls have found.

    “Right now, unless somebody cracks that code to get competitive with Trump there [among blue-collar Republican voters], it could fall into the old pattern which is the best scenario for him,” said long-time GOP strategist Mike Murphy, who directed the super PAC for Jeb Bush in the 2016 race.

    Jennifer Horn, the former GOP state chair in New Hampshire, added that while Trump’s ceiling is likely lower than in 2016, he could still win the nomination with only plurality support if no one unifies the majority more skeptical of him. “He isn’t going to need 50% to win,” cautioned Horn, a leading Republican critic of Trump.

    The wine track/beer track divide has been a consistent feature of Democratic presidential primary politics since 1968. Since then, a procession of brainy liberal candidates (think Eugene McCarthy in 1968, Gary Hart in 1984, Paul Tsongas in 1992 and Bill Bradley in 2000) have mobilized socially liberal college-educated voters against rivals who relied primarily on support from non-college educated White voters and racial minorities (Robert F. Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Bill Clinton and Al Gore in those same races). In the epic 2008 Democratic primary struggle, the basic divide persisted in slightly reconfigured form as Barack Obama attracted just enough white-collar White and Black voters to beat Hillary Clinton’s coalition of blue-collar Whites and Latinos. Joe Biden in 2020 was mostly a beer track candidate.

    Generally, over those years, the educational divide had not been as important in Republican primary races. More often GOP voters have divided among primary contenders along other lines, including ideology and religious affiliation. Both the 2008 and 2012 GOP races, for instance, followed similar lines in which a candidate who relied primarily on evangelical Christians and the most conservative voters (Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Rick Santorum in 2012) ultimately lost the nomination to another who attracted more support from non-evangelicals and a broader range of mainstream conservatives (John McCain and Mitt Romney).

    The conservative columnist Patrick J. Buchanan, in his long-shot 1992 and 1996 bids for the GOP nomination, pioneered a blue-collar conservatism centered on unwavering cultural conservatism and an economic nationalism revolving around hostility to foreign trade and immigration. Huckabee and even more so Santorum advanced those themes, clearing a path that Trump would later follow – with a much harsher edge than either.

    In 2008, there was no educational divide in the GOP race: McCain won exactly the same 43% among Republican voters with and without a college degree, according to a new analysis of the exit poll results by CNN polling director Jennifer Agiesta. But by 2012, Santorum’s blue-collar inroads meant Romney won the nomination with something closer to the Republican equivalent of a wine-track coalition: Of the 20 states that conducted exit polls that year, Romney won voters with at least a four-year college degree in 14, but he carried most non-college voters in just 10.

    Wilson, the GOP pollster, said that an educational divide also started appearing around that time in other GOP primaries for Senate, House and governor’s races more frequently though by no means universally.

    “This wasn’t always the driving demographic or ideological difference in primaries before Trump,” Wilson said. “Sometimes a candidate [who] was particularly strong in sounding populist themes would create this type of gap, but often a more traditional issue difference either on social issues or on issues like tax increase votes or support for Obamacare or something adjacent to it would be a stronger signal in a primary.”

    In 2016, Trump turned this traditional GOP axis on its head. He narrowed the big divisions that had decided the 2008 and 2012 races. He performed nearly as well among voters who identified as very conservative as he did among those who called themselves somewhat conservative or moderate, according to a cumulative analysis of all the 2016 exit polls conducted by ABC’s Gary Langer. Likewise, Trump performed only slightly better among voters who were not evangelicals than those who were, Langer’s analysis found.

    Instead, Trump split the GOP electorate along the wine-track/beer-track divide familiar from Democratic primary contests over the previous generation. According to Langer’s cumulation of the exit polls, Trump won fully 47% of GOP voters without a four-year college degree – an incredible performance in such a crowded field. Trump, in stark contrast, carried only 35% of Republican voters with at least a college-degree across the primaries overall. But the remainder of them dubious of him never settled on a single alternative. Sen. Ted Cruz, who proved Trump’s longest-lasting rival, captured only about one-fourth of the white-collar GOP voters, with the rest splitting primarily among Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Trump himself.

    In October 2015, I wrote that Trump’s emerging strength in the GOP nomination race could be explained in two sentences: “The blue-collar wing of the Republican primary electorate has consolidated around one candidate. The party’s white-collar wing remains fragmented.” That same basic equation held through the primaries and largely explained Trump’s victory. The question now is whether it could happen again.

    There’s no question that some of the same ingredients are present. Recent national polling by the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute, according to detailed results shared with CNN, shows that Republicans without a college degree are more likely than those with advanced education to agree with such core Trump themes as the belief that discrimination against Whites is now as big a problem as bias against minorities; that society is growing too soft and feminine; and that the growing number of immigrants weakens American society.

    The educational divide is also appearing more regularly in other GOP primaries for offices such as senator or governor, especially in races where one candidate is running on a Trump-style platform, Republican strategists say. It is also reappearing in polls measuring GOP voters’ early preferences for 2024. Recent national polls by Quinnipiac University, Fox News Channel and Republican pollsters including Whit Ayres, Echelon Insights and Wilson have all found Trump still running very strongly among Republicans without a college degree, usually capturing more than two-fifths of them, according to detailed results provided by the pollsters. But those same surveys all show Trump struggling with college-educated Republican voters, usually drawing even less support among them than he did in 2016, often just one-fourth or less.

    Wilson, for instance, said that in his national survey of prospective 2024 GOP voters, Trump’s support falls from about half of those with a high school degree or less, to about one-third of those with some college experience, one-fourth of those with a four-year degree and only one-fifth of those with a graduate education. In a recent national NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, half of Republicans without a college degree said nominating Trump again would give the party the best chance of winning in 2024; two-thirds of the Republicans with degrees said the party would have a better chance with someone else.

    State polls are showing the same pattern. The latest University of New Hampshire survey showed Trump attracting about two-fifths of GOP voters there without a high school degree, about one-third of those with some college experience, and only one-sixth of those with a four-year or graduate degree. A recent LA Times/University of California (Berkeley) survey in that state produced very similar results. Trump also ran much better among Republicans without a degree than those with one in the latest OH Predictive Insights primary poll in Arizona, according to detailed results provided by the firm.

