POTUS or Prisoner; The '24 Trump Campaign Fvckery thread
- Thread starter the cac mamba
- Start date
iceberg_is_on_fire
Wearing Lions gear when it wasn't cool
Sane Reaganites realizes that Trump has to lose to get their party back. What they don't understand is they don't have the numbers to get their party back. My goal of seeing the republican party fade away into a regional party gets closer every day.
1/3
Christina Bobb has just been installed at the RNC as their new ‘Senior Counsel for Election Integrity.’
2/3
Trump’s attorney Christina Bobb tonight says things are in the works to overturn the 2020 election and possibly reinstate Trump. She says the plan is for 3 states to decertify their results and send resolutions to the next Congress after the midterms to overturn the results.
Christina Bobb has just been installed at the RNC as their new ‘Senior Counsel for Election Integrity.’
2/3
Trump’s attorney Christina Bobb tonight says things are in the works to overturn the 2020 election and possibly reinstate Trump. She says the plan is for 3 states to decertify their results and send resolutions to the next Congress after the midterms to overturn the results.
Trump asked Elon Musk if he wanted to buy Truth Social
The idea went nowhere, but the former president and the billionaire X owner have continued to communicate more than was previously known
By Josh Dawsey, Drew Harwell and Jonathan O'ConnellMarch 12, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
Former president Donald Trump, left, and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. (AP)Listen
7 min
Comment 1804
Former president Donald Trump asked Elon Musk last summer whether the billionaire industrialist would be interested in buying Trump’s social network Truth Social, according to two people with knowledge of the conversation.
The overture to Musk, whose business empire includes SpaceX, Tesla and the social networking site X, did not lead to a deal. But the conversation, which has not been previously reported, shows the two men have communicated more than was known. The two have had other conversations, too, Trump advisers say, about politics and business.
Among their conversations was a meeting earlier this month in Palm Beach, Fla., where Trump met with Musk and a few high-powered Republican donors, the people said. The subject of that discussion is not clear but, after it was first reported by the New York Times, which noted that the meeting happened while Trump was looking for campaign contributions, the billionaire wrote on X that he is “not donating money to either candidate for US President.”
Musk, the world’s second-richest man, has increasingly voiced support for conservative ideology on X, including echoing Trump’s unverified claims that the Biden administration is, as Musk wrote last week, “importing voters and creating a national security threat from unvetted illegal immigrants.”
At the time of last summer’s discussion, Trump’s media company, which owns Truth Social, was trapped in a long-delayed merger process. Musk bought X, then known as Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022.
When The Washington Post asked Musk about the Truth Social call and his other talks with Trump, Musk responded only that he had “never been to Mar-a-Lago,” Trump’s estate in Palm Beach.
Trump Media & Technology Group did not address any of the facts reported in this story when invited to do so by The Post. In an emailed statement, Trump Media spokeswoman Shannon Devine said only, “We heard Trump and Musk were actually discussing buying the Washington Post but they decided it had no value.”
A spokesman for Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
One of the reasons Trump has not posted on X is that he wants to create and keep financial value for his Truth Social site, which he assiduously tracks, according to people close to him.
He has relentlessly tried to promote it, telling his advisers that he wants to break news on the platform partially to bring in more users. “It’s hot,” he says, often polling visitors to Mar-a-Lago about whether they have an account.
He has tweeted once since leaving the Oval Office — only his dour mug shot last year from an Atlanta jail, where he was booked on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.
At the time of the call last summer, Trump Media, which owns Truth Social, faced a dim financial outlook. In April, Trump had said in a financial disclosure filing for his presidential candidacy that his 90 percent stake in the company was worth between $5 million and $25 million and that his income from it had been less than $200.
Three months later, the company’s proposed merger partner, Digital World Acquisition Corp., announced that it had offered to pay an $18 million settlement if the merger were completed to settle charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had misled investors, further casting doubt over the deal at the time.
But in the past month, the SEC greenlit Digital World’s merger registration, setting the stage for Trump Media to become a public company potentially worth billions of dollars. That change could offer Trump a financial lifeline as he faces hundreds of millions of dollars in legal penalties. Shareholders are expected to officially approve the merger during a vote later this month, but a lockup provision of the deal would require Trump to wait six months before selling any shares.
Musk once belittled Truth Social, posting in 2022 that Trump’s site had a “terrible name” and that it was “time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.”
