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Tag: political action committees

  • Musk tests the role of money in U.S. politics with multimillion-dollar effort to back Trump

    Musk tests the role of money in U.S. politics with multimillion-dollar effort to back Trump

    WASHINGTON — Next week’s presidential election isn’t just a referendum on Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. It’s also a measure of the influence the world’s richest man wields over American democracy.

    Elon Musk, the South African-born tech and business titan, has spent at least $119 million mobilizing Trump’s supporters to back the Republican nominee. His social media platform, X, has become a firehose of pro-Trump propaganda. And he’s playing a starring role in Trump-style rallies in critical battleground states.

    All the while, he’s coming under growing scrutiny. He skipped a hearing on Thursday in a lawsuit over his effort to dole out millions of dollars to registered voters, giveaways legal experts liken to vote buying. He’s being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. And The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Musk regularly communicates with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a potential national security risk because SpaceX, his aerospace company, holds billions of dollars worth of contracts with NASA and the Department of Defense.

    Musk is hardly the only person whose megawealth places him at the nexus of politics, business and foreign policy. But few are working so publicly for a single candidate as Musk, whose expansive business ties and growing bravado pose a vexing test of one unelected person’s political power. His stature is perhaps one of the most tangible consequences of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which eliminated many limits on political giving.

    “This is definitely an election brought to you by Citizens United,” said Daniel I. Weiner, the director of elections and government at the Brennan Center for Justice, who added that the phenomenon was bigger that just Musk. “What this is really about is a transformation of our campaign finance system to one in which the wealthiest donors are playing a central role.”

    Musk did not respond to a request for comment made through his attorney. Tesla, his electric car company, and X did not respond to inquiries. SpaceX disputed parts of The Journal’s reporting in a statement and said it continues to work in “close partnership with the U.S. Government.”

    Musk’s conversion to a self-described “Dark MAGA” Trump warrior is a recent one. In the past, he donated modest sums to both Republicans and Democrats, including $5,000 to Hillary Clinton in 2016, records show. He didn’t contribute to Trump’s political efforts until this year, according to federal campaign finance disclosures.

    He was all in once he did.

    Musk is now leading America PAC, a super political action committee that is spearheading Trump’s get-out-the-vote effort.

    As a newcomer to politics, there have been growing pains.

    Over the summer, America PAC struggled to reach its voter contact goals. Musk brought in a new team of political consultants, Generra Peck and Phil Cox, who worked on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ’ losing Republican presidential primary bid.

    On paper, the numbers have improved. But Republican officials, operatives and activists say in some critical places it’s been difficult to tell how active the PAC’s ground effort has been.

    The PAC’s presence is not perceptible in rural Georgia, according to three Republican strategists who are closely monitoring the ground game in the battleground state. For example, America PAC has shown little evidence of leaving literature behind on doorsteps, as is common when a voter is not home, especially in remote places, the three people said.

    There are also indicators Musk, a tech innovator, has been taken advantage of at his own game. In Nevada, three other people familiar with America PAC’s efforts said hired canvassers paid tech-savvy operatives to digitally manipulate an app used to track their progress — appearing to falsify their data so they could get paid for work that they did not do. Canvassers are typically paid by the number of doors that they knock on.

    There are signs the practice wasn’t limited to Nevada. One person warned America PAC leadership weeks ago that canvasing data from multiple states showed signs that it had been falsified, but their concerns were not acted on, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

    The individuals, like others who provided details about Musk’s political operation, insisted on anonymity to discuss the matter out of fear of retribution.

    Musk has become frustrated with the inner workings of his political organization and has brought in private sector associates, including Steve Davis, president of the Boring company, Musk’s tunnel building company, according to three people with knowledge of the move. Davis’ role with America PAC was previously reported by The New York Times.

    A person close to the PAC disputed that the group had been taken advantage of, suggesting it was a conspiracy theory based on a poor understanding of how political canvassing works. The person insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the innerworkings of the PAC.

    Musk’s leadership of the PAC has not been his only political stumble.

    On Monday, Philadelphia’s district attorney filed a lawsuit to halt Musk’s $1 million cash sweepstakes, which is a part of America PAC’s effort to garner support for Trump. Musk had pledged to give away $1 million a day until the election to voters in battleground states who have signed a petition supporting the Constitution. Legal experts cautioned that the contest was likely illegal, venturing into vote buying territory because participants were required to be registered to vote to win the money.

    Democratic District Attorney Larry Krasner’s suit argues the giveaways amount to an illegal lottery. A state judge put the case on hold on Thursday while a federal court considers taking action. The Department of Justice sent a warning letter to America PAC that the giveaways could violate election law.

    Musk has more riding on the election than just bragging rights.

    The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the main agency that regulates Tesla, has repeatedly proved to be a thorn for the electric car maker run by Musk, which is the primary source of his wealth. The agency is overseeing more than a dozen recalls, some that Tesla resisted. It has also opened investigations that have raised doubts about Musk’s claims that Tesla is close to deploying self-driving vehicles, a key expectation of shareholders and a major driver of Tesla’s lofty share price.

    Earlier this year Tesla disclosed that the Department of Justice and the SEC have requested and subpoenaed information about “Full Self-Driving” capability, vehicle functionality, data privacy and other matters.

    The social media platform X is another Musk company that has drawn interest of the Biden administration. The Federal Trade Commission has probed Musk’s handling of sensitive consumer data after he took control of the company in 2022 but has not brought enforcement action. The SEC has an ongoing investigation of Musk’s purchase of the social media company.

    Musk has been forceful with his political views on the platform, changing its rules, content moderation systems and algorithms to conform with his world view. After Musk endorsed Trump following an attempt on the former president’s life last summer, the platform has transformed into a megaphone for Trump’s campaign, offering an unprecedented level of free advertising that is all but impossible to calculate the value of.

    Many of his troubles, which Musk blames President Joe Biden and Democrats for, could go away if Trump is elected. The former president has mused that Musk could have a formal role in a future Trump administration that focuses on government efficiency — an enormous conflict of interest given Musk’s companies’ vast dealings with the government.

    Musk has even offered to help develop national safety standards for self-driving vehicles, alarming auto safety groups, which also worry that he could interfere with investigations of Tesla.

    “Of course the fox wants to build the henhouse,” said Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety watchdog group.

    That’s also what makes the revelation that Musk has been in regular contact with Putin so troubling to foreign policy experts. The Defense Department and NASA are heavily dependent on SpaceX to launch spy satellites and take astronauts into space. But The Wall Street Journal reported that during one talk, Putin asked Musk not to activate his Starlink satellite system, a subsidiary of SpaceX, over Taiwan as a favor for Chinese President Xi Jinping. Russia has denied that the conversation took place.

    In a statement posted to X, the aerospace company said the Journal story included “long-ago debunked claims” and questioned the relevance of the newspaper’s reporting on Taiwan.

    “Starlink is not available there because Taiwan has not given us a license to operate,” the statement read. “This has nothing to do with Russia or China.”

    National security experts say the revelation that Musk communicated with Putin is still troubling.

    Putin is “a war criminal who is slaughtering civilians. That makes this wrong in my view,” former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul told The Associated Press last week. “You have to decide what team you are on. Are you on the American team or are you on the Russian team?”

    ___

    Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa, and Krisher reported from Detroit. Associated Press writers Alan Suderman in Richmond, Virginia, Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco and Mike Catalini in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.

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  • Musk offers voters $1M to sign PAC petition backing the Constitution

    Musk offers voters $1M to sign PAC petition backing the Constitution

    Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla and Space X and owner of X who’s gone all-in on Republican Donald Trump’s candidacy for the White House, has already committed at least $70 million to help the former president. Now he’s pledging to give away $1 million a day to voters for signing his political action committee’s petition backing the Constitution.

    The giveaway is raising questions and alarms among some election experts who say it is a violation of the law to link a cash handout to signing a petition that also requires a person to be registered to vote.

    Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, the state’s former attorney general, expressed concern about the plan on Sunday.

    “I think there are real questions with how he is spending money in this race, how the dark money is flowing, not just into Pennsylvania, but apparently now into the pockets of Pennsylvanians. That is deeply concerning,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

    A closer look at what’s going on:

    Musk promised on Saturday that he would give away $1 million a day, until the Nov. 5 election, for people signing his PAC’s petition supporting the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech, and the Second Amendment, with its right “to keep and bear arms.” He awarded a check during an event Saturday in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to a man identified as John Dreher. A message left with a number listed for Dreher was not returned Sunday. Musk gave out another check Sunday.

    Musk’s America PAC has launched a tour of Pennsylvania, a critical election battleground. He’s aiming to register voters in support of Trump, whom Musk has endorsed. The PAC is also pushing to persuade voters in other key states. It’s not the first offer of cash the organization has made. Musk has posted on X, the platform he purchased as Twitter before renaming it, that he would offer people $47 — and then $100 — for referring others to register and signing the petition.

    Trump, who was campaigning Sunday in Pennsylvania, was asked about Musk’s giveaway, and said, “I haven’t followed that.” Trump said he “speaks to Elon a lot. He’s a friend of mine” and called him great for the country.

    Some election law experts are raising red flags about the giveaway. Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance lawyer, said the latest iteration of Musk’s giveaway approaches a legal boundary. That’s because the PAC is requiring registration as a prerequisite to become eligible for the $1 million check. “There would be few doubts about the legality if every Pennsylvania-based petition signer were eligible, but conditioning the payments on registration arguably violates the law,” Fischer said in an email.

    Rick Hasen, a UCLA Law School political science professor, went further. He pointed to a law that prohibits paying people for registering to vote or for voting. “If all he was doing was paying people to sign the petition, that might be a waste of money. But there’s nothing illegal about it,” Hasen said in a telephone interview. “The problem is that the only people eligible to participate in this giveaway are the people who are registered to vote. And that makes it illegal.”

    Michael Kang, an election law professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, said the context of the giveaway so close to Election Day makes it harder to make the case that the effort is anything but a incentivizing people to register to vote.

    “It’s not quite the same as paying someone to vote, but you’re getting close enough that we worry about its legality,” Kang said.

    A message seeking comment was left with the PAC on Sunday, as was a request for comment from the Justice Department.

    Typically coordination between campaigns and so-called super PACs had been forbidden. But a recent opinion by the Federal Election Commissioner, which regulates federal campaigns, permitted candidates and these groups to work together in certain cases, including getting out the vote efforts.

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  • Strategist who ran DeSantis’ ill-fated bid is working with Musk to help organize voters for Trump

    Strategist who ran DeSantis’ ill-fated bid is working with Musk to help organize voters for Trump

    Ron DeSantis’ senior political aides were gathered last year at the Florida governor’s campaign headquarters, an office across the street from a Red Lobster on Tallahassee’s north side, planning the announcement of his candidacy for president.

    Some wanted the Republican to go a baseball stadium in Tampa, near where he grew up and starred in Little League, for what they hoped would be a photogenic rally with his young family. Campaign manager Generra Peck supported a different idea, according to people familiar with the matter — one she had quietly been working on for weeks with Elon Musk, the then-new owner of the platform still known at the time as Twitter. The people spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose internal deliberations.

    DeSantis opted for an audio-only conversation with Musk on Twitter Spaces. Initially drawing interest and curiosity, the call was a disaster. The feed crashed due to technical glitches, creating an inauspicious opening for what would ultimately be DeSantis’ ill-fated campaign.

    Peck, who was demoted three months into DeSantis’ candidacy, and Musk are now working together again, this time on a super political action committee, America PAC, dedicated to electing Donald Trump, who beat DeSantis on his way to winning this year’s Republican nomination.

    Trump’s campaign is largely leaving paid canvassing and get-out-the-vote efforts to outside groups such as America PAC, relying on new guidance from the Federal Election Commission that allows campaigns to coordinate with outside groups in ways that were previously not allowed. But in doing so, the campaign has outsourced a core function to a coterie of untested groups that operate independently. Indeed, DeSantis’ decision to have an outside group canvass for him was attributed as one of the reasons his presidential bid failed.

    The small margins that an effective turnout program can achieve could be especially important in a tight presidential race with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, drawing more enthusiasm than when President Joe Biden was seeking reelection.

    America PAC has a charge of identifying likely Trump supporters in key states through door-to-door canvassing and digital outreach. It is among a handful of organizations to which Trump’s team has ceded most of the organizational effort, including Turning Point Action and Faith and Freedom Coalition.

    Its work — and Musk’s role — have drawn an unusual level of interest.

    “America PAC is utilizing the data it collects to register voters and encourage them to vote,” lawyers for the group wrote in an Aug. 7 letter sent to a staffer for Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, whose office was cited in an Aug. 4 CNBC story as investigating the group’s efforts. “Admittedly, not all our plans or strategies are public at this time, but any investigation into our efforts will prove premature and imprudent.”

    Benson’s office, which released the letter, responded two days later by saying it announced a review “in response to concerns that potential Michigan voters were being misled by an America PAC website into believing they were registering to vote when they were, in fact, not.”

    Musk has denied reports that he would fund pro-Trump efforts this year to the tune of $45 million a month. But he has been vocal both in his support of Trump and his boosting of conservative voices on the platform he renamed from Twitter to X.

    “The key values of the PAC are supporting a meritocracy & individual freedom,” Musk wrote in a July post. “Republicans are mostly, but not entirely, on the side of merit & freedom.”