    Craig Robinson, the former GOP state party political director in Iowa, said he sees the same divergence in his daily interactions. “The people that I hang out with or have breakfast with on Saturday, it’s the more business, more educated guys, and they are like, ‘Hey, we just want to move on [from Trump],’” Robinson told me. “But if I go back home to rural Iowa, they are not like that. They are looking for the fighter; they are looking for the person that they think will stand up for them and that’s Trump by and large.”

    Republicans who believe Trump is more vulnerable than in 2016 largely point to one reason: the possibility that DeSantis could build a broader coalition of support than any of Trump’s rivals did then. In many of these early state and national polls, DeSantis leads Trump among college educated voters. And in the same polls, DeSantis is generally staying closer to Trump among non-college voters than anyone did in 2016. “DeSantis may be able to do some business there,” said Murphy, referring to the GOP’s blue-collar wing.

    When DeSantis spoke on Sunday at the Ronald Reagan presidential library about an hour northwest of Los Angeles, he smoothly displayed his potential to bridge the GOP’s educational divide. For the first part of his speech, he touted Florida’s economic success around small government principles – a message that could connect with white-collar GOP voters drawn to a Reaganite message of lower taxes and less regulation. In the speech’s later sections, DeSantis recounted his clashes with what he called “the woke mind virus” over everything from classroom instruction about race, gender and sexual orientation, to immigration and crime and his collisions with the Walt Disney Co. Those issues, which drew the biggest response from his audience, provide him a powerful calling card with GOP voters, especially those without degrees, drawn to Trump’s confrontational style, but worried he can’t win again.

    “There is a lot of energy in the party right now around these cultural issues,” said GOP consultant Alex Conant, who served as the communications director for Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign. “If you watch Fox prime time, they are not talking about tax cuts and balancing budgets. They talk about the same cultural issues that DeSantis is putting at the core of his campaign.”

    The risk to DeSantis is that by leaning so hard into cultural confrontation on so many fronts he could create a zero-sum dynamic in the race. That approach could allow him to cut into Trump’s blue-collar base, but ultimately repel some college educated primary voters, who view him as too closely replicating what they don’t like about Trump. (If DeSantis wins the nomination, that same dynamic could hurt him with some suburban voters otherwise drawn to his small government economic message.)

    That could leave room in the top tier of the GOP race for another candidate who offers a sunnier, less polarizing message aimed mostly at white-collar Republicans. “I think there is absolutely room for more than two candidates, especially two candidates who are both competing very hard for the Fox News audience,” Conant said. Almost anyone else who joins the race beyond Trump and DeSantis (assuming he announces later this year) may ultimately conclude that lane represents their best chance to win.

    In many ways, Trump looks more vulnerable than he did in the 2016 primary. But assembling a coalition across the GOP’s wine-track/beer-track divide that’s broad enough to beat him remains something of a Rubik’s Cube, and the countdown is starting for the field that’s assembling against him to solve it.

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  • Republicans grapple with how to nominate someone other than Trump in 2024 | CNN Politics

    Republicans grapple with how to nominate someone other than Trump in 2024 | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    How to stop Donald Trump is the question lighting up Republican circles as some in the party grapple with what it might take to nominate someone other than former president in 2024.

    The disagreement boils down to the other options – and how many of them there should be. Some think a small field with a clear alternative to Trump – perhaps Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – is how the party can best set a new course. Others maintain that a larger field with more competing ideas is needed to reorient the GOP away from the former president.

    “I think the focus here has got to be on eliminating Trump from the nomination process as early as possible,” former Trump national security adviser and now critic John Bolton told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “CNN This Morning” Monday, “and I think it’s very clear that the mistake candidates made in 2016 was in going after each other instead of going after Trump. It’s 20/20 hindsight, but I think it’s the right analysis.”

    This debate was on full display Sunday, when former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a moderate voice in the party who had signaled interest in a White House bid, announced he would not run.

    “The stakes are too high for me to risk being part of another multicar pileup that could potentially help Mr. Trump recapture the nomination,” Hogan said in a statement. His warning harkened back to the 2016 primary, when Trump – whom many observers had initially dismissed – emerged victorious from a heavily splintered group.

    “Right now, you have Trump and DeSantis at the top of the field, soaking up all the oxygen, getting all the attention, and then a whole lot of the rest of us in single digits,” Hogan said in an interview with CBS News that aired Sunday on “Face the Nation.”

    But another former governor who was term-limited from running again in 2022 – Arkansas’ Asa Hutchinson – is still weighing a run, and therefore thinks “more voices” in the race are “good for our party.”

    “I actually think more voices right now in opposition or providing an alternative to Donald Trump is the best thing in the right direction. So hats off to Larry for what he’s done, what he’s contributed. And I’m glad that he will continue to do so,” Hutchinson told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday.

    Of course, Hogan and Hutchinson, both critics of Trump, come from different political geographies, which could also be informing their views of the race and their place in it. Hogan governed a blue state that voted for President Joe Biden by more than 30 points in 2020, while Hutchinson — who said he’ll make a decision in April — led a state that backed Trump by nearly 30 points.

    Hutchinson argued that “this is not 2016” and 2024 will be “different” because Trump is a “known quantity.” He also said that evangelical Christian voters “are convinced that we need to have a different type of leadership in the future.”

    “In the early stages, multiple candidates that have an alternative vision to what the president has is good for our party, good for the debate, good for the upcoming debate that will be in August,” Hutchinson said.

    “So, sure, that will narrow, and it will probably narrow fairly quickly. We need to have a lot of self-evaluation as you go along, but I think more voices now that provide alternative messages and problem-solving and ideas is good for our party,” he added.

    At this point, there are just two major declared GOP candidates — Trump and former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. But plenty of others are circling the waters, such as former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.

    “He’s not going to be the nominee. That’s just not going to happen,” Sununu said of Trump on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, predicting that if nominating contests were held today, DeSantis would win in New Hampshire.