Trump responded on Truth Social by posting a photo of the two men in the Oval Office alongside a caption: When Musk visited “the White House asking me for help on all of his many subsidized projects … I could have said ‘drop to your knees and beg,’ and he would have done it,” he wrote.
Musk, he added, “should focus on getting himself out of the Twitter mess,” saying the site was “perhaps worthless.”
Musk, however, publicly condemned Twitter’s banning of Trump’s account after the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. The site, under Musk, reactivated Trump’s account in late 2022.
Within the past year, as Musk’s promotion of conspiracy theories and criticism of liberal causes as a “woke mind virus” have driven away users and advertisers, Musk has voiced enthusiasm about Trump’s ability to win attention on social media. In August, he said on X: “People are clearly interested in hearing from Trump. One may not agree with the man, but he is never boring!”
He posted last week that “Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is a very real disease.”
Trump has continued to insist to advisers and people close to him that Musk should buy Truth Social. If he chose to sell the platform, it could provide him a much needed cash infusion, though the merger process and lockup period could complicate the deal.
Trump met with Musk after recent judgments against the former president in two civil cases that may cost him well over $500 million.
On Friday, Trump posteda $91 million bond to stay a judgment against him in a defamation suit brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll, which he is appealing. In a fraud case brought by the New York attorney general, Trump will need to pay penalties of more than $450 million or post a bond of the same amount later this month to stay the judgment in that case during appeal.
Trump has not said where he plans to get the money. Few Wall Street banks have lent him substantial sums since his Trump-branded Atlantic City casinos began failing in the 1990s, and borrowing against his properties may be difficult and expensive to do in short order, experts said. He lists 22 assets — most of them real estate — as valued at “over $50 million” each, according to a filing he made with the government in August, and dozens of other less valuable properties. But he has made no public moves to sell his best real estate.
Trump’s lawyers have made a number of filings in recent days aimed at buying the former president more time to secure the needed funds or at least to reduce the amount he must provide.
They argued in court that even the world’s wealthiest people cannot come up with half a billion dollars so quickly.
“No one, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, has five hundred million laying around,” Trump attorney Christopher Kise argued before an appeals court judge last week. (Bezos, the founder of Amazon, owns The Post.)
Dameon Farrow
Superstar
AI?
More projection. Who was using AI photos not one month ago....?
HEALTH CARE
As many politicians raced in recent weeks to get to the right side of public opinion on IVF, some of the country’s biggest and most influential anti-abortion groups are pushing back. | Butch Dill/AP
By MEGAN MESSERLY and ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
03/12/2024 05:02 AM EDT
The anti-abortion movement is turning on Republican lawmakers who support bills to protect in vitro fertilization, accusing them of sanctioning murder.
As many politicians raced in recent weeks to get to the right side of public opinion on IVF, some of the country’s biggest and most influential anti-abortion groups are pushing back.
Several have attacked state and federal lawmakers — who introduced legislation to protect IVF after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last month that frozen embryos are children — for giving doctors a “license to kill” and said legislators’ efforts would result in “thousands of dead human beings.”
Other groups are going further, running ads against longstanding GOP allies that use the same graphic imagery — blood, babies and scalpels — they have long deployed to oppose Democrats and the abortion-rights movement.
The tension over IVF underscores a deepening divide as Republicans grapple with new political and policy consequences of passing laws declaring that life begins at conception. After marching in lockstep for decades against Roe v. Wade, conservatives are clashing in the post-Roe era over what it means to be “pro-life.”
LIVE EVENT: Join POLITICO’s annual Health Care Summit on Wednesday, March 13, from 11:30 a.m. ET, for exclusive conversations with the White House’s Neera Tanden, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, USAID’s Samantha Power, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Kellyanne Conway and more. RSVP required to attend, or watch here.
The split mirrors debates between Republicans and the anti-abortion movement over other popular policies, including exceptions from state abortion bans for rape and incest, and protections for contraception. That — and the unwillingness of many GOP candidates to talk about abortion on the campaign trail — has some in the anti-abortion movement accusing Republicans of caving to political pressure.
“For a lot of conservative Republican lawmakers, being against abortion has served as a kind of lazy way to say that you’re a conservative,” said Jameson Taylor, director of policy and legislative affairs for the Mississippi-based American Family Association Action. “Frankly, a lot of Republican lawmakers are not in touch with conservative principles because they have not taken sufficient time to think through what those principles are.”