    A year after Trump repeatedly mocked DeSantis’ botched rollout, he appeared on the same platform this week to speak with Musk. But their call was also plagued by glitches and delayed for 40 minutes, followed by a long conversation in which Trump’s audio often sounded slurred.

    “Based on that two-hour X mess, if you get Musk as a client, that’s good, I guess. But if you don’t, you can see how that’s also good,” said Mark Campbell, who managed the winning campaign of Gov. Glenn Youngkin, R-Va., in 2021. “Because as far as Elon Musk’s foray into politics goes, he’s 0 for 2.”

    A spokesman for America PAC declined to comment. Peck did not respond to messages seeking comment.

    In mid-July, America PAC dumped the vendors it had hired for digital strategy, polling, canvassing and advertising. It replaced those vendors with companies linked to Phil Cox, another former DeSantis campaign aide and former executive director of the Republican Governors Association who is a business partner of Peck’s in a firm called P2.

    Peck is not the sole leader of the PAC. In addition to Peck and Cox, Dave Rexrode, another top aide on the Youngkin campaign, is also a senior adviser.

    People familiar with the matter say Peck — and DeSantis — have cultivated close ties with Musk.

    About a month before DeSantis launched his campaign on Twitter Spaces, Peck held a late-night Zoom meeting with Musk, who was overseas, as well as Musk’s friend and fellow tech billionaire David Sacks and pro-DeSantis super PAC chairman Adam Laxalt, about Musk’s interest in contributing to DeSantis’ looming presidential campaign.

    After that meeting, Peck told members of DeSantis’ political team that she expected Musk to be the biggest player in the 20-year history of super PACs, groups that can take unlimited sums and advocate for a candidate as long as they do not coordinate with campaigns.

    From that point on, Peck guarded Musk carefully, the people familiar with the operations said.

    Where typically senior political operatives in contact with major donors hand off those relationships to a campaign’s finance director, Peck did not in Musk’s case, maintaining her role as the single DeSantis campaign conduit to Musk. “It was all her,” one person said.

    Likewise, Peck typically did not involve senior advisers to Never Back Down, the super PAC that DeSantis had entrusted with his organizational efforts in early states, to participate in calls with Musk. Though there are rules that bar coordination between campaigns and super PACs, those can be accommodated in conference calls by asking PAC officials to drop off the call during strategy discussions.

    Peck kept communications with Musk to herself, to the point that top aides were barred from discussing Musk’s interest in the campaign.

    “Nobody was able to talk to engage with the Elon stuff,” the source said. “It was clear during and immediately after the rollout that Generra was the one talking to them, exclusively so.”

    Others in DeSantis’ political orbit said there was no need for Musk to be in contact with the Florida governor’s campaign, that the billionaire defies the profile of even the biggest political donors. Those who say Musk wasn’t in touch with key staff could be voicing bitterness that they didn’t have more access to him, they say.

    Ultimately, Musk is not listed in Federal Election Commission records as having donated either to DeSantis’ campaign or Never Back Down.

    Peck served as campaign policy director on Youngkin’s campaign. Campbell, the campaign manager then, described Peck as “brilliant in the policy area” but said he wasn’t sure about her experience setting up a canvassing operation.

    “If she’s also trying to develop Elon Musk, I’m not sure that’s that different than what a lot of political consultants do, which is put two different sides of their business together, the political and the corporate sides,” Campbell said.

    Canvassing and voter outreach are some of the most visible parts of a campaign, even though some strategists say observers put too much importance on the so-called “ground game.” Campbell argued that both candidates — and not outsiders — would determine the fate of the race.

    “Anything having to do with Musk is all collateral noise,” he said.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, contributed to this report.

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  • Kentucky Democratic Gov. Beshear forms PAC to support candidates across the country

    Kentucky Democratic Gov. Beshear forms PAC to support candidates across the country

    FRANKFORT, Ky. — Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who defeated Donald Trump-backed rivals twice in Republican-leaning Kentucky, announced the formation of a federal political action committee on Monday to support candidates across the country as he seeks to broaden his influence beyond the Bluegrass State.

    Beshear launched a PAC called In This Together with a focus on helping elect more Democrats in swing states and Republican strongholds. The move comes barely two months since Beshear secured a second term with a convincing victory over GOP challenger Daniel Cameron in one of the nation’s most closely watched elections of 2023.

    Beshear said he’s looking to support candidates who “demonstrate a commitment to leading with empathy and compassion and the backbone to always do what’s right, regardless of politics.” His PAC will support candidates running for local, state and federal offices, the governor said.

    “It’s critically important that we elect more good people — both in Kentucky and around the country — who will stand strong on our shared values and always do the right thing, even when it’s hard,” the governor said in a news release.

    Beshear’s reelection in a state that otherwise has trended heavily toward the GOP has fueled speculation about whether the 46-year-old governor might run for national office someday. The governor last year committed to serving out his second four-year term, which will end in late 2027.

    Beshear, the son of former two-term Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, has repeatedly denounced the divisive nature of politics. In his recent State of the Commonwealth speech, he called for a united effort with Kentucky’s Republican lawmakers to improve education, health care and the economy. The GOP holds supermajorities in both legislative chambers.

    Beshear’s reelection last year could serve as a model for other Democrats on how to make inroads in Republican territory. The incumbent governor withstood relentless attacks aimed at stirring up Kentuckians over transgender issues and the post-COVID inflationary surge during Democratic President Joe Biden’s term. Beshear insulated himself from the onslaught by focusing on core pocketbook issues and his support for more exceptions to the state’s near-total abortion ban.

    Beshear was first elected governor in 2019 when he defeated Republican Gov. Matt Bevin. Both Bevin and Cameron played up their support from Trump, who easily carried Kentucky in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections and who remains popular with Republican voters in the state.

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  • Nevada GOP Senate candidate raised money to help other candidates — the funds mostly paid down his old campaign’s debt instead | CNN Politics

    Nevada GOP Senate candidate raised money to help other candidates — the funds mostly paid down his old campaign’s debt instead | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sam Brown created a political action committee to “help elect Republicans” but most of its funds were spent paying down debt from his failed previous campaign. The group donated less than 7% of its funds to the candidates it was set up to support, according to campaign finance records – a move one campaign finance expert likened to using the PAC as a “slush fund.”

    Brown formed the Duty First PAC in July 2022, saying the organization would help Republicans take back Congress. A month earlier, Brown lost the Republican Senate primary to Adam Laxalt after raising an impressive $4.4 million for his upstart campaign, but his campaign was left with more than $300,000 in debt.

    Now Brown is running again in Nevada as a top recruit of Senate Republicans.

    A former Army captain, Brown made lofty promises when launching his PAC, Duty First.

    “With your support, we will: Defeat the socialist Democrats. Help elect Republicans who believe in accountability to the Constitution and service to the people. Stand with the #DutyFirst movement, chip in with a grassroots contribution today,” he said in a tweet announcing the PAC.

    “We’ll ensure that the socialist agenda of the Democrats does not win in November, and the Republicans continue to be held accountable to defending our Constitution and defending our conservative principles. The country’s counting on us,” Brown said in an accompanying video for the PAC’s launch in July 2022.

    Since then, the PAC raised a small amount – just $91,500 – and used the majority of their money – $55,000 – to repay debt from Brown’s failed campaign for Senate, which Brown had transferred over. Campaign finance experts told CNN this falls into a legal gray area.

    Of the $90,000 spent so far, just $6,000 made its way to five Nevadan Republican candidates’ committees. An additional payment for $1,000 was listed as going directly to congressional candidate Mark Robertson as a contribution but lists the amount as being directly paid to the candidate at his home – not to his committee.

    Instead, the Duty First PAC made over a dozen debt payments. A combined $23,000 was spent on website and software services used by Brown’s Senate campaign. Another $11,275 went towards paying down the failed campaign’s credit card, with an additional $3,000 spent on credit card interest fees.

    Duty First paid off over $1,200 in credit card debt accrued at a country club near where Brown previously lived in Dallas, Texas, and ran for the state house in 2014. A spokesman for the Brown campaign said in an email to CNN the “facility fee” charges were for a fundraiser “hosted by supporters of Sam’s campaign.”

    The most recent FEC filing shows Brown is now trying to dispute over $80,000 in remaining debt from the previous campaign, which the spokesman said “will be resolved in due course.” A majority of the disputed debt owed is for direct mail services used by Brown’s previous campaign.

    Duty First PAC is also responsible for eventually repaying Brown $70,000 that he personally loaned his committees.

    The spokesperson for Brown’s campaign defended the PAC’s spending.

    “The PAC promised to support conservative candidates in Nevada, and it did exactly that by donating to every Republican candidate in Nevada’s federal races during the 2022 general election,” they said.

    According to a CNN analysis of Duty First PAC’s FEC filings, of all the money raised, less than 7% went to candidates. When considering Brown’s personal loans, debt the PAC took on from Brown’s campaign, and expenditures, fewer than 2% of the PAC’s funds went towards candidates in 2022

    The money not spent on debt went to a variety of consulting and digital marketing expenses. The PAC spent $1,090 on a storage unit, more than it donated to the winning campaign of Republican Rep. Mark Amodei.

    Despite this, Brown played up his PAC’s donations to candidates in interviews and in posts on social media.

    “I have pledged to help defeat the Democrats in Nevada,” he added in an email, announcing the launch of the PAC.

    The PAC’s donations were from grassroots donors, who typically donated $50 or less.

    Just a day before the 2022 midterm election, Brown announced donations to several candidates running for office in Nevada.

    Records with the FEC show the 2022 donations to House candidates were made on October 31, while the donation to Laxalt’s Senate campaign was made in early September.

    “The Duty First PAC proudly supports conservatives fighting for Nevada,” he said in a tweet after making the donations on November 7, 2022. “This past week, we donated funds to the four Republicans working to take back the House. Join us in supporting them right now!”

    Later, following the 2022 midterms in a late November interview on a local Nevada radio station, Brown played up the PAC’s work and said it would continue to work between election cycles.

    “Duty First is here to kind of work between the cycles, so to speak and help candidates who are running,” Brown said. “In fact this cycle, you know, we had raised money and supported all of our Republican federal candidates, Adam Laxalt, as well as the four Congressionals.”

    “And so, it’s our way of pushing back against the Democrat agenda and their representation,” Brown said. “But, also, it gives Duty First supporters and people that believe in our mission, a sort of platform to remind Republicans what we’re about.”

    Campaign finance experts CNN spoke to said Brown marketing the Duty First PAC as a way for people to financially support conservative candidates was a “creative way” for Brown to pay off old campaign debts behind the scenes.

    “It creates a situation where contributors to a PAC may think that PAC is doing one thing, which is supporting political candidates, when in fact what it’s doing is being used to pay off long standing debts from a previous campaign,” said Stephen Spaulding, vice president of policy at Common Cause and former advisor to an FEC commissioner.

    Since the FEC has not issued an advisory opinion that would “apply to that candidate and any other candidate that has a very similar situation,” Spaulding said transferring debts between campaign committees and PACs is a gray area in campaign finance law. In Brown’s case, his candidate committee was rolled into a PAC, Sam Brown PAC, that was associated with his candidacy, which the campaign finance experts agree is a common maneuver for candidates. But what struck the experts as odd was that Brown terminated the Sam Brown PAC, and transferred his outstanding loans and debts to the Duty First PAC.

    Brown’s 2024 candidate committee, Sam Brown for Nevada, is an entirely new committee with its own FEC filings, despite having the same name as his previous committee. This committee, formed in July 2023, is not affiliated with the Duty First PAC, nor is it obligated to pay off the remaining $271,000 in previous campaign debt and loans.

    “Unfortunately, Sam Brown, like too many other politicians, has given almost no money to other candidates and, instead, has used his PAC as a slush fund,” said Paul S. Ryan, executive director at Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation. “Many donors would understandably be upset if they learned their money wasn’t used to help elect other candidates like Brown – the reason they made their contributions,” he added.

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  • Pro-DeSantis super PAC debate memo stirs anger and confusion from fundraisers and donors | CNN Politics

    Pro-DeSantis super PAC debate memo stirs anger and confusion from fundraisers and donors | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    The apparent attempt by a super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to float potential debate talking points to the Republican’s presidential campaign has stirred confusion and anger from fundraisers and donors, multiple sources told CNN.

    In a memo from the super PAC Never Back Down, first reported by The New York Times, DeSantis is advised to “hammer” entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and defend former President Donald Trump if he is attacked by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. It also included tips for how many times to attack President Joe Biden and the media.

    One person close to DeSantis’ political operation was surprised a person at Never Back Down would even write a memo or think it was appropriate to give the campaign advice just a week out from the debate. The response this person received from Republican donors on Thursday was “a chorus of people who think it was dumb,” they said.

    Never Back Down has not responded to requests for comment.

    In response to the memo, DeSantis campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo said, “This was not a campaign memo and we were not aware of it prior to the article. We are well accustomed to the attacks from all sides as the media and other candidates realize Ron DeSantis is the strongest candidate best positioned to take down Joe Biden.”

    The memo was originally posted to the website of Axiom, a firm owned by Never Back Down consultant and veteran Republican strategist Jeff Roe, along with internal polling from New Hampshire, an assessment of the Iowa electorate and dossiers on how each candidate might attack DeSantis.

    “I’m at loss,” the person said. “I don’t really know what the strategy was. Whoever thought it was necessary to put this out there, that’s not the super PAC’s job.”