    The entrance of Haley last month, however, may have already helped prove Hogan’s point. As CNN data reporter Harry Enten wrote this weekend:

    Trump is a clear, though not prohibitive, favorite to win next year’s Republican nomination for president. Right now, he’s averaging about 44% in the national primary polls. He’s 15 points ahead of DeSantis, who is at 29%.

    A 15-point lead may not seem impressive at this early stage of the primary campaign, but it’s notable for two reasons.

    The first is that most candidates in Trump’s position right now have gone on to win their primary. … The second reason Trump’s advantage over DeSantis is notable is that it’s growing. …

    DeSantis has also had to deal with former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley declaring her bid for the presidency. The twice-elected South Carolina governor is polling a little better than she previously was (though still below 10%), but that only further divides the non-Trump vote.

    Haley has already taken the gloves off, speaking at a private retreat in Palm Beach, Florida, hosted by the conservative anti-tax group Club for Growth, where DeSantis was also a featured speaker. The former South Carolina governor took a shot at Trump, who was headlining the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, on Saturday.

    “I know there’s a Republican candidate out there who you did not invite to this conference,” Haley said, according to the text of her speech as prepared for delivery.

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  • Trump and DeSantis stake out sharpest preview yet of possible 2024 showdown | CNN Politics

    Trump and DeSantis stake out sharpest preview yet of possible 2024 showdown | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Ex-President Donald Trump and his most serious potential rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, laid out with unprecedented clarity this weekend how their sharply contrasting personalities and approaches would define the 2024 race for the Republican nomination.

    Trump served up his familiar brew of fury, falsehoods and dishonest braggadocio at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, billing himself as the only man who could save the planet from World War III, girding his adoring supporters for their “final battle” against communists, globalists and the “Deep State,” and declaring: “I am your retribution.”

    “We will beat the Democrats, we will rout the fake news media, we will expose and appropriately deal with the RINOs (Republicans in Name Only). We will evict Joe Biden from the White House and we will liberate America from these villains and scoundrels once and for all,” Trump told the crowd at a Maryland convention center outside Washington on Saturday.

    DeSantis, who is yet to declare a campaign, used an appearance at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California on Sunday to channel the same conservative anger at what he claims is a left-wing “woke” elite takeover of politics, education, Covid-19 public health policy and big business, tapping into the modern Republican Party’s driving ideological force. Yet he offered a far more specific blueprint than Trump for a disruption of government as Americans know it, strongly implying that after implementing hardline conservatism in the Sunshine State, he could deliver the policy goals that often eluded Trump in his chaotic White House term.

    “I can tell you in four years, you didn’t see our administration leaking like a sieve, you didn’t see a lot of drama or palace intrigue,” said DeSantis, whose punch-by-punch speaking style is far more ordered and methodical than Trump’s wild flights of rhetoric. “What you saw was surgical, precision execution. Day after day after day. And because we did that, we beat the left day after day after day.”

    The back-to-back speeches, which highlighted two Republicans who would be the early favorites if DeSantis gets into the GOP nominating race, came with a slice of irony. The split screen captured their party’s unresolved ideological split that Trump engineered in 2016 when he crushed establishment candidates. CPAC, where Trump spoke, for decades kept alive the flame of the two-term president Reagan, who redefined the conservative movement when he won the 1980 election and left a legacy that dominated the GOP until Trump arrived. Once a rite of passage for potential GOP presidential candidates, CPAC has since become a platform for Trump’s personality cult. DeSantis did not speak there, instead appearing last week at a dueling Club for Growth donor conference to which Trump was not invited.

    Speaking in the shadow of Reagan’s former Air Force One on Sunday, DeSantis appeared to be staking a claim to both the reforming zeal of the 40th president and offering an updated, more targeted – yet still searing – version of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” populism, although stripped of the uproarious distractions typical of the most recent Republican president. He seemed to be trying to build a conservative coalition that would appeal to Republicans who have soured on Trump after his record of two impeachments, a US Capitol insurrection and a disastrous intervention in the 2022 midterm elections, but that might also peel away some Trump supporters who still love their champion but doubt that he has the discipline and appeal needed to win a national election again.

    Still, if DeSantis were to win the Republican nomination, there would likely be questions over whether his own radicalism would hurt him in the same swing state districts where Trump lost the 2020 election – even notwithstanding a public persona that is more disciplined than Trump’s. There’s not much subtlety in his rhetoric about a “woke mind virus”: Much of the Florida governor’s phrasing comes with the implication that anyone who does not share his views is, by definition, a left-wing extremist. And he would essentially be promising Americans one of the most right-wing presidencies of modern history.

    DeSantis was not the only possible alternative to Trump who laid out his case in recent days. Former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who has already launched a campaign, and ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who may do so, both braved the lions’ den at CPAC, and both launched veiled attacks on their former boss.

    “If you’re tired of losing, put your trust in a new generation,” Haley said, playing into criticisms that both Trump, 76, and Biden, 80, should yield to younger leaders.

    Pompeo, who, like his former Cabinet colleague got a fairly tepid reception on the ex-president’s turf, stacked his speech with plausible deniability to avoid taking on Trump directly. But one remark could be read as as much of a criticism of the ex-president as the Democrats he specifically targeted when he said: “We can’t become the left, following celebrity leaders with their own brand of identity politics, those with fragile egos who refuse to acknowledge reality.”

    Another potential Republican candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, was on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday and attacked Trump’s fearsome culture war talk.

    “If you want to heal our land and unite our country together, you don’t do it by appealing to the angry mob,” Hutchinson told Dana Bash.

    “Wherever you’re looking at the leader of our country, you don’t want him to be engaged in a personal vendetta. And when he talks about vengeance, he’s talking about his personal vendettas, and that’s not healthy for America. It’s certainly not healthy for our party.’

    One other potential anti-Trump GOP candidate, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, however, announced on Sunday that he would pass on the 2024 race to avoid splintering the opposition to the ex-president.