In Alabama, the anti-abortion movement resoundingly condemned a bill shielding IVF providers from criminal and civil charges, and pressured GOP Gov. Kay Ivey to veto it. When she signed it anyway, one anti-abortion organization said the new law “disrespects human life and strips human beings of their dignity,” and another ran digital ads against Ivey and Republican lawmakers using graphic imagery and accusing them of “[betraying] life.”
“Politicians cannot call themselves pro-life, affirm the truth that human life begins at the moment of fertilization and then enact laws that allow the callous killing of these preborn children simply because they were created through IVF,” Live Action president Lila Rose said after Alabama Republicans approved the legislation.
A spokesperson for Ivey did not directly respond when asked about the group’s comments that the governor had given doctors a “license to kill.” Instead, the spokesperson pointed back to a statement the governor issued after signing the legislation, in which Ivey reiterated her support for IVF, lauded legislators for “quickly tackling” the issue and touted Alabama as a “pro-life, pro-family state.”
In Mississippi, the anti-abortion movement and its GOP allies have called a Republican-backed proposal to protect IVF the “greatest assault on the cause of life that we’ve seen in Mississippi in a long time” and warned that the “bad Democrat-based bill” would lead to “backdoor abortion and possible cloning and selling of ‘genetic materials of humans.’”
Lawmakers in Kentucky and Missouri who have introduced similar bills are also getting pushback from local conservative groups who see the legislation as an end-run around the state’s abortion restrictions.
Republican governors defend IVF after Alabama ruling
Play Video
Some Republicans dismiss the criticism, arguing that protecting IVF is a “pro-life” position.
“I’ve had some negative comments from extreme pro-life type folks,” said Missouri state Rep. Bill Allen, a Republican who has introduced pro-IVF legislation. “But I’m pro-life. This is bringing life into the world. I think there’s something to be said for that.”
In Congress, anti-abortion groups are vowing to penalize GOP members if they support pro-IVF bills they believe go too far, including a nonbinding resolution introduced by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) earlier this month. And speakers, including the head of the influential Heritage Foundation, told activists at a recent anti-abortion summit in Washington, D.C., that Republicans have proved themselves “a fickle ally in the fight for the unborn” since the Dobbs decision, and can’t be relied upon to advance their agenda.
“Republicans — those who claim to be pro-life — have to be consistent in that viewpoint, and not run from that conversation,” Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, told POLITICO.
Yet the divide over IVF does not mean anti-abortion groups are breaking with the GOP entirely. This week, leaders of two of the country’s biggest groups — Susan B. Anthony List and March for Life — will attend House Republicans’ annual policy retreat. And even the groups most upset over the wave of pro-IVF legislation won’t commit to primarying the bills’ supporters, telling POLITICO they’d rather “educate” them on the issue.
Still, many anti-abortion advocates are stressing to lawmakers that blanket support for IVF, which recent polling shows is supported by 86 percent of voters, is not a nuanced “pro-life” position, arguing that the state and federal bills introduced to protect fertility care amount to “a get-out-of-regulation-free card.”
Instead, they want lawmakers to seize the moment created by the Alabama decision to impose restrictions on the way IVF is commonly practiced in the U.S. — in which excess fertilized embryos are created to ensure the best chance of a successful pregnancy after which unused embryos are often destroyed.
“Saying that you support IVF doesn’t mean anything unless we talk about what IVF is,” said Kristi Hamrick, chief policy strategist for Students for Life of America. “Do you support allowing a clinic that allows another patient to wander back and destroy embryos to go without any sanctions? Do you support allowing a disreputable doctor who uses his own sperm to fertilize most of the women’s eggs in the facility — that person shouldn’t experience any repercussions? What exactly are you saying you support?”
Most GOP lawmakers are ducking those questions as they instead push legislation to broadly protect access to the procedure in states like Kentucky, Mississippi and Missouri. Legislators in those states said they are open to a longer-term conversation about changes to the IVF process, but that their short-term concern is ensuring that access is unimpeded.
“I personally have concerns about discarding embryos. I believe that is the destruction of life,” said Kentucky state Sen. Whitney Westerfield, a Republican, who has introduced legislation to protect IVF access. His son and the triplets his wife is pregnant with are the product of adopted embryos another family did not use. “But I don’t want to create a weird incentive structure to reduce the use of IVF or to limit the opportunity for kids like mine to be born.”