    It’s not uncommon for super PACs to find public ways around federal regulations that prohibit direct coordination with a campaign. But the directness of the memo coupled with the breadth of information posted publicly on Axiom’s website drew criticism from those working to help get DeSantis elected.

    “I’m baffled by it,” another Republican fundraiser close to the governor told CNN.

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  • Trump seeks to steer attention away from first 2024 GOP debate as rivals make final preparations for Milwaukee | CNN Politics

    Trump seeks to steer attention away from first 2024 GOP debate as rivals make final preparations for Milwaukee | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    The front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination is not only skipping the first presidential primary debate of the season – he’s also attempting to wrest the spotlight away from the stage in Milwaukee.

    With the Republican National Committee’s window to meet fundraising and polling requirements having closed Monday night, the debate stage is set, and the GOP contenders vying to become the party’s top alternative to former President Donald Trump are making their final preparations ahead of what will be among the most-watched moments in many of their political careers. As his rivals prepare for the two-hour showdown on Fox News, Trump’s campaign is attempting to counter-program the debate.

    The first debate, a key moment in any presidential primary, is also taking place in the middle of a week in which Trump’s legal troubles will once again take center stage.

    Trump has already taped an interview with Tucker Carlson, the fired former Fox News host, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN Monday. It is unclear what platform the interview with Carlson will be published on. The sources said that it would be released around the time of the debate Wednesday night.

    The former president, who on Sunday said he will skip the first debate and could skip others, is expected to spend Wednesday evening at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

    But Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. and other surrogates planned to travel to Milwaukee, where they would have had opportunities to weigh in on national broadcasts before and after the debate in the spin room.

    However, Fox News informed the Trump campaign on Monday that they will no longer provide credentials to some surrogates of the former president to attend the spin room at the debate since the former president is not participating in the debate, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter told CNN.

    Some of Trump’s surrogates are credentialed through outside media groups and will not be impacted. Former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, Reps. Byron Donalds and Matt Gaetz of Florida and other Republicans are slated to attend the debate.

    Members of Trump’s campaign, including his senior advisers Jason Miller, Steven Cheung and Chris LaCivita, were also planning on being in the spin room.

    While Fox News is in charge of credentials for the spin room, the RNC manages credentials for the actual debate, and sources said those tickets are still expected be honored.

    Members of Trump’s teams and his surrogates, however, are still planning on traveling to Milwaukee and are working on a resolution with the network as well as the RNC, two Trump advisers told CNN.

    Fox News did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    Ahead of the debate, some candidates are offering previews of their lines of attack – including criticizing Trump for choosing not to participate.

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday said Trump “owes it to people” to debate, arguing voters – even those who appreciate the former president’s record – will be angry over his decision to skip the the first showdown.

    “I don’t think they’re going to look kindly on somebody that thinks they don’t have to earn it,” DeSantis said on Fox News.

    Trump, though, is poised to once again seize headlines this week with new developments in his legal troubles stemming from the former president’s efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election.

    In an election subversion case in Georgia, Trump has agreed to a $200,000 bond and other release conditions after his lawyers met with the Fulton County district attorney’s office on Monday, according to court documents reviewed by CNN.

    Trump will turn himself in Thursday in Fulton County, the former president announced on his social media platform Monday.

    With Trump out, DeSantis – who has consistently polled in second place nationally and in early-voting states – could be positioned to face the sharpest scrutiny Wednesday night, as other contenders seek to replace him as the party’s top alternative to Trump.

    “We’ll be ready,” DeSantis said Monday. “I think that with Donald Trump not being there, I don’t think it’s any secret that I’m going to be probably the guy that people are going to come after.”

    The Florida governor also continued to distance himself from a memo from the super PAC Never Back Down, which last week advised him to “hammer” entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and defend Trump if he is attacked by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

    “That’s a separate entity. I had nothing to do with it. It’s not something that I’ve read, and it’s not, not reflective of my strategy,” DeSantis said Monday.

    However, DeSantis has unusually close ties with the super PAC. He has outsourced many typical campaign functions, including early-state organizing, to the super PAC, which can raise and spend unlimited sums. DeSantis frequently appears at events as a “special guest” of the super PAC.

    Other candidates plot their strategies

    Ramaswamy, the 38-year-old entrepreneur who has risen in polling in recent weeks, appears to have become a significant factor in the race in his rivals’ eyes.

    Another contender, Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, attacked Ramaswamy on Monday, in a potential preview of a debate-stage showdown.

    Haley said Ramaswamy is “completely wrong” for his call to reduce US military aid to Israel. During an interview with Russell Brand on Rumble last week, Ramaswamy claimed he would cut off additional aid to Israel in 2028, after the current $38 billion US aid package expires.

    “This is part of a pattern with Vivek—his foreign policies have a common theme: they make America less safe,” Haley said on Twitter.

    Ramaswamy, for his part, tweeted a video of himself, shirtless, practicing tennis. “Three hours of solid debate prep this morning,” he said.

    One key wild card Wednesday night is Christie. He is the only contender on stage who has run against Trump before, and has proven lethal on the debate stage previously: In February 2016, he effectively stymied all momentum of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio when he mocked Rubio for delivering memorized, pre-planned lines.

    Since launching his 2024 bid, Christie has focused most of his attacks on Trump. But as he campaigned in Miami last week, he also criticized DeSantis, pointing to the super PAC memo.

    “The only way to beat someone is to beat them. If [DeSantis] thinks he’s gonna get on the stage and defend Donald Trump on Wednesday night, then he should do Donald Trump a favor and do our party a favor, come back to Tallahassee, endorse Donald Trump, and get the hell out of the race,” Christie said.

    South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, a strong fundraiser who many within the GOP see as an increasing factor in the race, has largely stuck to a positive and optimistic message, making Wednesday night a test of whether and how he is willing to mix it up with his rivals.

    Former Vice President Mike Pence has emphasized his conservative positions on ideological issues like abortion. But he had also looked for a debate-stage clash with Trump, his former running mate. On Sunday, he criticized the former president on ABC for skipping the first debate.

    “Every one of us who have qualified for that debate stage ought to be on the stage willing to square off and answer those tough questions,” Pence said.

    As the first debate approaches, polls of likely Republican voters nationally and of those in the early-voting states – Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada – have consistently shown Trump well ahead of his rivals at this stage of the race.

    Trump held a clear lead over his rivals in a Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll of likely Iowa GOP caucusgoers released Monday, though just over half say they are not locked in to their choice and could be persuaded to support someone else.

    Overall, 42% say Trump is their first choice, followed by 19% supporting DeSantis. No other candidate reaches double digits. Behind them, 9% back Scott, 6% each back Haley and Pence, 5% support Christie, 4% back Ramaswamy, 2% back North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, and 1% support former Texas Rep. Will Hurd, with the rest of the field tested landing below 1%.

    About two-thirds say they have favorable impressions of DeSantis (66%) and Trump (65%), with majorities also expressing positive views of Scott (59%) and Haley (53%). Views of Christie (60% unfavorable to 28% favorable) and Pence (53% unfavorable to 42% favorable) break negative. Many of the other candidates have low name recognition, with four in 10 or more not sure about them.

    About half, 52%, of likely caucusgoers say they could be persuaded to support someone other than their first choice candidate, while 40% say their minds are made up. Trump’s supporters are more likely to be locked in (66% say so), yet a third say they could be persuaded to back someone else (34%). Among those backing a candidate other than Trump, 69% say they could be persuaded to support someone else, and 31% say that their mind is made up.

    The poll was conducted by Selzer and Co. August 13-17 among a random sample of 406 likely Republican caucusgoers in Iowa. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

    New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who considered his own presidential run before passing earlier this year, said Monday on CNN’s “Inside Politics” that the GOP primary field needs to narrow before the race reaches the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.

    He said candidates who are mired in the low-single digits in the polls by early December should drop out.

    “By New Hampshire you need three or four candidates in the race to really make it, you know, a real opportunity and an option for the Republican voter,” he said.

    And Sununu dismissed Trump’s steady national polling leads, saying that his lead would fall “as we get around to Christmas,” while pointing to early state polls, where the former president still leads, though by a smaller margin.

    “Trump is really dominating the national media airwaves. It’s not shocking that he’s there,” he said. “But as the debates start, as people get more and more into that conversation in October, November, as we get around to Christmas, I think nationally his numbers come back down to what you see in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

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  • Takeaways from the second Republican presidential debate | CNN Politics

    Takeaways from the second Republican presidential debate | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    The second 2024 Republican presidential primary debate ended just as it began: with former President Donald Trump – who hasn’t yet appeared alongside his rivals onstage – as the party’s dominant front-runner.

    The seven GOP contenders in Wednesday night’s showdown at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California provided a handful of memorable moments, including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley unloading what often seemed like the entire field’s pent-up frustration with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

    “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say,” she said to him at one point.

    Two candidates criticized Trump’s absence, as well. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he was “missing in action.” Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called the former president “Donald Duck” and said he “hides behind his golf clubs” rather than defending his record on stage.

    Chris Christie takes up debate time to send Trump a clear message

    The GOP field also took early shots at President Joe Biden. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott said Biden, rather than joining the striking auto workers’ union on the picket line Tuesday in Michigan, should be on the southern border. Former Vice President Mike Pence said Biden should be “on the unemployment line.” North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said Biden was interfering with “free markets.”

    However, what played out in the debate, hosted by Fox Business Network and Univision, is unlikely to change the trajectory of a GOP race in which Trump has remained dominant in national and early-state polling.

    And the frequently messy, hard-to-track crosstalk could have led many viewers to tune out entirely.

    Here are takeaways from the second GOP primary debate:

    Trump might have played it safe by skipping the debates and taking a running-as-an-incumbent approach to the 2024 GOP primary.

    It’s hard to see, though, how he would pay a significant price in the eyes of the party’s voters for missing Wednesday night’s messy engagement.

    Trump’s rivals took a few shots at him. DeSantis knocked him for deficit spending. Christie mocked him during the night’s early moments, calling him “Donald Duck” for skipping the debate and then in his final comments said he would vote Trump off the GOP island.

    “This guy has not only divided our party – he’s divided families all over this country. He’s divided friends all over this country,” Christie said. “He needs to be voted off the island and he needs to be taken out of this process.”

    However, Trump largely escaped serious scrutiny of his four years in the Oval Office from a field of rivals courting voters who have largely positive views of his presidency.

    “Tonight’s GOP debate was as boring and inconsequential as the first debate, and nothing that was said will change the dynamics of the primary contest,” Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita said in a statement.

    The second GOP primary debate was beset by interruptions, crosstalk and protracted squabbles between the candidates and moderators over speaking time.

    That’s tough for viewers trying to make sense of it all but even worse for these candidates as they attempted to stand out as viable alternatives to the absentee Trump.

    Further complicating the matter, some of the highest polling candidates after Trump – DeSantis and Haley – were among those least willing to dive into the muck, especially during the crucial first hour. The moderators repeatedly tried to clear the road for the Florida governor, at least in the beginning. But he was all but absent from the proceedings for the first 15 minutes.

    Ramaswamy fared somewhat better, speaking louder – and faster – than most of his rivals. But he was bogged down repeatedly when caught between his own talking points and cross-volleys of criticisms from frustrated candidates like Scott.

    The moderator group will likely get criticism for losing control of the room within the first half-hour, but even a messy debate tells voters something about the people taking part.

    All night, Scott seemed like he was looking for a fight with somebody and he finally got that when he set his sights on fellow South Carolinian Haley.

    He began his line of attack – which Haley interjected with a “Bring it” – by accusing her of spending $50,000 on curtains in a $15 million subsidized location during her time as the US ambassador to the United Nations.

    What ensued was the two Republicans going back and forth about the curtains. “Do your homework, Tim, because Obama bought those curtains,” Haley said, while Scott repeated, “Did you send them back? Did you send them back?” Haley then responded: “Did you send them back? You’re the one who works in Congress.”

    It wasn’t the most acrimonious moment of the night, but it was up there. The feuding between the two South Carolina natives seemed deep, but it’s worth remembering that about a decade ago, when Haley was governor, she appointed Scott to the Senate seat he currently holds after Republican Jim DeMint stepped down. That confidence in Scott seems to have dissolved in this presidential race.

    Confronted by his Republican competitors for the first time in earnest, DeSantis delivered an uneven performance from the center of the stage – a spot that is considerably less secure than it was heading into the first debate in Milwaukee.

    Despite rules that allowed candidates to respond if they were invoked, DeSantis let Fox slip to commercial break when Pence seemed to blame the governor for a jury decision to award a life sentence, not the death penalty, to the mass murderer in the Parkland high school shooting. (DeSantis opposed the decision and championed a law that made Florida the state with the lowest threshold to put someone on death row going forward.) Nor did he respond when Pence accused DeSantis of inflating Florida’s budget by 30% during his tenure.

    He later let Scott get the last word on Florida’s Black history curriculum standards and struggled to defend himself when Haley – accurately – pointed out that he took steps to block fracking in Florida on his second day in office.

    Before the first debate in Milwaukee, a top strategist for a pro-DeSantis super PAC told donors that “79% of the people tonight are going to watch the debate and turn it off after 19 minutes.”

    By that measure, the Florida governor managed to first speak Wednesday night just in the nick of time – 16 minutes into the debate. And when he finally spoke, he continued the sharper attacks on the GOP front-runner that he has previewed in recent weeks.