    “Right now, you have Trump and DeSantis at the top of the field soaking up all the oxygen, getting all the attention, and then a whole lot of the rest of us in single digits. And the more of them you have, the less chance you have for somebody rising up,” Hogan told CBS News.

    If Hogan’s reluctant decision to bow out foreshadows similar decisions by other long-shot candidates, it could point to a Republican nominating race that does not replicate the fracturing of the anti-Trump vote that helped his remarkable rise to power in 2016. But that would also fuel the possibility of a long and bitter nominating race between Trump and DeSantis through a swathe of winner-take-all primaries – if the Florida governor decides to get into the race.

    Given his strong hold on the Republican base, Trump is likely to be seen as the favorite for the nomination, but he appears to recognize the potential threat he faces from DeSantis, and has already accused him of disloyalty after endorsing him in his first race for the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee.

    But DeSantis, in his new book published last week, puts his success in that first gubernatorial campaign down to a “massive swing” powered by a strong Republican primary debate performance that took place after he won Trump’s endorsement. And he is seeking to distinguish himself as a winner compared to Trump by citing his thumping reelection victory last fall, which stands in implicit contrast to the ex-president’s national reelection loss.

    “We went from winning by 32,000 votes in 2018 to winning by over 1.5 million votes in 2022. We earned the largest percentage of the vote that any Republican governor candidate received in Florida history,” DeSantis said on Sunday.

    Yet the events of the weekend also pointed to some of the potential liabilities for DeSantis in any attempt to take down Trump. While his speech at the Reagan Library demonstrated a talent for explaining policy and a conversational style, he lacked the showmanship skills that Trump has long used to dominate Republican politics. Trumpism has always been more of a visceral and emotional backlash than an exercise in actually implementing ideological conservatism.

    Perhaps GOP voters are so keen to win back the presidency that they will look for a change. But in his speech at CPAC, which echoed the “American Carnage” themes of his inaugural address, Trump gave notice to DeSantis and the rest of the country that he will fight with everything he has to win the White House again. He told reporters that even if he is indicted in federal or state investigations against him, he will still not drop out of the race.

    “At the end of the day, anyone else will be intimidated, bought off, blackmailed or ripped to shreds. I alone will never retreat,” Trump said.

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  • Ron DeSantis knocks Republicans who act ‘like potted plants’ in remarks to GOP donors | CNN Politics

    Ron DeSantis knocks Republicans who act ‘like potted plants’ in remarks to GOP donors | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a closed-door speech to donors Thursday, sought to cement himself as the governor who will go places other Republicans will not as he accused fellow GOP leaders of sitting back in the cultural fights “like potted plants,” according to audio of his remarks obtained by CNN.

    “I’m going on offense,” DeSantis said at a retreat hosted by the conservative Club for Growth. “Some of these Republicans, they just sit back like potted plants, and they let the media define the terms of the debate. They let the left define the terms of debate. They take all this incoming, because they’re not making anything happen. And I said, ‘That’s not what we’re doing.’”

    DeSantis’ remarks come as the Club for Growth searches for a new 2024 party standard-bearer to support over former President Donald Trump. In addition to DeSantis, the anti-tax group has summoned other potential 2024 contenders – including former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley – to Trump’s backyard in Palm Beach to speak with its backers.

    David McIntosh, the Club’s president who introduced DeSantis at The Breakers Palm Beach resort, told CNN that the governor “gave a great speech that was well received.” The 40-minute address received multiple rounds of applause.

    DeSantis notably did not reference the 2024 presidential race during his lengthy remarks. However, he defined himself as a leader of not only Florida but the country as a whole, detailing what he saw as his “courage to lead” in a political environment when others are afraid to “step out and fight back.” It’s a theme that DeSantis leans into in his new book,”The Courage to Be Free,” which he released on Tuesday and has spent the week promoting on Fox News and in events throughout Florida.

    DeSantis’ remarks to the Club for Growth were first reported by Fox News. A spokesperson for the governor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    A source familiar with DeSantis’ remarks told CNN that the governor showed up late to Thursday’s event and immediately left after his speech without talking to anyone. CNN previously reported that GOP donors have expressed frustration that DeSantis rarely lingers at gatherings, and he has earned a reputation for ducking out of events with guests still waiting for a photo. DeSantis hosted his own donor gathering in Palm Beach last weekend that was aimed at addressing those concerns.

    In his speech before the traditionally business-friendly audience, DeSantis also defended his strong-arming of corporations and Wall Street, and criticized CEOs as being “just weak” for giving into what he described as the “woke mob” that pushes environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) policies, among other “leftist” issues.

    “I think these companies should just stay out of this stuff. I don’t think it’s good for our economy,” the governor said. “I don’t think it’s good for society to have every decision that’s made in politics have corporate America weighing in.”

    Some Republicans have bristled at DeSantis’ heavy-handed use of executive power to impose his ideology on private businesses. His moves to punish Disney for speaking out against a Florida measure to restrict certain lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in schools has especially attracted criticism from the right. Several potential 2024 rivals, including Pence and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, have seized on DeSantis’ top-down governing style to draw sharp contrasts with the popular governor.

    DeSantis on Thursday dismissed the criticism from people who “claim to be on the right.”

    “Republicans need to not shy away from these fights just because the media and the left are going to call you names,” he said.

    Ahead of DeSantis’ upcoming visit this weekend to California, where he’ll appear at the Reagan Library and also deliver a speech at a fundraiser for the Orange County Republican Party, he took a shot at the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, for being “preoccupied” with DeSantis and Florida.

    Newsom often posts criticism of DeSantis on social media and this past July 4, he took to the Sunshine State’s airwaves, paying $105,000 to run an ad on Fox News in Florida that declared, “Freedom is under attack in your state.”

    “Literally, how many other governors does anyone even care about? I mean, when you go to California, they got all these problems there. Their governor’s preoccupied with me and what we’re doing in Florida. … It’s incredible,” DeSantis said Thursday. “And honestly, I just know that game. If they’re not shooting that means you’re not getting anything done. That they’re coming after me because I’m standing up for the people that I represent. I view that as positive reinforcement.”