Still, some Republicans lawmakers are heeding the anti-abortion movement’s concerns. In Iowa, House GOP lawmakers voted last week to advance legislation that would give embryos and fetuses personhood rights, despite concerns from Democrats and others that the legislation would hamper IVF access. And GOP lawmakers in Tennessee recently rejected legislation proposed by their Democratic colleagues to protect IVF access, saying that such legislation was unnecessary.
Even the Alabama Legislature watered down its original proposal, which would have carved out embryos created during the IVF process but not implanted into the uterus from the definition of “human life.”
“They’re not unafraid of the anti-abortion movement,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in abortion rights. “If they were, this bill would have looked different.”
As the debate rages at the state and national levels, Perkins and other anti-abortion leaders say they’re hopeful, despite recent setbacks, that the conversation ignited by the Alabama ruling will eventually lead to more restrictions on IVF.
“The silver lining here is that it’s drawing attention to something that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention,” he said. “More policymakers will begin to look at this and say, ‘Hey, you know? That this is something that really does need some oversight.’ I think they’ll wind up in a place different than the Alabama Legislature.”
‘License to kill’: Anti-abortion groups rage against the GOP
Some groups are running ads against longstanding GOP allies that use the same graphic imagery — blood, babies and scalpels — they have long deployed to oppose Democrats and the abortion-rights movement.
As many politicians raced in recent weeks to get to the right side of public opinion on IVF, some of the country’s biggest and most influential anti-abortion groups are pushing back. | Butch Dill/AP
By MEGAN MESSERLY and ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
03/12/2024 05:02 AM EDT
The anti-abortion movement is turning on Republican lawmakers who support bills to protect in vitro fertilization, accusing them of sanctioning murder.
As many politicians raced in recent weeks to get to the right side of public opinion on IVF, some of the country’s biggest and most influential anti-abortion groups are pushing back.
Several have attacked state and federal lawmakers — who introduced legislation to protect IVF after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last month that frozen embryos are children — for giving doctors a “license to kill” and said legislators’ efforts would result in “thousands of dead human beings.”
Other groups are going further, running ads against longstanding GOP allies that use the same graphic imagery — blood, babies and scalpels — they have long deployed to oppose Democrats and the abortion-rights movement.
The tension over IVF underscores a deepening divide as Republicans grapple with new political and policy consequences of passing laws declaring that life begins at conception. After marching in lockstep for decades against Roe v. Wade, conservatives are clashing in the post-Roe era over what it means to be “pro-life.”
LIVE EVENT: Join POLITICO’s annual Health Care Summit on Wednesday, March 13, from 11:30 a.m. ET, for exclusive conversations with the White House’s Neera Tanden, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, USAID’s Samantha Power, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Kellyanne Conway and more. RSVP required to attend, or watch here.
The split mirrors debates between Republicans and the anti-abortion movement over other popular policies, including exceptions from state abortion bans for rape and incest, and protections for contraception. That — and the unwillingness of many GOP candidates to talk about abortion on the campaign trail — has some in the anti-abortion movement accusing Republicans of caving to political pressure.
“For a lot of conservative Republican lawmakers, being against abortion has served as a kind of lazy way to say that you’re a conservative,” said Jameson Taylor, director of policy and legislative affairs for the Mississippi-based American Family Association Action. “Frankly, a lot of Republican lawmakers are not in touch with conservative principles because they have not taken sufficient time to think through what those principles are.”
In Alabama, the anti-abortion movement resoundingly condemned a bill shielding IVF providers from criminal and civil charges, and pressured GOP Gov. Kay Ivey to veto it. When she signed it anyway, one anti-abortion organization said the new law “disrespects human life and strips human beings of their dignity,” and another ran digital ads against Ivey and Republican lawmakers using graphic imagery and accusing them of “[betraying] life.”
“Politicians cannot call themselves pro-life, affirm the truth that human life begins at the moment of fertilization and then enact laws that allow the callous killing of these preborn children simply because they were created through IVF,” Live Action president Lila Rose said after Alabama Republicans approved the legislation.
A spokesperson for Ivey did not directly respond when asked about the group’s comments that the governor had given doctors a “license to kill.” Instead, the spokesperson pointed back to a statement the governor issued after signing the legislation, in which Ivey reiterated her support for IVF, lauded legislators for “quickly tackling” the issue and touted Alabama as a “pro-life, pro-family state.”
In Mississippi, the anti-abortion movement and its GOP allies have called a Republican-backed proposal to protect IVF the “greatest assault on the cause of life that we’ve seen in Mississippi in a long time” and warned that the “bad Democrat-based bill” would lead to “backdoor abortion and possible cloning and selling of ‘genetic materials of humans.’”