    DeSantis equated Trump’s absence in California to Biden, who DeSantis said was “completely missing in action for leadership” on the economy, blaming him for inflation and the autoworkers strike.

    “And you know who else is missing in action? Donald Trump is missing in action,” DeSantis said. “He should be on this stage tonight. He owes it to you to defend his record.”

    But DeSantis then largely pulled back from further targeting Trump – until a post-debate Fox News appearance when he challenged the former president to a one-on-one face-off.

    DeSantis ended the debate on a strong note. He took charge by rejecting moderator Dana Perino’s attempts to get the candidates to vote one of their competitors “off the island.” He ended his night forcefully dismissing a suggestion that Trump’s lead in the polls held meaning in September.

    “Polls don’t elect presidents, voters elect presidents,” he said, before pointing a finger at Trump for Republicans’ electoral underperformance in the last three elections.

    But as the super PAC strategist previously pointed out: By then, who was watching?

    In the final minutes of the debate, co-host Ilia Calderón of Univision asked Pence how he would reach out to those Latino voters who felt the Republican Party was hostile or didn’t care about them.

    “I’m incredibly proud of the tax cut and tax reform bill,” he said, referring to Republicans’ sweeping 2017 tax law. He also cited low unemployment rates for Hispanic Americans recorded during the Trump-Pence administration.

    Scott, faced with the same question, said it was important to lead by example. “My chief of staff is the only Hispanic female chief of staff in the Senate,” he said. “I hired her because she was the best, highest-qualified person we have.”

    Calderón focused much of her time on a series of policy questions that highlighted the candidates’ records on immigration and gun violence. At times, some of them struggled to respond directly.

    She asked Pence if he would work with Congress to find a permanent solution for people who were brought to the country illegally as children. The Trump-Pence administration ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which gave those young people protected status. She repeated the question after Pence focused his answer on his work securing the border. He then talked about his time in Congress.

    “Let me tell you, I served in Congress for 12 years, although it seemed longer,” he said. “But you know, something I’ve done different than everybody on this stage is I’ve actually secured reform in Congress.”

    The candidates – and moderators – shy away from abortion talk

    It took more than a 100 minutes on Wednesday night for the first question on abortion to be asked.

    About five minutes later, the conversation had moved on. What is potentially the most potent driver (or flipper) of votes in the coming election was afforded less time than TikTok.

    Tellingly, no one onstage seemed to mind.

    Perino introduced the subject by asking DeSantis whether some Republicans were right to worry that the electoral backlash to abortion bans – or the prospect of their passage – would handicap the eventual GOP nominee.

    DeSantis, who signed a six-week ban in April, dismissed those concerns, pointing to his success in traditionally liberal parts of Florida on his way to winning a second term in 2022. Then he swiped at Trump for calling the new laws “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”

    Christie took a similar path, arguing that his two terms as governor of New Jersey, a traditionally blue state, showed it was possible for anti-abortion leaders to win in a environments supportive of abortion rights.

    And with that, the abortion “debate” in Simi Valley ended abruptly. No more questions and no attempts by the rest of the candidates to interject or otherwise join the chat.

    Candidates pile on Ramaswamy

    Some of the candidates onstage didn’t want to have a repeat of the first debate, in which Ramaswamy managed to stand out as a formidable debater and showman.

    Early in Wednesday’s debate, Scott went after the tech entrepreneur, saying his business record included ties to the Chinese Communist Party and money going to Hunter Biden. The visibly annoyed Ramaswamy shifted gears from praising all the other candidates onstage to defending his business record. But Scott and Ramaswamy ended up talking over each other.

    A little later on Pence began an answer with a knock on Ramaswamy, saying, “I’m glad Vivek pulled out of his business deal in China.” At another point after Ramaswamy had responded to a question about his use of TikTok, Haley jumped in, saying, “Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber from what you say” and then going on to say, “We can’t trust you. We can’t trust you.” As Ramaswamy tried to readopt his unity tone, Scott could be heard trying to interrupt him.

    Despite the efforts of moderators to pin them down, DeSantis and Pence struggled to respond when challenged on their respective records on health care.

    Asked about the Trump administration’s failure to end the Affordable Care Act as promised, Pence opted instead to answer a previous question about mass gun violence. When Perino pushed Pence one more time to explain why Obamacare remains not just intact but popular, the former vice president once again demurred.

    Fox’s Stuart Varney similarly pressed DeSantis to explain why 2.5 million Floridians don’t have health insurance.

    DeSantis found a familiar foil for Republicans in California: inflation. Varney, though, said it didn’t explain why Florida has one of the highest uninsurance rates in the country, to which DeSantis had little response.

    “Our state’s a dynamic state,” DeSantis said, before pointing to Florida’s population boom and the low level of welfare benefits offered there.

    Haley, though, appeared ready to debate health care, arguing for transparency in prices to lessen the power of insurance companies and providers and overhauling lawsuit rules to make it harder to sue doctors.

    “How can we be the best country in the world and have the most expensive health care in the world?” Haley said.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces independent run for president, ending Democratic primary challenge to Biden | CNN Politics

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces independent run for president, ending Democratic primary challenge to Biden | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Environmental lawyer and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Monday his independent candidacy for president, officially ending his effort to defeat President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary in favor of a long-shot general election bid.

    “I’m here to declare myself an independent candidate for president of the United States,” Kennedy said in remarks in Philadelphia.

    Kennedy’s announcement comes after several weeks of speculation about his future in the 2024 field. CNN previously reported Kennedy met with the chair of the Libertarian Party earlier this year to discuss their common beliefs. And last week, a super PAC supporting Kennedy’s presidential campaign released the results of a poll they conducted testing Kennedy’s strength in a hypothetical three-way race between Biden and former President Donald Trump.

    The campaign will host a series of events in Texas, Florida and Georgia later this month, a campaign official told CNN, pledging to travel “everywhere” in the lead-up to next year’s general election. The official said the campaign is confident they’ll gain ballot access in every state ahead of November 2024.

    Independent and third-party candidates have struggled in the past to garner substantial support in presidential elections. In 1992, Texas businessman Ross Perot mounted one of the most successful independent presidential candidacies in recent history, which ended with him receiving 8% of the vote in the general election that was ultimately won by Bill Clinton.

    On Monday, Kennedy acknowledged the unsuccessful history of independent presidential campaigns but said he’s optimistic about his chances.

    “Today, we turn a new page in American politics. There have been independent candidates in this country before, but this time it’s going to be different. Because this time, the independent is gonna win,” he said.

    Mark Gorton, co-founder of American Values 2024, the super PAC supporting Kennedy’s campaign, said the candidate will need to prove viability to voters by consistently increasing his support in the polls in order to have a realistic chance of winning the election. He feels they’ve “got a shot” to pull off a historic upset.

    “I think it’s very important that Bobby a year from now be polling at the very least in the mid-to-high 30s in order to be seen as viable as anyone,” Gorton told CNN. “We need to be getting 1%, 1.5% of the electorate each month, but that’s a doable task.”

    Kennedy’s campaign as an independent could further complicate a general election race that’s already expected to be closely contested. A Reuters/Ipsos poll of a hypothetical three-way race between Biden, Trump and Kennedy conducted last week among likely voters found 14% of voters supported Kennedy, with 40% supporting Trump and 38% supporting Biden. With over a year until the general election, it’s unclear whether the Kennedy campaign can translate that level of support into votes in November 2024. Kennedy said he hopes to win the election by pulling in both Biden and Trump supporters.

    “They say my impact is only going to draw votes from the other candidates. The Democrats are frightened that I’m gonna spoil the election for President Biden, and the Republicans are frightened that I’m gonna spoil it for President Trump,” he said. “The truth is, they’re both right. My intention is to spoil it for both of them.”

    “Voters should not be deceived by anyone who pretends to have conservative values. The fact is that RFK has a disturbing background steeped in radical, liberal positions,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that criticized Kennedy over his positions on China, guns, the environment and abortion. “… A RFK candidacy is nothing more than a vanity project for a liberal Kennedy looking to cash in on his family’s name.”

    Trump’s allies and advisers have been building opposition research against Kennedy, intending to go on the offensive and paint Kennedy as a “liberal parading in conservative’s clothing,” one adviser told CNN, pointing to his past record as an environmental activist.

    Kennedy first launched his campaign to defeat Biden in the Democratic primary in April and frequently visited early primary states like New Hampshire and South Carolina. But his efforts did little to sway Democratic primary voters, with just 9% of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire expressing support for Kennedy in a CNN/University of New Hampshire poll released in September.

    The Republican National Committee issued a statement just prior to Kennedy’s announcement, characterizing him as “just another radical, far-left Democrat.”

    Kennedy is the son of former US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy. Some of his siblings issued a joint statement on Monday, calling his decision to run against Biden in a general election “dangerous to our country.”

    “Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment. Today’s announcement is deeply saddening for us. We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country, ” Rory Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Joseph P Kennedy II and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend said in a statement.

    A lifelong Democrat prior to announcing his run as an independent, Kennedy acknowledged his and his family’s long history with the Democratic Party and called the decision to disavow the party “very painful.” But he said he wants to fight against the two-party system, which he says has failed to provide Americans with viable options for the presidency. He criticized Biden’s age and competency as well as Trump’s ongoing legal troubles as a symptom of a corrupt political process.

    “That’s what two-party politics has given us, and that’s why we need to pry loose from the hammerlock of the corrupt powers in Washington, DC, and make this nation ours again.”

    The crowd of supporters in Philadelphia received Kennedy warmly, particularly when he discussed his plans to create a “tamper-proof election system” while expanding voting rights and called for the US “to pull our nation back from the brink of war with Russia.” A staunch anti-war advocate, Kennedy notably did not address the outbreak of violence between Israel and Hamas over the weekend. Prior to Kennedy’s remarks, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a friend and informal adviser to Kennedy, spoke about the war and called for a moment of silence for victims in Israel.

    When asked by CNN following the event about Kennedy not mentioning Israel and Hamas in his remarks, Boteach dismissed the oversight and said his involvement in the event spoke loudly about Kennedy’s stance toward Israel.

    “I think that was very brave of him and showed tremendous solidarity that he asked a rabbi who’s his close friend. You know, he moved away from the political figures who could have introduced him and endorsed him,” Boteach said. “The fact that I’m the one that introduced him, I think said it all.”

    Kennedy’s lack of mention of Israel’s war with Hamas comes after he received criticism from Jewish groups in July after he falsely claimed during a dinner in New York City that “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese” people are “most immune” to Covid-19. Kennedy strongly pushed back against the accusations of antisemitism from those groups.

    Kennedy has never held public office but has inspired a small contingent of supporters drawn to his advocacy against public health mandates and the influence of money on decisions made by government and private corporations. Kennedy founded Children’s Health Defense, an organization that regularly spreads anti-vaccine misinformation, and has promoted anti-vaccine conspiracy theories at campaign events.

    Attendees at Monday’s event spanned the ideological spectrum, with conservatives, liberals and independents all gathering in Philadelphia for the announcement.

    Walter Rodriguez, a teacher from New Jersey who identifies as an independent, said he plans to support Kennedy if he’s on the ballot in his home state. Otherwise, he said, he doesn’t plan to vote at all.

    “I’m excited about the energy they bring to the table as a candidate, and I think some of the things that he’s talking about are things that I identify with,” Rodriguez said. “Not relying so much on central control of everything, pharmaceuticals, politics. So the fact that he’s declaring himself as independent today, that is the right way to go.”

    Karl Hagstrom came to Philadelphia from Westchester County, New York. He said he supported Trump in 2016 and 2020, but said he plans to support Kennedy in 2024. He said he’s drawn to Kennedy because he feels the political outsider can bring unity to the country, unlike Trump, who he said has been too divisive.

    “Just the constant insanity, the tweeting, the negativity, the just out-of-left field reactions to things. It’s not sustainable, it’s not something that can bring people together,” Hagstrom said.

    Sarah Shulman drove to the event with a group of supporters from the Boston area. A practicing pediatrician, Shulman attended Kennedy’s Democratic campaign launch event in Boston in April and said Kennedy’s anti-corruption message and his position on vaccines inspired her to support him. She said she voted for Biden in 2020 and has never considered supporting a Republican but has felt disconnected from Biden’s message since he took office.

    “He’s speaking our language,” Shulman said of Kennedy. “A Democrat, somebody in the liberal mind that’s compassionate, caring, who also is making sense.”

    This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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  • Rand Paul Fast Facts | CNN Politics

    Rand Paul Fast Facts | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of Rand Paul, US senator from Kentucky.

    Birth date: January 7, 1963

    Birth place: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

    Birth name: Randal Howard Paul

    Father: Ron Paul, former presidential candidate and retired US representative from Texas

    Mother: Carol (Wells) Paul

    Marriage: Kelley (Ashby) Paul

    Children: Robert, Duncan and William

    Education: Attended Baylor University, 1981-1984; Duke University School of Medicine, M.D., 1988

    Religion: Christian

    Practiced as an ophthalmologist for 18 years.

    Former president and longtime member of the Lions Club International.

    Was active in the congressional and presidential campaigns of his father, Ron Paul.

    1993 – Completes his ophthalmology residency at Duke University Medical Center.

    1994 – Founds grassroots organization Kentucky Taxpayers United, which monitors state taxation and spending. It is legally dissolved in 2000.