    DeSantis also spoke at length about his recent legislation giving him more control over Disney’s special tax district, and described the entertainment giant’s management as caving in to “woke ideology.”

    “I believe woke ideology is pernicious. I believe what’s at stake is not just ‘My policies are good,’” he said. “We should not all be suffering under the cloak of wokeness. … This issue with Disney is a good example of that. … They were basically a law unto themselves, and they got away with it for a long time because they were so powerful. They were the 800-pound gorilla, but they made the mistake of trying to stick their nose into sensitive matters involving children, involving education, and involving family.”

    DeSantis also went into detail about stacking Florida’s school boards with conservatives and his plan to fight “critical race theory” in schools.

    “Gender ideology … not happening in Florida, critical race theory, not allowed in the state of Florida,” the governor said, garnering applause from the audience.

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  • GOP grapples with how to control Trump — again | CNN Politics

    GOP grapples with how to control Trump — again | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    GOP leaders are sending warnings that they want former President Donald Trump to play by the rules and put his party above his own interests as he embarks on a third campaign – that is, to behave in a way he rarely, if ever, has before.

    Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel gave the clearest sign yet on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that 2024 GOP White House candidates will have to pledge to back the party’s presidential nominee if it isn’t them – or risk being banned from the debate stage.

    “I think it’s kind of a no-brainer, right?” McDaniel told Dana Bash, adding that formal criteria haven’t yet been established for the first debate in August. “If you’re going to be on the Republican National Committee debate stage asking voters to support you, you should say, ‘I’m going to support the voters and who they choose as the nominee,’” McDaniel added.

    The former president, who signed a loyalty pledge in 2015, responded with his typical hubris on Sunday, despite recent polling showing that enthusiasm for him among the GOP isn’t what it used to be. “President Trump will support the Republican nominee because it will be him,” a campaign spokesperson told CNN in response to McDaniel’s prediction there’d be a loyalty pledge required of candidates.

    Trump has already said that whether he would back someone other than himself as the 2024 Republican nominee would depend on who the candidate was. Given that he is attacking his potential primary rivals, especially high-flying Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the potential for new party splits is growing.

    Ever since Trump took control of the GOP with his 2016 nomination and victory, the party has almost always capitulated to his unruly instincts and crushing of rules and conventions – most notoriously appeasing his extremism during two impeachments. Many GOP lawmakers amplified his false claims of electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential election and whitewashed his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

    Yet Trump’s intervention in last year’s midterm elections, when many of his election-denying acolytes lost in swing states and helped to quell a Republican red wave, highlighted how his own priorities may diverge from his party’s. Some Republican leaders blame Trump and the way he alienates more moderate, suburban voters for the party’s disappointing performances when they lost the House in 2018, the Senate and White House in 2020 and fell short of expectations in 2022, even though they flipped the House. As a result, some top GOP donors and opinion formers have argued that it’s time for the party to move on from a candidate who is radioactive with many voters and who could thwart their chances of defeating President Joe Biden in an expected reelection bid. It remains to be seen if this view is shared among Trump’s longtime base.

    Questions about whether Trump would support DeSantis as nominee – or anyone else who might beat him – stemmed from a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt earlier this month.

    “It would depend. I would give you the same answer I gave in 2016 during the debate. … It would have to depend on who the nominee was,” Trump said.

    It would be a nightmare scenario for the GOP if Trump were to lose the party’s nominating contest next year but spend the general election railing against the party’s presidential pick. Even small defections among Trump’s devoted grassroots political base could be critical in the kind of swing state races that decided the last two presidential elections.

    Trump acts as if he is entitled to his third consecutive spot at the top of the Republican Party’s presidential ticket. But that assumption will face a new test this week when DeSantis, whom Trump has already accused of disloyalty for considering a White House run, promotes and releases a new book in a rite of passage for potential presidential candidates.

    Trump has also lashed out at Nikki Haley, who served as his ambassador to the United Nations and has launched a 2024 bid rooted in calls for a new generation of American political leadership. Both Trump and Haley are scheduled to speak at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, DC. DeSantis, meanwhile, is scheduled to attend events in Texas and California.

    While requiring debate candidates to sign a pledge to support the nominee would be a show of party unity and would, in effect, be an attempt to box Trump in, it would hardly be enforceable should the ex-president not win the nomination. Given that Trump already falsely claimed the 2020 general election, which he lost fair and square, was marred by voter fraud, it’s hardly far-fetched to believe he may trash any nomination process that he doesn’t win.

    But McDaniel said on CNN that she was sure that all the candidates would sign such a pledge, noting Trump had signed on in the 2016 race and raising the leverage that the party has in getting all of the candidates on board.

    “I think they all want to be on the debate stage. I think President Trump would like to be on the debate stage. That’s what he likes to do,” McDaniel told Bash.

    The RNC head, who just won her own contested reelection, also warned that the GOP has lost big races in the midterms “because of Republicans refusing to support other Republicans. And unless we fix this in our party, unless we start coming together, we will not win in 2024.”

    McDaniel may also have a problem beyond Trump, since some possible GOP 2024 contenders have warned that following his role in inciting a mob attack on Congress in one of the most damaging blows to US democracy in modern times, the ex-president is no longer fit to carry the party’s banner or for the presidency.

    Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said on CBS this month that Trump had “disqualified himself and should not serve our country again as a result of what happened” on January 6, 2021. But Hutchinson did not say whether he would decline to endorse Trump if he were the nominee. Another possible anti-Trump candidate, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, suggested to Hewitt this month that he would support the ex-president if he was the party’s nominee but later said on Twitter, “Trump won’t commit to supporting the Republican nominee, and I won’t commit to supporting him.”

    One reason why the question of whether Trump would endorse a nominee other than himself in 2024 is so topical is because of some early signs that the former president might not have quite the hold on his party as he once did. His campaign hasn’t exactly caught fire since he launched it last fall. Some recent polls, while too far out from primary voting to be decisive, suggest that DeSantis is closely matched with Trump – even if other candidates like Haley and potential candidates like ex-Vice President Mike Pence trail in single figures.