    1995 – Founds the Southern Kentucky Lions Eye Clinic, a non-profit providing eye exams and surgeries to those in need.

    August 5, 2009 – Announces on Fox News that he is running as a Republican for the US Senate to represent Kentucky.

    May 18, 2010 – Defeats Secretary of State Trey Grayson in the Kentucky GOP Senate primary.

    May 19, 2010 – In interviews with NPR and MSNBC, while answering questions about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Paul expresses strong abhorrence for racism, but says that it is the job of communities, not the government, to address discrimination. Paul later releases a statement saying that he supports the Civil Rights Act and would not support its repeal.

    November 2, 2010 – Paul is elected to the Senate, defeating Jack Conway.

    January 5, 2011 – Sworn in for the 112th Congress. It is the first time a son joins the Senate while his father concurrently serves in the House. Ron Paul retires from the House in 2013.

    January 27, 2011 – Participates in the inaugural meeting of the Senate Tea Party Caucus with Senators Mike Lee and Jim DeMint.

    February 22, 2011 – Paul’s book “The Tea Party Goes to Washington” is published.

    September 11, 2012 – Paul’s book “Government Bullies: How Everyday Americans Are Being Harassed, Abused, and Imprisoned by the Feds” is published. He is later accused of plagiarism in some of his speeches and writings, including in “Government Bullies.” Paul ultimately takes responsibility, saying his office had been “sloppy” and pledging to add footnotes to all of his future material.

    February 12, 2013 – Delivers the Tea Party response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.

    March 6-7, 2013 – Paul speaks for almost 13 hours, filibustering to stall a confirmation vote on CIA Director nominee John Brennan.

    February 12, 2014 – Paul and the conservative group FreedomWorks file a class-action lawsuit against Obama and top national security officials over the government’s electronic surveillance program made public by intelligence leaker Edward Snowden. The lawsuit is later dismissed.

    December 2, 2014 – Paul announces his bid for a second term in the Senate.

    April 7, 2015 – Paul announces his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination during an event in Louisville, Kentucky.

    May 20, 2015 – After 10 hours and 30 minutes, Paul ends his “filibuster” over National Security Agency surveillance programs authorized under the Patriot Act. Paul’s speech wasn’t technically a filibuster because of intricate Senate rules, but his office insists it was a filibuster.

    August 5, 2015 – The Justice Department indicts two officials from a Rand Paul Super PAC for conspiracy and falsifying campaign records. During the 2012 presidential primary season, Jesse Benton and John Tate allegedly bribed an Iowa state senator to get him to endorse Ron Paul. Benton and Tate go on to help run one of the Super PACs supporting Rand Paul, America’s Liberty PAC. Both men are later convicted.

    February 3, 2016 – Announces that he is suspending his campaign for the presidency.

    November 8, 2016 – Wins a second term in the Senate, defeating Democrat Jim Gray.

    November 3, 2017 – A neighbor assaults Paul at his home in Bowling Green, Kentucky, which results in six broken ribs and a pleural effusion – a build-up of fluid around the lungs. The attorney representing Paul’s neighbor, Rene Boucher, later says that the occurrence had “absolutely nothing” to do with politics and was “a very regrettable dispute between two neighbors over a matter that most people would regard as trivial.” Boucher, who pleaded guilty to the assault, is sentenced in June 2018 to 30 days in prison with a year of supervised release.

    August 2018 – Goes to Moscow and meets with Russian lawmakers, extending an invitation to visit the United States. While abroad, Paul tweets that he delivered a letter to Russian leader Vladimir Putin from US President Donald Trump. A White House spokesman later says that Paul asked Trump to provide a letter of introduction. After he returns, Paul says that he plans to ask Trump to lift sanctions on members of the Russian legislature so they can come to Washington for meetings with their American counterparts.

    January 29, 2019 – A jury awards him more than $580,000 in his lawsuit against the neighbor who attacked him in 2017. The amount includes punitive damages and payment for pain and suffering as well as medical damages.

    August 5, 2019 – Paul says part of his lung had to be removed by surgery following the 2017 attack by Boucher.

    March 22, 2020 – Paul announces that he has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, becoming the first US senator to test positive for coronavirus.

    August 10, 2021 – Paul is suspended from YouTube for seven days over a video claiming that masks are ineffective in fighting Covid-19, according to a YouTube spokesperson.

    November 8, 2022 – Wins reelection to the Senate for a third term.

    October 10, 2023 – Paul’s book “Deception: The Great Covid Cover-Up” is published.

    Rand Paul’s political life

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  • GOP megadonor and Anthony Scaramucci among early donors to Chris Christie super PAC | CNN Politics

    GOP megadonor and Anthony Scaramucci among early donors to Chris Christie super PAC | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Anthony Scaramucci and a GOP megadonor who paid for luxury trips for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas are among the donors to the super PAC supporting former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s 2024 presidential bid.

    The Tell It Like It Is PAC reported receiving nearly $5.9 million in the first half of 2023, according to a report it filed Monday with Federal Election Commission. It only reported receiving contributions between May 30 and June 30 in this filing. Christie formally announced his presidential campaign on June 6.

    Harlan Crow, a Republican real estate magnate, contributed $100,000 to Christie’s PAC. Crow has made headlines recently for providing luxury travel for and engaging in private real-estate deals with Thomas.

    Another noteworthy donor is Scaramucci, who served briefly as Trump’s White House communications director. He also donated $100,000 to the pro-Christie PAC, the new filing shows.

    Super PACs can accept donations of any size from a wide array of sources, including corporations, but are barred from coordinating their spending decisions with the candidates they back.

    The single largest donation was $1 million from a limited liability company called SHBT LLC that was established last year in Texas. A spokesman for Christie’s super PAC did not immediately respond to a request for more information about the donor.

    Two of the PAC’s largest donors are Richard Saker, the CEO of ShopRite supermarkets in New Jersey, and Walter Buckley Jr., a political megadonor. The two donors each gave $500,000.

    Billionaire Jeff Yass, the cofounder of one of Wall Street’s largest trading firms and TikTok investor, gave the pro-Christie PAC $250,000. Yass also donated $10 million in June to the political committee associated with the anti-tax Club for Growth. An arm of the Club has blistered former President Donald Trump with attack ads.

    Another notable donor is Murray Kushner, the uncle of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. He has donated to Christie’s campaigns before and he’s contributed to several Democrats. In this round, Murray Kushner gave the pro-Christie PAC $10,000.

    The presidential hopeful has a long history with the Kushner family. In the early 2000s, Christie prosecuted Charles Kushner – Jared Kushner’s father and Murray Kushner’s brother. Charles and Murray Kushner have feuded over business and are reportedly estranged.

    Charles Kushner went on to spend more than a year in prison. Trump pardoned Charles Kushner in December 2020.

    The super PAC spent less than half a million dollars – nearly $430,000 – in its month of reported expenses and ended the first half of the year with nearly $5.5 million in available cash.

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  • What reset? DeSantis defiant while campaign braces for reality of his struggles | CNN Politics

    What reset? DeSantis defiant while campaign braces for reality of his struggles | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday evening stepped in front of a suburban South Carolina crowd eager to hear the Republican presidential candidate respond to a weekend of hand wringing over his early performance and headlines about staff cuts and financial troubles.

    “Are you ready to help me send Joe Biden to his basement in Delaware?” DeSantis began, tossing out a line that has kicked off most of his speeches in some form since he formally announced his presidential candidacy in May.

    For all the talk of a DeSantis “reset” in recent days – including privately from those close to the Republican’s political operation – there’s little coming from the candidate himself that would suggest change is afoot. DeSantis’ remarks Monday in Tega Cay, South Carolina, were a near carbon copy of the speech he has delivered at campaign stops for weeks. The next morning, he unveiled another priority targeting “wokeness” in society, this time aimed at the military.

    Later in the day, a prime opportunity for the governor to kickstart a reboot – a highly anticipated interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday, his first sit down outside of conservative media – was overshadowed by the latest developments in Donald Trump’s legal saga. Instead of stepping out against the former president to signal a new phase in his campaign, DeSantis remained deferential, saving his criticism for federal investigators and not the actions of his top rival for the 2024 Republican nomination. Any admonishment for Trump was shrouded in subtlety.

    “If I’m the nominee, we’ll be able to focus on President Biden’s failures, and I’ll be able to articulate a positive vision for the future,” DeSantis told Tapper. “I don’t think it serves us good to have a presidential election focused on what happened four years ago.”

    The unflappable outward appearances of its candidate belies a campaign in flux. His team has started cutting expenses less than two months after launching, a sign of a political operation that perhaps expanded too quickly out of the gate. Over the weekend, a spokesperson for DeSantis’ campaign confirmed to CNN it let go of some staffers, after Politico reported that “fewer than 10 staffers” in event planning were cut on Thursday. The large security presence that previously guarded DeSantis events – often administered by a handful of burly men who checked every guest with handheld metal detectors and surveyed their personal effects – was noticeably absent from his South Carolina campaign stops this week.

    The trimming comes even as DeSantis raised $20 million in the first six weeks after jumping into the GOP primary – a strong showing at first glance that nevertheless fell short of lofty goals set in the run-up to his campaign. Other worrying markers include a reliance on large donations, which can suggest underwhelming grassroots support. Additionally, about $3 million of his haul came in the form of donations that cannot be spent until a general election.

    His campaign has also burned through cash at a high rate. Over six weeks, DeSantis had spent $686,000 on travel including expenses for private jets, according to campaign finance records, and his payroll topped $1 million.

    With his poll numbers stalled and less money available than anticipated, it is expected that DeSantis will refocus his campaign efforts on Iowa, which is increasingly viewed within his political orbit as a must-win state for the Florida governor. DeSantis visited Iowa earlier this month for a multi-county tour and to speak to the state’s influential evangelical voters at an event Trump notably skipped. His super PAC this week began airing a new ad highlighting the former president’s recent jabs at popular Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds that included a fake replica of Trump’s voice generated through controversial new AI technology.

    “We’re just going to keep building that momentum,” DeSantis said. “It’s a state-by-state process and doing well in those states makes a huge difference by the time you get to South Carolina.”

    DeSantis has expressed confidence in the strategy that has gotten him this far, which, for now, leaves him well ahead of the rest of the field but firmly behind Trump. This weekend, DeSantis will travel to Utah, where he is expected to meet with Republican state lawmakers, a group that has become key to his efforts to build local support. His top fundraisers will also meet in Park City, Utah, for a previously scheduled summit that has gained new urgency amid concerns some GOP donors are considering other candidates.

    Talking to reporters Tuesday after submitting paperwork to qualify for South Carolina’s primary ballot, DeSantis characterized his campaign’s spending as “investments” to win early nominating states and dismissed suggestions of financial trouble.

    “You hear some of these narratives and you’re like, good lord, how do you spin?” DeSantis said moments after handing in paperwork to officially qualify for the ballot in South Carolina. “In the second quarter, we were a candidate for about five and a half weeks, our campaign raised $20.1 million dollars. Joe Biden is the sitting president of the United States. In his campaign committee, not the DNC, he raised $19.9 (million), Donald Trump raised $17.7 million and Trump spent more than we did.”

    The remarks echoed frustrations among his supporters with the narrative emerging about DeSantis given his enviable financial position. In addition to his campaign’s haul, a supportive super PAC, Never Back Down, announced it had raised $130 million since launching in March, about $83 million of which was transferred from DeSantis’ former state political committee.

    But they also acknowledge DeSantis has run a campaign that is far from perfect, beginning with the technical woes that plagued his planned candidacy announcement on Twitter. And he has faced new headwinds, including from Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, which is no longer featuring the Republican leader with fawning coverage as it has for much of the past two years. With Fox News no longer fully friendly, his campaign has lately warmed to more mainstream national outlets that DeSantis had previously marginalized and denigrated over the years.

    Some supporters have also bemoaned DeSantis’ hard pivot right and high-profile battles with Disney for turning off Republican donors who might otherwise be sympathetic to his insurgent campaign against Trump.

    DeSantis, though, has shrugged off these concerns. Speaking to Tapper on Tuesday, he pointed to his 19-point victory last fall in a one-time swing state as evidence that his agenda can appeal to voters in swing states who may determine the outcome of the GOP primary and the presidential election.

    “Our bread and butter were people like suburban moms,” he said. “We’re leading a big movement for parents’ rights, to have the parents be involved in education, school choice, get the indoctrination outta schools.”

    Republican voters attending his events appear receptive to his message. Lu Aiken, a member of Republican Women Rising in South Carolina, said she was undecided but DeSantis was at the top of her list.

    “I’m all for youth,” she told CNN outside of DeSantis’ Tega Cay event. “I think we’ve had too many old presidents. I’m sorry, I’m ready for a young president, and I’m old. But still, I think it’s time for somebody young and energetic. I worked real hard to get Trump elected last time, and I feel like he kind of let us down by talking so much and some of the things he did.”

    Still, even his supporters are aware of the challenge DeSantis faces trying to overcome an unconventional front runner in Trump.

    “The only thing going against Ron is that he’s not Trump,” Jonathan Sievers, a real estate agent from Weddington, South Carolina, said while waiting to hear DeSantis speak on Monday. “So, I think a lot more Trump supporters would be on his train if Trump wasn’t in the race.”

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  • ‘Parental rights’ group Moms for Liberty plans nationwide strategy for school board races in 2024

    ‘Parental rights’ group Moms for Liberty plans nationwide strategy for school board races in 2024

    PHILADELPHIA — Moms for Liberty, a “parental rights” group that has sought to take over school boards in multiple states, is looking to expand those efforts across the country and to other education posts in 2024 and beyond. The effort is setting up for a clash with teachers unions and others on the left who view the group as a toxic presence in public schools.

    The group’s co-founder, Tiffany Justice, said during its annual summit over the weekend in Philadelphia that Moms for Liberty will use its political action committee next year to engage in school board races nationwide. It also will “start endorsing at the state board level and elected superintendents.”

    Her comments confirm that Moms for Liberty, which has spent its first two years inflaming school board meetings with aggressive complaints about instruction on systemic racism and gender identity in the classroom, is developing a larger strategy to overhaul education infrastructure across the country.

    As the group has amassed widespread conservative support and donor funding, its focus on education ensures that even as voters turn their attention to the 2024 presidential race, school board elections will remain some of the most contentious political fights next year.

    Moms for Liberty started with three Florida moms upset with COVID-19 restrictions in 2021, but has quickly ascended as a national player in Republican politics. Its support for school choice and the “fundamental rights of parents” to direct their children’s education has drawn allies such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a leading GOP presidential contender, and the conservative Heritage Foundation.

    The group has been labeled an “extremist” organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center for allegedly harassing community members, advancing anti-LGBTQ+ misinformation and fighting to scrub diverse and inclusive material from lesson plans.

    Justice said in an interview that she and her co-founder, Tina Descovich, were two moms who “had faith in American parents to take back the public education system in America” and that they “fully intend on reclaiming and reforming” that system.

    So far, the group has had mixed success at getting its preferred candidates elected. In 2022, slightly more than half of the 500 school board candidates it endorsed across the country won,. In the spring of 2023, fewer than one-third of the nearly 30 candidates it endorsed in Wisconsin were elected.

    Focusing on state-level candidates could give Moms for Liberty an opportunity to assert its influence on some of the positions that have more control in determining curriculum, said Jon Valant, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has studied education policy.

    A close partnership with the conservative training organization the Leadership Institute and added money from a growing donor base also could help the Moms for Liberty run more electable candidates and help them win in 2024.

    Monty Floyd, vice chair of the Moms for Liberty chapter in Hernando County, Florida, knows what it’s like to have the group’s support in a political campaign. He ran for school board in 2022 and received the group’s endorsement, as well as $250 from its Florida-based PAC.

    Floyd lost that race but plans to run again in 2026, he told The Associated Press at the summit. He looks forward to seeing how the group’s political influence grows and said that even more than the money, the national network of Moms for Liberty provides a “great resource” to a candidate.

    “The wealth of knowledge they have and the network of support and just the advocacy tips that we’re learning from the speakers today,” he said. “They have good advice to give. So you kind of learn a lot about what you can improve in your messaging.”

    Moms for Liberty may face obstacles, however, as its rising national presence has driven a countermovement of activists who oppose it, Valant said.

    Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said she thinks groups such as Moms for Liberty have “created more action and more energy” among teachers unions.

    “We have 41 new units that we have organized as the AFT this year. We’ve never had that,” she said. She said the union would “do what we have to do” during elections to show the contrast between its endorsed candidates and Moms for Liberty candidates.

    Beyond unions, Moms for Liberty is likely to face opposition from grassroots groups and voters who “just don’t agree with their vision of what public education should be,” Valant said.

    Martha Cooney, a Pennsylvania educator who was one of about 100 protesters dancing and holding signs outside the summit Saturday afternoon, agreed. She said that as Moms for Liberty tries to assert more political power, she and others will continue to stand in its way.

    “They are a very small minority who are trying to act like they represent this whole nation, and they do not,” Cooney said.

    Moms for Liberty did not answer questions on which races it would focus on in 2024, besides making it clear that it would not endorse in legislative races or the presidential election.

    But even as the group says it will not get involved in the White House race, Republican candidates have tried to harness Moms for Liberty’s influence and broad network of more than 120,000 members in 45 states to woo its voting bloc and benefit their primary campaigns.

    Five GOP candidates gave speeches during the gathering in Philadelphia, which ended Sunday. They included DeSantis and former President Donald Trump. The rivals tried to outflank each other with claims that “woke ideology” had overtaken education and that pronouns and “critical race theory” needed to be struck from classrooms.

    “I think moms are the key political force for this 2024 cycle,” DeSantis said in his address to attendees Friday.

    Other Republican presidential candidates who appeared at the summit included former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who brought his wife and two children to the stage Saturday. He pledged to prioritize parents’ rights and shutter the U.S. Department of Education if elected.

    “The membership of this organization is just a small tip of the iceberg of a broader pro-parent movement, pro-children movement in our country,” Ramaswamy told reporters at the summit. “And so how important is that? You better believe it’s pretty darn important.”

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Ad wars heat up in the 2024 presidential race as spending nears $70 million | CNN Politics

    Ad wars heat up in the 2024 presidential race as spending nears $70 million | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump is dominating cable airwaves, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is betting on Iowa and South Carolina, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is blanketing New Hampshire as candidates tailor their ad spending with the 2024 presidential race heating up.

    Spending data from AdImpact shows how the various White House contenders have different strategies for the early primary map, investing resources in the states and messages they hope can serve as launching pads to the nomination – spending nearly $70 million along the way.

    Allies of Trump, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, have taken a unique approach among the crowded field, devoting more than three-quarters of their ad spending dollars to national cable advertising campaign.

    MAGA Inc., the super PAC backing his campaign, has spent $15.7 million on national cable advertising out of a total of nearly $20 million in ad spending so far. The pro-Trump group has split the rest of its spending, a little more than $4 million, between Iowa and New Hampshire.

    Reflecting that strategy, in the last month, MAGA Inc. spent $1.6 million on an ad running in major media markets (Los Angeles, New York City, Washington, DC, and Philadelphia) which criticizes the former president’s indictment in the classified documents case. The super PAC has also kept ads attacking DeSantis in rotation in the early primary states.

    There are also hints at the strategy of DeSantis’ camp in the ad spending of a super PAC backing his campaign, Never Back Down. The group has spent a total of about $15.5 million on advertising so far, directing $4.3 million to Iowa and $3.7 million to South Carolina. On Tuesday, the group launched a new TV spot in Iowa proclaiming that DeSantis was “waging a war on woke and winning.”

    By contrast, the group has spent just $1.3 million in New Hampshire so far. Notably, Never Back Down has spent about $630,000 in Nevada, another early voting state, making it the only GOP group with a significant presence on the airwaves there. The group has also spent about $5 million on national cable advertising.

    South Carolina Sen Tim. Scott – another top advertiser in the early going of the White House race – has taken a traditional approach to ad budgeting, splitting his advertising between Iowa, where he’s spent about $3.5 million, and New Hampshire, where he’s spent about $2 million. In both states, he’s been a steady presence on the air, running ads that tout his “conservative values” and feature clips from the campaign trail.

    And the super PAC allied with Scott has followed a similar pattern, spending about $3.1 million in Iowa and $1.9 million in New Hampshire. Unlike the Trump and DeSantis super PACs, Scott and his camp have spent little on national advertising campaigns.

    Meanwhile, North Dakota’s Burgum has emerged as the top advertiser in New Hampshire so far, spending more than $2.1 million in the state as the independently wealthy candidate works to raise his profile among voters.

    Burgum has also spent $2 million advertising in Iowa. Excluding outside groups, only Scott has spent more on campaign advertising – and even including the super PACs, Burgum is the fifth biggest advertiser in the race so far.

    A look at who has spent money so far on 2024 ads

  • MAGA Inc.: $19,922,815
  • Never Back Down: $15,511,532
  • Scott for President $5,679,567
  • Trust in the Mission PAC $5,605,080
  • Burgum for President: $4,220,175
  • Perry Johnson for President: $2,119,553
  • Future Forward USA Action: $2,063,400
  • Biden Victory Fund: $2,022,898
  • Democratic National Committee/Biden: $1,636,147
  • Ramaswamy for President: $1,409,095
  • American Action Network: $1,219,358
  • Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee: $877,800
  • Binkley for President: $857,445
  • SOS America PAC: $827,280
  • Defending Democracy Together: $786,377
  • DeSantis for President: $763,910
  • Biden for President: $758,026
  • Trump for President: $682,998

Overall, since the start of 2023, all campaigns and outside groups have combined to spend nearly $70 million on advertising for the presidential race already. That amount is nearly double what had been spent at this point in the last presidential cycle – during a competitive Democratic primary – when all candidates and groups had spent about $35 million in the first six months of 2019.

This year, Trump’s super PAC, DeSantis’ super PAC, Scott and his super PAC, and Burgum account for over half that total, combining to spend just over $50 million.

Only two other candidates have spent more than $1 million on ads so far: Vivek Ramaswamy and Perry Johnson, both of whom are independently wealthy businessmen self-funding their campaigns.

And while candidates have taken different approaches to investing their resources, the traditional early voting states are continuing to draw the lion’s share of the ad dollars. Candidates and groups have spent about $17.4 million in Iowa, $10.9 million in New Hampshire, $3.9 million in South Carolina, and $830,000 in Nevada.

The ad wars are heating up as candidates in the crowded GOP field are scrambling to qualify for the first presidential debate in August.

Several long-shot Republican presidential candidates, with smaller budgets for TV advertising, have been appealing to donors online to help them make the debate stage after the Republican National Committee released the qualification requirements, which include both polling and fundraising thresholds.

As he seeks to nab the 40,000 individual donors required to be on stage, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson is up with Facebook ads that read, “I am running for President to bring out the best in America. From securing the border to creating a robust economy, I have the experience to deliver. Chip in $3, $5, or $10 today to help me get on the debate stage and move our nation forward.”

Ramaswamy – who is self-funding his campaign – is also urging supporters to help him qualify. “To secure a prime spot on the debate stage, we need solid polling numbers AND unique grassroots donors. Can you chip in just $1 today to help get to the debate stage?,” one of Ramaswamy’s ads says.

And Johnson, the wealthy Michigan businessman, is making similar appeals. “Even though I’m self-funding, the RNC is requiring that I get 40,000 donors to make the debate stage. Can you donate $1 NOW to ensure that I make the cut to share my plan to stop inflation and balance the budget?,” reads one of his ads.

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  • DeSantis to open presidential bid by out-Trumping Trump | CNN Politics

    DeSantis to open presidential bid by out-Trumping Trump | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Ron DeSantis’ decision to announce his 2024 White House bid in a conversation with Elon Musk on Twitter on Wednesday will make a typically blunt statement about his campaign, the unruly populism of the modern Republican Party and an accelerating conservative media revolution.

    Florida’s governor will finally jump into the race by throwing down a gauntlet to ex-President Donald Trump with a launch strategy that frames him as the true anti-establishment rebel in the race who is willing to crush the conventions of traditional presidential politics.

    His choice of venue on Twitter Spaces – the site’s audio platform – also exemplifies the Trump-era GOP’s transformation into a party that rewards gesture politics and whose activists respond to the unmoderated social media jungle while disdaining traditional standards of conduct and governance.

    But while Twitter’s attractiveness to conservative voters under Musk, who has 141 million followers, means DeSantis may be making a shrewd move in a GOP primary, he could further damage an already questionable reputation among more moderate voters he’d need in a general election by appearing on an increasingly polarizing platform.

    That’s because Twitter, which once offered a platform for democratic movements in the Arab Spring, has been transformed by its new owner into a febrile circus of untamed free speech, conspiracy theories and unverifiable information. Only this week, a fake image of an explosion near the Pentagon went viral, causing a blip on the stock market in a potential preview of a presidential campaign likely to be plagued by misinformation and AI-generated falsehoods. Musk has, meanwhile, shown a willingness to ignite his own Twitter infernos, so his increasingly prominent role suggests the 2024 presidential race could be just as turbulent as the 2016 and 2020 editions, which were marked by Trump’s extreme rhetoric and voter fraud accusations.

    Another mind-bending twist to election season came on Tuesday with the former president’s virtual court appearance in a case arising out of a hush money payment to a former adult film star in which he has already pleaded not guilty. Judge Juan Merchan set a trial date for March 25, 2024 – in the middle of primary season. The timetable raises the prospect that Trump could use the trial as a stage to drive home his claim that he’s a victim of political persecution. But it also creates a risk for Trump that he could be criminally convicted while he’s still fighting for the GOP nomination – an extraordinary and unprecedented scenario.

    By choosing Twitter to make his own splash, DeSantis appears to be targeting a dramatic moment that could restore a sense of momentum to GOP primary aspirations that were soaring six months ago but that have been undermined by his own missteps and Trump’s recent political rebound.

    In embracing Musk, DeSantis is associating himself with a hero of conservatives who have long claimed they are being censored on social media. He’s taking a swipe at Trump, who was banned from tweeting by the company’s previous ownership and has so far preferred the home ground of his own platform, Truth Social, even after Musk restored his account. Trump’s 2016 campaign and entire presidency unfolded in a torrent of stream of consciousness tweets that he used to great effect – even if he left his nation stressed and exhausted.

    DeSantis is taking an ostentatious jab at traditional media, which is reviled by many conservatives, by showing he is ready to bypass regular conventions of presidential campaigns. His launch will also create a sharp contrast with Trump’s own rambling, and even boring, campaign opening speech at Mar-a-Lago in November, which lacked any sense of political dynamism.