    After his bumper reelection win in Florida in November, DeSantis is seen by some party figures as representative of Trump’s populist, cultural and “America First” principles without the indiscipline and scandal that follows the ex-president. The Florida governor has adopted Trump’s pugilistic partisan style, telling Fox News host Mark Levin on Sunday that he had made “the Democratic Party in our state, basically, a rotten carcass on the side of the street.”

    It remains a question, however, how DeSantis would stand up to Trump’s searing attacks on a debate stage. And many once vaunted candidates – like former Govs. Jeb Bush of Florida and Scott Walker of Wisconsin – have looked strong in theory, only to see their campaigns flame out when they hit the trail.

    Still, McDaniel’s message on Sunday shows the depth of party concern that an untamed Trump could again severely impair the Republican Party’s hopes of winning the White House and control of Congress.

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  • Can any Republican beat Trump or DeSantis in 2024? | CNN Politics

    Can any Republican beat Trump or DeSantis in 2024? | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Polls show the 2024 Republican primary is a contest between former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and everybody else. The “everybody else” group includes candidates such as former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who look like they’re itching to get into the race despite only polling in the single digits.

    But if Trump and DeSantis are the front-runners, what is the chance one of these single-digits candidates (e.g., Haley or former Vice President Mike Pence) can actually win the nomination?

    It’s not nothing, but the odds clearly favor either Trump or DeSantis becoming the 2024 GOP nominee.

    Trump (polling in the low 40s) and DeSantis (in the low 30s) are each above 30% nationally on average, while no other candidate reaches double digits.

    Historically, only a few candidates have polled above 35%, on average, in early polling (i.e., January to June in the year before the primary) in the modern primary era (i.e., since 1972). Most of them have gone on to win the nomination.

    The two who didn’t are familiar to most political junkies: Democrats Ted Kennedy in 1980 and Hillary Clinton in 2008. The other six (not counting mostly unopposed incumbents) each ended up as their party’s nominee, meaning that 75% of candidates who were at 35% or above in early polling went on to win their primary.

    Importantly for this year, Kennedy and Clinton didn’t lose to candidates who were polling poorly in the early going. The eventual nominees (President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Barack Obama in 2008) were both polling above 20% over the January to June period in the year before the primary.

    In fact, 40% of the eventual nominees in competitive primaries since 1972 were polling in the 20% to 35% range – a recent example is now-President Joe Biden back in 2019.

    Now, does this mean that anybody in this “everybody else” group (i.e., those polling in the single digits) is doomed from the start? Not exactly.

    For one thing, history doesn’t necessarily tell us what is going to happen in the future.

    Moreover, there have been single-digit candidates in the early polling who ended up winning the nomination. Trump was one of them. Remember, he struggled to reach 5% in early 2015 before gaining a national polling lead that he rarely relinquished over the rest of the primary season.

    Trump wasn’t the only candidate polling in the single digits early on to later win his party’s nod. George McGovern in 1972, Carter in 1976, Michael Dukakis in 1988 and Bill Clinton in 1992 all barely registered in the national polls in the January to June period before the primaries began.

    All told, five of the 17 candidates to win nominations without an incumbent running in the primary (i.e., 30% of them) were polling under 10% in the early polls.

    Nevertheless, single-digit candidates face a two-fold problem this cycle.

    The first is that most candidates poll below 10% in the early polls. So while it wouldn’t necessarily be shocking for a candidate from this group to ultimately win the nomination, the probability of any single candidate doing so is low. Historically, less than 5% of candidates polling in the single digits at this point actually win the nomination.

    The second is that it’s worth examining the years in which early single-digit candidates emerged as the eventual winners.

    Carter, Dukakis, Bill Clinton and Trump were all running in years in which there wasn’t a polling front-runner (or front-runners). The leading candidates in the national primary polls in each of those cycles were at 20% or less. The early polling leader in 1992 was New York Gov. Mario Cuomo (at 20%), and he ended up not running.

    There has been an exception, of course.

    McGovern won the Democratic nomination in 1972 when there were two candidates polling in the 20s and one in the low 30s in the early surveys of that primary. I’m not exactly sure how applicable the 1972 cycle is to 2024 given that was the first year of the modern primary era, when it wasn’t clear exactly how early-state momentum could dictate the nomination process. Even so, McGovern’s win is notable.

    Another notable polling ascent happened during the 1984 Democratic primary. Gary Hart didn’t get above 5% in the national polls in either the first or second half of 1983. The Colorado senator was far behind the eventual nominee (former Vice President Walter Mondale) who was polling in the 30s in the first half of 1983 and in the 40s in the second half of the year.

    While Mondale eventually emerged victorious, Hart finished close behind. The 1984 race (like potentially 2024, with DeSantis) featured another much-hyped candidate (Ohio Sen. John Glenn) who was polling above 20% in early polling. Glenn, of course, flamed out.

    Again, I’m not saying DeSantis is like Glenn. My belief is that the 2024 GOP nominee is likely going to be either DeSantis or Trump.

    But what I am saying is that while Trump or DeSantis are the odds-on favorites for the nomination, there is enough history of low-polling candidates later gaining traction to at least be open to the idea that a Haley, Pence or somebody else could, if nothing else, make things interesting come voting time.

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  • It Sure Looks Like Donald Trump Is Announcing His 2024 Run for President Tonight

    It Sure Looks Like Donald Trump Is Announcing His 2024 Run for President Tonight

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    Donald Trump has not made a secret of his intention to run for president again in 2024, and it looks like tonight is the night he’ll be officially announcing his next campaign.

    This is a bit surprising since initially, he was expected to ride the “red wave” of Republican midterm wins into a victorious announcement. But the party—and specifically the conspiracy-loving, election-denying MAGA candidates Trump endorsed—got trounced in the midterms. But he is still pushing forward because, according to sources close to him who spoke to CBS news, he’s worried he’ll look “weak” if he doesn’t move aggressively no matter what. Which, if we’re being honest, is actually not surprising in the slightest.