    The Florida governor will also show how far the GOP has traveled from its roots as a bastion of tradition and the extent to which the internet and the fragmentation of the media into partisan blocks has changed presidential campaigns. In 1979, for instance, Ronald Reagan announced his presidential bid with a grandfatherly speech from a cozy study that looked like the inside of a country club. George W. Bush set off on the road to the White House 20 years later from a farm in Iowa. Now the best way to reach the most GOP voters is online.

    By breaking the mold of presidential announcements, DeSantis is borrowing from Trump’s unconventional playbook. One lesson of the 45th president’s riotous political career is that anything calculated to offend liberals and mainstream media commentators is often wildly popular with grassroots GOP primary voters.

    DeSantis is already running to the right of Trump by targeting what he calls “woke” measures on diversity, equity and inclusion and staking out conservative positions on social issues. Now, he’s also seeking to steal Trump’s reputation as the great disruptor.

    The DeSantis announcement will also help enshrine an emerging power shift in conservative media. His choice of Twitter recognizes the importance of the social network to right-wing voters under Musk and may quicken the shift away from Fox News as the most dynamic platform for the new champions of the conservative movement. It comes after the top-rated Fox News host Tucker Carlson said he’d relaunch his show on Twitter after being ousted from Rupert Murdoch’s primetime line-up after the firm paid $787 million to settle a defamation suit linked to its promotion of election lies and misinformation after the 2020 election.

    With his appearance, DeSantis is driving home his argument that social media networks have sought to oppress the speech of conservatives – a popular viewpoint on the right. In his autobiography “The Courage to be Free,” DeSantis slammed companies like Facebook and Twitter, under its previous owners, which he said made “censorship decisions that always seem to err on the side of leftist orthodoxy, they distort the American political system because so much political speech now takes place on these supposedly open platforms.”

    Still, DeSantis is unlikely to turn his back on Fox, which has offered him plentiful air time – a possible sign the Murdoch family is beginning to tire of the ex-president.

    The DeSantis launch strategy will not come without risks. The untamed environment of Twitter and his association with Musk threaten to undermine the case DeSantis has been implicitly making to Republican voters – that he can offer a more stable and disciplined style of leadership than that shown by Trump in his tempestuous White House term.

    And by avoiding the kind of big, staged political announcement in front of a large crowd, DeSantis risks emboldening Trump’s mocking critique that the Florida governor is draining support by the day, following polls that show him falling further behind the former president, albeit ahead of candidates like South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

    The virtual announcement could also fuel claims by Trump that his one-time protégé, whom he now accuses of betrayal for running for president, lacks the political skills to compete on a less controlled stage. A pro-Trump super PAC mocked DeSantis ahead of his online announcement, calling it “one of the most out-of-touch campaign launches in modern history.”

    “The only thing less relatable than a niche campaign launch on Twitter, is DeSantis’ after party at the uber elite Four Seasons resort in Miami,” MAGA Inc., the Trump-aligned super PAC, said in a statement Tuesday.

    People familiar with the DeSantis campaign blueprint, however, indicated the Florida governor would soon launch a relentless blitz of campaign appearances in key swing states, intended to contrast his energy with that of his older rivals, Trump and President Joe Biden.

    Trump’s team and his allies are planning an aggressive operation to try to drown out the DeSantis launch on Wednesday. MAGA Inc. is already slamming the Florida governor for his early support of the Covid-19 vaccine during the pandemic as it seeks to undermine his credibility among conservatives who balked at government health advice.

    But this is yet another sign of how head-spinning the Republican primary could get. After all, it was Trump who once claimed all the credit for developing the vaccine during his presidency. Now his supporters are condemning DeSantis for trying to save lives with it.

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  • Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, enters the 2024 GOP primary | CNN Politics

    Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, enters the 2024 GOP primary | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott on Monday formally entered the Republican presidential primary, promising to take on “the radical left” and bring faith and conservative, business-friendly policies to the White House, as he seeks to upend a contest that has so far been dominated by coverage of former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to enter the fray in the coming days.

    The most prominent Black figure in the Republican Party, Scott addressed supporters at his alma mater, Charleston Southern University, in his hometown of North Charleston.

    “I’m the candidate the far-left fears the most. You see, when I cut your taxes, they called me a prop. When I refunded the police, they called me a token. When I pushed back on President Biden, they even called me the ‘n-word,’” Scott said. “I disrupt their narrative. I threaten their control. The truth of my life disrupts their lies.”

    Following the announcement, Scott heads to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina – states he frequented on his “Faith in America” tour in the run-up to his announcement – before returning to the Hawkeye State next week for GOP Sen. Joni Ernst’s annual “Roast and Ride” gathering.

    Scott, 57, is no stranger to pathbreaking campaigns. In 2010, he became the first Black Republican elected to the US House of Representatives from South Carolina in more than a century. Years later, after being appointed to his Senate seat (he won a special election to retain the seat), Scott made history as the first Black US Senator from his native South Carolina.

    Ahead of his entry into the presidential race, senior campaign officials briefed reporters on their view of the path forward, acknowledging he will need to win over support from Trump and DeSantis, but vowing – in a veiled dig at both – that his candidacy will strike a more optimistic tone and condemn the culture of victimhood and grievance that, as his aides described it, has taken over both parties.

    “Our party and our nation are standing at a time for choosing,” Scott said. “Victimhood or victory? Grievance or greatness? I choose freedom and hope and opportunity.”

    Trump and his team will avoid going after Tim Scott for now, two sources close to the former president told CNN. The directive from Trump has been to stay away from attacks on the South Carolina senator at the moment.

    Last week, the Trump-aligned super PAC, MAGA, Inc., weighed in on Scott’s looming announcement, but used it to level an attack on DeSantis, not Scott.

    The former president used that approach on Monday as he wished Scott “good luck” while taking a shot at DeSantis.

    “Good luck to Senator Tim Scott in entering the Republican Presidential Primary Race. It is rapidly loading up with lots of people, and Tim is a big step up from Ron DeSanctimonious, who is totally unelectable. I got Opportunity Zones done with Tim, a big deal that has been highly successful. Good luck Tim!,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

    The South Carolina senator received a boost on Sunday, less than 24 hours before his kick-off event, when news broke that his colleague Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, planned to endorse him.

    “I think he’d be a great candidate. I’m excited about it. I’ve been encouraging him,” Thune previously told CNN. “I think he’s getting a lot of encouragement from his colleagues. He’s really well thought of and respected.”

    Cory Gardner, the former Republican senator from Colorado and leader of Scott’s aligned super PAC, also argued that his old colleague posed a unique threat to liberal Democrats.

    “I think they’re terrified of him, and he’s right to say that, because he defies every narrative they have,” Gardner said. “And this is exciting for conservatives who believe that they have a candidate who carries their values, can implement their values and do so in a way that will make all Americans proud.”

    In pictures: Presidential candidate Tim Scott

    A senior campaign official said Scott will continue to invest resources and time in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as the campaign ramps up.

    Though Scott hails from South Carolina, they won’t count on it as a firewall, according to one senior campaign official, who emphasized Scott will have to compete as a top-tier candidate in other early primary and caucus states like New Hampshire and Iowa.

    Even before the official launch, Scott revealed plans to pluck from his deep campaign coffers – with millions now transferred over from his Senate account – through a series of big-dollar ad buys in Iowa and New Hampshire.

    The initial $5.5 million TV ad buy – including broadcast, cable satellite and radio – will air statewide starting Wednesday and run through the first GOP debate in August.

    During the same period, Scott will also launch a seven-figure digital ad campaign.

    “The biggest thing going for Tim Scott right now is $22 million in the bank. He is getting ready to spend $6 million in Iowa and New Hampshire that will garner tremendous name ID, and it’s gonna be a key factor that many of the other candidates are not doing right now,” said Dave Wilson, a South Carolina conservative strategist and former president of the Palmetto Family Council.

    Though he is only officially entering the race now, Scott has already gotten caught in the churn of the campaign season. Shortly after announcing an exploratory committee last month, he was tripped up by questions over his position on a potential national abortion ban.

    After initially sidestepping the matter and refusing to say whether he would back a 15-week ban, Scott told WMUR he would support restrictions beginning at 20 weeks. Days later, though, Scott said in an interview with NBC News that he “would literally sign the most conservative pro-life legislation that they can get through Congress.”

    Pressed on what precisely that meant, given he had applauded DeSantis for signing a six-week ban in Florida, Scott demurred – saying it was a decision for the states to make.

    “I’m not going to talk about six (weeks) or five or seven or 10,” Scott said.

    Back at the senator’s home church near Charleston, there are hundreds of worshipers that see him most weekends.

    “I’ve heard him talk about hope and opportunity for 25 years. It’s who he is. It’s a part of his story. And so I don’t think he’s going to change,” said Greg Suratt, founding pastor of Seacoast Church.

    “I think a misconception that people might have about him is that his niceness, his humility, translates as weakness. And they don’t know the Tim Scott I know, I would like to kind of see it as an iron fist in a velvet glove,” Suratt added, noting that even people who disagree with his politics tend to like him as an individual.

    Scott’s faith and his humble beginnings will be a central theme in his campaign, an aide said. Scott grew up in a single parent household in North Charleston, where his mother worked long hours to keep their family afloat.

    “Think about the kid whose grandmother has to open the stove to heat the home in the middle of the winter. I think to myself, it kind of feels like that now,” Scott said at a town hall in New Hampshire this month. “So many people with our energy prices doubling in just the last couple years, are experiencing a crisis similar to the one that I had when I was just a kid.”

    On his listening tour, Scott said that between the ages of 7 and 14, he “kind of drifted,” failing world geography, civics, English and Spanish in his freshman year of high school. But through the “tireless” encouragement of his mother and mentor, the late John Moniz, a Chick-fil-A manager, Scott says he was able to graduate from Charleston Southern University. He would eventually open his own insurance agency affiliated with Allstate.

    Scott credits Moniz with teaching him that anyone can “succeed beyond their circumstances” if they take responsibility for themselves – a message he repeated in North Charleston.

    “John taught me that anyone, from anywhere, at any time, can rise above their wildest expectations and imagination,” Scott said after giving roses to Moniz’s widow and his own mother at the beginning of his speech. “But first, I had to take responsibility for myself. He told me in the most loving way possible to look in the mirror and to blame myself.”

    Scott’s political career began in 1995, when he ran in a special election to the Charleston City Council, winning a seat he would keep for nearly 15 years. After one term as a state lawmaker, Scott won a US House seat representing South Carolina’s 1st district.

    Fellow presidential candidate and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley then appointed Scott to the US Senate in 2012 to fill a vacancy left by Sen. Jim DeMint’s retirement. He retained the seat in a 2014 special election, was re-elected to a full term in 2016 and later won for a third time last year.

    “To every single mom who struggles to make ends meet, who wonders if her efforts are in vain, they are not,” Scott said after being appointed by Haley.

    During his time in the Senate, Scott has amassed a strictly conservative voting record, but has also led bipartisan police reform talks alongside New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat.

    Those talks have gone on for years now, beginning in the summer of 2020 with then-California Sen. Kamala Harris also involved, but hopes for a comprehensive deal were effectively abandoned in 2021. (The conversations reportedly continue, but there is no legislation currently in the offing.)

    In 2017, his “Investing in Opportunity Act,” which had some Democratic support, was included in the controversial Republican tax cut bill. The provision called for the establishment of “Opportunity Zones,” which would create tax incentives for businesses that invested in parts of the country struggling with poverty and stalled economies.

    “I was one of the lead authors of the Republican tax reform bill that slashed taxes for families, brought jobs and investment back from overseas, and created my signature legislation, the ‘Opportunity Zones,’ that’s brought billions of dollars into the poorest communities that have been left behind,” Scott said in his speech. “That was just one bill. Imagine what we could do with an entire agenda.”

    Still, Democrats in South Carolina welcomed Scott to the race with harsh words about his political record – and an attempt to tie him to the GOP’s far right.

    “We know how dangerous Tea Party extremist Tim Scott is,” South Carolina Democratic Party chair Christale Spain said in a statement. “From promising to sign the most conservative abortion ban possible as president, to doubling down on his role as ‘architect’ of the 2017 GOP tax scam that pushed tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy at the expense of working families, Scott has proven himself to be just as MAGA as the rest of the 2024 field.”

    Though Scott has expressed more openness to working with Democrats than most Republicans in Washington, he also owns one of the most conservative voting records in Congress. He rarely broke with Trump during the latter’s presidency, though he did criticize Trump’s response to White supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

    “What we want to see from our president is clarity and moral authority,” Scott told Vice News at the time. “And that moral authority is compromised.”

    Scott largely backed off that line, though, after a meeting with Trump in the White House.

    “(Trump) was certainly very clear that the perception that he received on his comments was not exactly what he intended with those comments,” Scott told CBS News.

    This story has been updated with additional reporting and reaction.

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  • DeSantis and Trump competing to sway Iowa GOP activists at dueling events

    DeSantis and Trump competing to sway Iowa GOP activists at dueling events

    SIOUX CENTER, Iowa — Warning of a Republican “culture of losing,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sought on Saturday to weaken former President Donald Trump‘s grip on the GOP as the party’s leading presidential prospects collided in battleground Iowa.

    DeSantis, expected to announce his 2024 presidential campaign any day, waded into Iowa’s hand-to-hand politicking at a picnic fundraiser in Sioux Center where several hundred conservatives ate burgers while surrounded by classic Corvettes. DeSantis later planned to attend a state party fundraiser in Cedar Rapids, while Trump, a candidate since November, hoped to demonstrate his political strength with a large outdoor rally in Des Moines, the capital.

    DeSantis did not go after Trump by name, but sprinkled his remarks with indirect jabs while highlighting his own success in implementing conservative policies and winning elections.

    “Governing is not about entertaining. Governing is not about building a brand or talking on social media and virtue signaling,” said DeSantis, who was wearing a blue button-down shirt with no jacket. “It’s ultimately about winning and producing results.”

    Although Trump and DeSantis were scheduled to be hundreds of miles apart, the split-screen moment in the GOP’s leadoff primary state marked a first for the two Republican powerhouses. The day offered an early preview of the match-up between Trump, well ahead of his rivals in early national polls, and DeSantis, viewed widely as the strongest potential challenger.

    Trump, meanwhile, was returning to the comfort of the campaign stage after a tumultuous week.

    On Tuesday, a civil jury in New York found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming advice columnist E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million. A day later, during a contentious CNN town hall, he repeatedly insulted Carroll, reasserted lies about his 2020 election loss and minimized the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

    DeSantis has burnished his reputation as a conservative governor willing to push hard for conservative policies and even take on a political fight with Disney, which he highlighted in Sioux Center. But so far, he hasn’t shown the same zest for taking on Trump, who has been almost singularly focused on tearing down DeSantis for months.

    And even before DeSantis formally enters the race, he’s facing questions about his ability to court donors and woo voters.

    His visit to Iowa tested his personal appeal as he mingled with Republican officials, donors and volunteers, all under the glare of the national media.

    More than 600 people attended DeSantis’ afternoon appearance at the car museum. Billed as a family picnic for U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, the event was actually an indoor luncheon, although grills outside smoked with hundreds of hamburgers.

    Most of the action was inside, where a pro-DeSantis super political action committee had set up a table where prospective supporters for his yet-to-be-announced presidential campaign could sign up. The road outside the museum was flanked with DeSantis 2024 campaign signs.

    While on stage, DeSantis devoted much of his speech to divisive cultural issues, including his opposition to diversity and equity programs in public schools and laws aimed at curtailing transgender rights. But, in another indirect jab at Trump, he highlighted the GOP’s recent string of electoral losses.

    “We must reject the culture of losing that has impact our party in recent years. The time for excuses is over,” DeSantis said. “If we get distracted, if we focus the election on the past or on other side issues, then I think the Democrats are going to beat us again.”

    Trump was set to headline a, evening rally expected to draw several thousand people at an outdoor amphitheater in Des Moines’ Water Works Park.

    The former president’s aides said the Des Moines event was in the works before DeSantis’ plans were made public, and they hope a large crowd draws comparisons to the scale of their respective events.

    At least for Trump, their emerging rivalry has turned increasingly personal.

    DeSantis has largely ignored Trump’s jabs, which have included suggesting impropriety with young girls as a teacher decades ago, questioning his sexuality and calling him “Ron DeSanctimonious.”

    Trump’s campaign began airing an ad mocking DeSantis for yoking himself to the former president in 2018 when he ran for governor, even using some Trump catchphrases as a nod to his supporters in Florida.

    Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., also has aired spots highlighting DeSantis’ votes to cut Social Security and Medicare and raise the retirement age. The group even targeted DeSantis’ snacking habits, running an ad that called for him to keep his “pudding fingers” off those benefits. That was a reference to a report in The Daily Beast that the governor ate chocolate pudding with his fingers instead of a spoon on a plane several years ago.

    DeSantis has said he does not remember doing that.

    A pro-DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down, has hired Iowa staff and begun trying to organize support for the governor before a 2024 announcement. The group announced Thursday that state Senate President Amy Sinclair and state House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl would endorse DeSantis’ candidacy. On Friday, it rolled out roughly three dozen more state lawmakers who would endorse him.

    The super PAC also has been providing a more forceful response to Trump, suggesting that he should leave Florida if he’s unhappy with DeSantis’ governance, accusing Trump of not sufficiently supporting gun rights and siding with liberal Democrats.

    ___

    Price reported from Des Moines, Iowa. AP Political Writer Steve Peoples in New York contributed to this report.

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  • Longtime Trump ally Laxalt joins PAC supporting DeSantis

    Longtime Trump ally Laxalt joins PAC supporting DeSantis

    Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, a longtime Donald Trump ally, will help lead a political action committee that’s encouraging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024

    ByMICHELLE L. PRICE Associated Press

    DES MOINES, Iowa — DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, a longtime Donald Trump ally, will help lead a political action committee encouraging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

    Laxalt, who roomed with DeSantis while in naval officer training, will serve as the chairman of the Never Back Down super PAC, the organization confirmed Saturday.

    Laxalt chaired Trump’s campaign in Nevada in 2020 and has repeated Trump’s false claims of fraud about that race, won by Democrat Joe Biden. Laxalt was a public face of many of Trump campaign’s lawsuits in the swing state that challenged election rules and results. Trump endorsed Laxalt in the 2022 Senate race won by Catherine Cortez Masto, who was considered to be among the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents in the midterm elections.

    But Laxalt has remained a close friend of DeSantis, who is widely expected to announce a White House campaign soon. Both were Navy judge advocate generals and served in Iraq.

    Never Back Down was started by Ken Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general who had a high-ranking role in Trump’s Homeland Security Department. The political group has reported raising $30 million.

    One wing of the group has been raising money that could be transferred to DeSantis should he get in the 2024 race. A different wing has begun running pro-DeSantis ads and pushing back aggressively against Trump in what’s increasingly become a bitter campaign.

    Trump’s campaign on Friday criticized DeSantis’ management of the state where they both live, saying that “Florida continues to tumble into complete and total delinquency and destruction.” Never Back Down responded on Saturday by offering “financial assistance” for Trump to move to California.

    Prominent Republican operative Jeff Roe, who worked on Laxalt’s unsuccessful campaigns in 2018 for governor and last year for Senate, began as an advisor to Never Back Down last month.

    ___

    This story has been corrected to reflect that Laxalt and DeSantis were roommates in naval officer training, not the Naval Justice School.

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  • New wave of GOP candidates to challenge Trump, DeSantis

    New wave of GOP candidates to challenge Trump, DeSantis

    NEW YORK — The opening phase of the Republican presidential primary has largely centered on former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ‘ escalating collision.

    But a new wave of GOP White House hopefuls will begin entering the race as soon as next week following a months’-long lull. They include former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who will formally launch his campaign Wednesday.

    Former Vice President Mike Pence has said he will finalize his plans in “weeks, not months.” He has kept a busy schedule of early state visits and policy speeches as aides have discussed details of an announcement including dates as early as May, but more likely in June. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who has formed a presidential exploratory committee, is expected to join the race in a similar time frame.

    Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, meanwhile, has been meeting with former aides and returned to New Hampshire this week, where he told the first-in-the-nation primary state that, “Tonight is the beginning of the case against Donald Trump.” He has said he will make a decision “in the next couple of weeks.”

    The contenders will enter the race at a critical moment as DeSantis, who hasn’t officially announced a campaign, has struggled to live up to sky-high expectations among some early backers. He has been losing support among elected Republicans in his own state to Trump and is prompting concern among some in the party that his positions on abortion and LGBTQ rights, among other issues, could render him unelectable in a general election. Trump in recent weeks has solidified his status as the race’s early frontrunner, even after he was indicted in New York, but remains the subject of intensifying investigations in Atlanta and Washington and persistent concerns about his electability after losing to President Joe Biden in 2020.

    Would-be rivals hope that dynamic leaves an opening for one of the fresh entrants to emerge as an alternative to the current polling leaders. Some strategists hope Trump and DeSantis will attack one another so viciously that they will turn off voters, leaving them searching for an alternative.

    “It’s not uncommon for a third candidate who’s not involved in the kerfuffle to rise,” said Bryan Lanza, a former Trump adviser, who has been informally advising Larry Elder, the conservative talk radio host who launch a his long-shot campaign Thursday.

    Lanza said he expects a robust race to be the “leader of the second tier” of candidates currently polling at under 10%.

    Beyond Trump and Elder, the current field of official GOP presidential candidates includes former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom announced their bids in February.

    President Joe Biden, meanwhile, is expected to announce his reelection effort as soon as next week. He faces minimal primary competition.

    Among Republicans, the early debates that are slated to begin this summer could be crucial in determining who builds momentum, particularly given DeSantis’ expectations.

    That means candidates may need to cement their planning soon, even if they’d prefer to wait longer. The Republican National Committee has scheduled the first debate for August and is expected to set strict benchmarks that candidates must satisfy to participate, including amassing tens of thousands of individual donors.

    “That takes a little time to do and so if you’re gong to be serious about this — and I think you have to be on the stage to be serious about it — then you probably have to make the decision by May,” Christie said this week during an interview with the media outlet Semafor.

    In the meantime, candidates-in-waiting have seen little reason to jump in sooner, particularly given Trump’s propensity to attack. Instead, they have been biding their time, visiting early voting states, delivering speeches and wooing donors as they assess the field. Pence, for instance, was in California this week meeting with potential backers and will host another donor retreat for his nonprofit group in late May.

    “If I was in their shoes, I would wait as long as possible,” said former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who was considered an early favorite for the Republican nomination when he ran against Trump in 2016. He remembers realizing, in those early weeks, how dramatically Trump had upended the race, dominating everything.

    “There was no way around it then,” he said. “And right now, anybody who thinks they’re somehow going to go in and change that is missing the reality.”

    The rivalry between Trump and DeSantis has been turning uglier by the day, with political groups supporting both men already spending millions on attack ads.

    While DeSantis has largely ignored Trump’s jabs questioning his commitment to Social Security, his relationship with young girls as a teacher decades ago and even his sexuality, a pro-DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down, began to respond in its first round of paid ads last weekend.

    “Trump should fight Democrats, not lie about Gov. DeSantis,” the narrator says in an ad that ran on Fox News. “What happened to Donald Trump?”

    The spot ran in conjunction with an online attack ad that described Trump as “a coward” and a “gun grabber” geotargeted to attendees at an RNC donor retreat in Indiana.

    Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., meanwhile, has been airing its own trio of spots on cable news channels highlighting DeSantis’ votes to cut Social Security and Medicare and raise the retirement age.

    “The more you learn about DeSantis, the more you see he doesn’t share our values. He’s just not ready to be president,” said the narrator in one. Another seized on a report that DeSantis once ate pudding with his fingers, urging DeSantis “to keep his pudding fingers off our money.”

    Trump and his campaign have long seen DeSantis as his only serious challenger and believed the more crowded the field, the better for Trump, as candidates split the anti-Trump vote. But a repeat of 2016’s massive field hasn’t materialized, with potential candidates like former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan passing on campaigns.

    There are still plenty of unknown dynamics, including whether governors such as Kristi Noem of South Dakota or Chris Sununu of New Hampshire will launch campaigns. Both Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Virginia Gov. Glen Youngkin have said they are focused on other races, but neither has explicitly ruled out a run, leaving open the possibility they could mount late-entry bids.

    Mike DuHaime, a Republican strategist and longtime Christie adviser, believes that Trump is the favorite but nonetheless beatable. He cautioned that races are complicated, with unexpected outcomes.

    “I do think that DeSantis is right now firmly the alternative to Trump, but I don’t know if it stays that way. There’s still way too long to go,” he said, arguing that a debate moment or news story could change the trajectory.

    “Somebody’s just got to get momentum,” he said. “It’s just so wide open even with Trump being the prohibitive favorite.”

    ___

    Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in New York and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C., contributed to this report.

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  • Trump leadership PAC spent more than $16 million on legal services in 2022 | CNN Politics

    Trump leadership PAC spent more than $16 million on legal services in 2022 | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump’s leadership PAC spent more than $16 million on legal services in 2022, according to a tally of the Save America PAC distributions through the end of December. The number represents a massive set of bills from lawyers at a time when the former president faces multiple criminal inquiries, lawsuits and other challenges.

    The money appears to be largely geared toward firms representing Trump and his business and family interests. The disbursements show that Save America PAC paid more than $12.5 million to 16 law firms that have aided in his representation, either in the criminal matters or other legal disputes, according to CNN’s review of the data and additional reporting. Some of those law firms also represent others who’ve been sought out as subjects in the inquiries around Trump.

    The firm of a Trump defense attorney, Alina Habba, took in nearly $2 million from Save America in 2022. Habba Madaio & Associates has represented him opposite a New York State attorney general probe and in other lawsuits.

    Another firm, van der Veen, Hartshorn and Levin, which has lawyers who represented Trump in his 2021 impeachment proceedings and also represented a Trump Organization entity in New York, was paid $1.4 million, according to federal election records. And the two law firms of Trump’s primary criminal defense attorneys, Evan Corcoran and James Trusty, were each paid $1.2 million, Save America PAC reported.

    Some law firms receiving Save America’s payments represent close contacts of Trump’s, such as McGuireWoods, which represents his former chief of staff Mark Meadows.

    The large law firms McGuireWoods and Squire Patton Boggs, which represents former Trump White House speechwriter staffers, received almost $900,000 and $250,000, respectively, while several smaller law firms that represent key witnesses in ongoing investigations received payments into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

    In all, nearly 30 law firms received at least $100,000 from Save America PAC.

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