    Trump is scheduled to make a “big” announcement from Mar-a-Lago tonight at 9pm ET. It would be absolutely hilarious if he ended up announcing something other than his candidacy but the chances of that seem extremely low.

    A screenshot of a post from Donald Trump
    (Truth Social)

    What did Trump say about Ron DeSantis?

    Another big sign that Trump is gearing up for this specific announcement: He’s using his Truth Social account to lash out and mock Florida Governor Rod DeSantis, who is expected to be a Republican frontrunner in the 2024 presidential race and therefore Trump’s biggest competition at the moment.

    Trump has been very pointedly highlighting DeSantis’s history of support. Extremely subtle!

    Can Donald Trump run for president again?

    Having only served one term in office, there’s nothing to stop Trump from running for president again. There are a lot of reasons why he shouldn’t be able to run—like, you know, how he inspired and encouraged a violent attempt to overturn the last election.

    But since he hasn’t actually been convicted of any crimes in relation to his role in the January 6 insurrection or the larger campaign to overturn a legitimate election, he can, legally, still run for office.

    If he were found to have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [United States], or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” that would bar him from serving in the government under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It would not, however, prevent him from running—just from serving if he won. Also, even if he were in prison (we can dream!) he could actually still run a campaign for president.

    With nothing to stop him from announcing his campaign tonight, I guess we just have to hope he gets absolutely humiliated during his run. When it comes to DeSantis, the enemy of our enemy is, well, not our friend. But this is bound to be peak “let them fight” fodder moving forward.

    (image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

    —The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

    Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

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    Vivian Kane

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  • Donald Trump just sent Ron DeSantis a 2024 warning shot | CNN Politics

    Donald Trump just sent Ron DeSantis a 2024 warning shot | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    On the day of the 2022 general election, Donald Trump sent a very clear 2024 message to Ron DeSantis: Stay out of the race or else.

    “I would tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering – I know more about him than anybody – other than, perhaps, his wife,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News Digital.

    (Trump, a Florida resident, did say Tuesday that he had voted for DeSantis for another term as governor.)

    Trump’s rhetoric is the most open threat he has made against DeSantis in recent weeks. At a rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend, Trump referred to DeSantis as “Ron DeSanctimonious.”

    That nickname came less than a month after Trump called it a “BIG MISTAKE” when DeSantis endorsed Colorado Republican Senate nominee Joe O’Dea. O’Dea had previously told CNN’s Dana Bash that he would “actively” oppose the former president if he ran for the White House in 2024.

    And it comes after Trump has repeatedly insisted that DeSantis would be unwise to run against him. “If I faced him, I’d beat him like I would beat everyone else,” Trump told Yahoo Finance in October of last year of DeSantis. “I think most people would drop out, I think he would drop out.”

    That may be a bit of wishful thinking by Trump.

    DeSantis appears to be on the verge of a victory Tuesday over former Gov. Charlie Crist, a win that could serve as a springboard for a 2024 bid. As Politico has noted, DeSantis raised $200 million – a staggering sum – for his reelection race and had $90 million left in the bank.

    He has also avoided bowing and scraping to Trump as so many other elected Republican officials have done. DeSantis did not even seek Trump’s endorsement in his 2022 campaign.

    Trump has routinely said that he effectively created DeSantis by endorsing him in the 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary. He repeated that claim on Tuesday in an interview with NewsNation.

    “He was not going to be able to even be a factor in the race, and as soon as I endorsed him, within moments the race was over,” Trump said. “I got him the nomination. He didn’t get it, I got it. Because the minute I made that endorsement, he got it. I thought that he could have been more gracious, but that’s up to him.”

    There’s no question that Trump’s endorsement helped DeSantis, who was, at the time, a relatively unknown member of Congress. But since then, DeSantis has emerged as a force all his own. He was openly skeptical of shutdowns triggered by Covid-19. He has positioned himself as perhaps the most vocal opponent in the country of the teaching of critical race theory and other allegedly “woke” policies.

    Most polling done on the 2024 GOP primary race shows Trump comfortably ahead. But DeSantis often garners double-digit support – usually the only other Republican contender to do so.

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  • As Election Day approaches, Trump-DeSantis 2024 rivalry seeps into the public | CNN Politics

    As Election Day approaches, Trump-DeSantis 2024 rivalry seeps into the public | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    When Election Day arrives in Florida, Donald Trump will vote for a Republican whose political demise he may soon find himself plotting.

    Months after Trump told The Wall Street Journal he would support Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ bid for reelection, the former President and his home-state governor appear increasingly likely to collide in a heated 2024 presidential primary. While neither has formally announced a presidential campaign, both have taken steps in the closing days of the 2022 cycle to cement themselves as team players and kingmakers – locking horns in those pursuits.

    “We have a rift with Trump. Big shocker,” said a source close to the DeSantis campaign, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It’s no secret that things are cool between [Trump and DeSantis] right now. They’re not punching each other, but we’re not helping them and they’re not helping us.”

    A rivalry that had mostly existed behind the scenes burst into public view this week after DeSantis recorded a robocall endorsing Republican businessman Joe O’Dea, an underdog in the Colorado Senate race who vowed earlier this month to “actively campaign” against Trump if he mounts a third presidential bid. While the Florida governor has supported other Republican midterm candidates, none of them have been as explicitly critical of Trump as O’Dea.

    The move did not go unnoticed by the former President, who has spent months griping to aides about DeSantis and amplifying claims that he would handily beat the governor in a Republican primary.

    “A BIG MISTAKE!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform of DeSantis endorsing O’Dea. Three days later, Trump announced plans for a rally in South Florida with the state’s senior senator, Marco Rubio. DeSantis was not invited, a source told CNN.

    The first signs of a strain in Trump’s relationship with DeSantis began last fall amid the Florida Republican’s soaring popularity and thinly veiled criticism of Trump’s Covid-19 policies as president.

    Despite efforts by allies of both men to defuse tensions, their strained relationship has persisted for months and now appears at a crescendo as Trump readies a post-midterm 2024 campaign announcement and DeSantis barrels toward reelection with potentially historic support from Florida Hispanics.

    “Trump has to be concerned because DeSantis has built an unprecedented base in the Hispanic community,” said one Florida-based Republican consultant.

    DeSantis has also spent the past year making inroads with deep-pocketed Republican donors and laying the groundwork for a potential 2024 campaign launch next year, according to allies, some of whom said he doesn’t want to rush his potential entry into what is likely to be a crowded primary. It’s those overt steps toward a White House bid that have most irritated the former President.

    Days after Trump slammed the Florida governor for endorsing in the Colorado Senate contest, DeSantis committed another cardinal sin in the eyes of the former President when he once again refused to rule out a presidential run if Trump is a candidate. During a Monday debate against his Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, DeSantis declined to commit to serving a four-year term if reelected, standing in silence as his opponent repeatedly raised the subject. Privately, Trump allies gloated over the debate, questioning DeSantis’ ability to endure a debate against Trump.

    “DeSantis did fine for a race he’s crushing,” said one Republican operative who has worked with both men. “It’s a whole different ballgame when he’s on a stage next to Donald Trump. Trump has a way of very effectively getting under people’s skin, especially on the debate stage.”

    Other Republicans dismissed such takeaways as premature – even unfair – given DeSantis’ clear edge in his reelection race and Trump’s inimitable debate style.

    “I don’t think that debate mattered at all,” said Brian Ballard, a Florida-based Republican consultant who maintains close ties to both Trump and DeSantis.

    “Donald Trump on the debate stage is the most unique political animal in 100 years. Everybody got decimated by him [in 2016],” Ballard added. “I believe Ron DeSantis can hold his own against anybody, but Donald Trump is his own character.”

    For months, Trump has worked to cast himself as the automatic front-runner in a contested 2024 primary while asking his own pollsters to identify whether DeSantis or others pose a serious threat.

    In perhaps his most direct jab at DeSantis yet, the former President reposted a video to his Truth Social site this week in which former Fox News host Megyn Kelly confidently predicted that Trump would emerge on top in a contest against DeSantis. Kelly repeatedly sparred with Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign, both as a debate moderator and prime-time commentator, but in the video shared by Trump she suggested the former President’s base remains firmly behind him.

    “You really think the hardcore MAGA is going to abandon Trump for DeSantis? They’re not. They like DeSantis, but they don’t think it’s his turn,” Kelly says in the clip, adding that “the hardcore Trump faithful is unshakable [and] if forced to choose, they will choose Trump.”

    While some Republicans agree with Kelly, others are looking for new blood, exhausted by Trump’s unending legal battles and the media spectacle surrounding him.

    Those close to DeSantis say he is content, for now, to let his election performance do the talking for him. Through mid-October, two political committees behind his reelection effort had spent more than $80 million trying to engineer a lopsided victory that would further bolster his resume and deliver an overwhelming mandate for his agenda.

    But in conversations with donors, DeSantis allies say he is far less dismissive these days when questioned about a White House bid than he was six months ago – something Trump allies have brought to his attention, further irritating him.

    “People are always talking about, wondering about presidential elections in the future and all this stuff,” DeSantis said at a rally Wednesday. “People are concerned about who’s running the country next because no one knows who the hell is running the government now.”

    On the campaign trail, the Florida governor has been beta-testing messages that could set him apart in a presidential primary either with or without Trump as a competitor. He has touted his record on the economy, his management of the pandemic and his battles with businesses, Big Tech and school districts over “woke ideology.” Some say the more he can lean into his accomplishments as governor, the less likely he is to draw comparisons with Trump even as he mimics elements of the former President’s political style – from his hand gestures to his public war on the media.

    “If I were advising him, I would tell him to ignore that stuff. You’re Ron DeSantis 1.0, not anything 2.0,” said Adam Geller, a former Trump campaign pollster and Republican strategist.

    But Trump rallying voters in DeSantis’ state on November 6, two nights before the election, serves as a reminder of how easily he still commands GOP voters. Among Florida Republican operatives, the timing and location of Trump’s event has raised eyebrows. There are Senate battlegrounds considerably more competitive than Florida, where Rubio is favored to defeat Democratic Rep. Val Demings, and neither party has committed significant resources to the state in the closing weeks of the race.

    In announcing the visit, Trump once again claimed credit for DeSantis winning the governor’s mansion through “a historic red wave for Florida in the 2018 midterms” with the former President’s “slate of endorsed candidates up and down the ballot.” But Trump also preemptively took ownership of DeSantis’ reelection, saying he had “molded the Sunshine State into the MAGA stronghold it is today.”

    A person briefed on the matter said the prospect of a Florida rally was first raised during a phone call between Trump and Rubio following the Florida Senate debate earlier this month. Since the rally is being organized by Trump’s political operation, any effort to involve DeSantis would have likely come from the former President’s orbit. But that did not happen, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

    “The Senator and President Trump discussed holding a rally in Florida, like he’s doing for Senate races across the country,” said Elizabeth Gregory, a Rubio campaign spokesperson.

    Miami is also home to several vibrant Latino communities that shifted to the right under Trump and have continued to trend red in the two years since he left office. Trump will land in the city just before Republicans are poised to have their best electoral showing in Miami-Dade County since Jeb Bush won a second term in 2002.

    One Florida-based Republican consultant said he doesn’t think that’s a coincidence.

    “We’re potentially going to see Florida Republicans win Miami-Dade County, and it’s pretty clear Trump’s trying to get down there to take credit,” the consultant said.

    DeSantis’ campaign didn’t ask to join the program for the Trump rally once it was announced, a source told CNN.

    Like Trump, DeSantis has also tried to ascribe greater meaning to Florida’s transformational shift from a purple battleground into a reliably red state. On Wednesday, he told supporters that a big win on Election Day “will send a loud message, I think, across the country to governors in our own party” to follow his example in their states.

    But any tension over who deserves credit for engineering that success is unlikely to matter until after November 8, said Tim Williams, a former Florida GOP campaign strategist.

    “As far as the midterms go, that’s a train that’s approaching so quickly that this Trump-DeSantis feud isn’t going to get in the way of it,” Williams said.

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