Lawmakers in Kentucky and Missouri who have introduced similar bills are also getting pushback from local conservative groups who see the legislation as an end-run around the state’s abortion restrictions.
Republican governors defend IVF after Alabama ruling
Play Video
Some Republicans dismiss the criticism, arguing that protecting IVF is a “pro-life” position.
“I’ve had some negative comments from extreme pro-life type folks,” said Missouri state Rep. Bill Allen, a Republican who has introduced pro-IVF legislation. “But I’m pro-life. This is bringing life into the world. I think there’s something to be said for that.”
In Congress, anti-abortion groups are vowing to penalize GOP members if they support pro-IVF bills they believe go too far, including a nonbinding resolution introduced by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) earlier this month. And speakers, including the head of the influential Heritage Foundation, told activists at a recent anti-abortion summit in Washington, D.C., that Republicans have proved themselves “a fickle ally in the fight for the unborn” since the Dobbs decision, and can’t be relied upon to advance their agenda.
“Republicans — those who claim to be pro-life — have to be consistent in that viewpoint, and not run from that conversation,” Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, told POLITICO.
Yet the divide over IVF does not mean anti-abortion groups are breaking with the GOP entirely. This week, leaders of two of the country’s biggest groups — Susan B. Anthony List and March for Life — will attend House Republicans’ annual policy retreat. And even the groups most upset over the wave of pro-IVF legislation won’t commit to primarying the bills’ supporters, telling POLITICO they’d rather “educate” them on the issue.
Still, many anti-abortion advocates are stressing to lawmakers that blanket support for IVF, which recent polling shows is supported by 86 percent of voters, is not a nuanced “pro-life” position, arguing that the state and federal bills introduced to protect fertility care amount to “a get-out-of-regulation-free card.”
Instead, they want lawmakers to seize the moment created by the Alabama decision to impose restrictions on the way IVF is commonly practiced in the U.S. — in which excess fertilized embryos are created to ensure the best chance of a successful pregnancy after which unused embryos are often destroyed.
“Saying that you support IVF doesn’t mean anything unless we talk about what IVF is,” said Kristi Hamrick, chief policy strategist for Students for Life of America. “Do you support allowing a clinic that allows another patient to wander back and destroy embryos to go without any sanctions? Do you support allowing a disreputable doctor who uses his own sperm to fertilize most of the women’s eggs in the facility — that person shouldn’t experience any repercussions? What exactly are you saying you support?”
Most GOP lawmakers are ducking those questions as they instead push legislation to broadly protect access to the procedure in states like Kentucky, Mississippi and Missouri. Legislators in those states said they are open to a longer-term conversation about changes to the IVF process, but that their short-term concern is ensuring that access is unimpeded.
“I personally have concerns about discarding embryos. I believe that is the destruction of life,” said Kentucky state Sen. Whitney Westerfield, a Republican, who has introduced legislation to protect IVF access. His son and the triplets his wife is pregnant with are the product of adopted embryos another family did not use. “But I don’t want to create a weird incentive structure to reduce the use of IVF or to limit the opportunity for kids like mine to be born.”
Still, some Republicans lawmakers are heeding the anti-abortion movement’s concerns. In Iowa, House GOP lawmakers voted last week to advance legislation that would give embryos and fetuses personhood rights, despite concerns from Democrats and others that the legislation would hamper IVF access. And GOP lawmakers in Tennessee recently rejected legislation proposed by their Democratic colleagues to protect IVF access, saying that such legislation was unnecessary.
Even the Alabama Legislature watered down its original proposal, which would have carved out embryos created during the IVF process but not implanted into the uterus from the definition of “human life.”
“They’re not unafraid of the anti-abortion movement,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in abortion rights. “If they were, this bill would have looked different.”
As the debate rages at the state and national levels, Perkins and other anti-abortion leaders say they’re hopeful, despite recent setbacks, that the conversation ignited by the Alabama ruling will eventually lead to more restrictions on IVF.
“The silver lining here is that it’s drawing attention to something that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention,” he said. “More policymakers will begin to look at this and say, ‘Hey, you know? That this is something that really does need some oversight.’ I think they’ll wind up in a place different than the Alabama Legislature.”
- FILED UNDER:
- ABORTION,
- KAY IVEY,
- ALABAMA,
- ABORTION RIGHTS,
- ANTI-ABORTION GROUPS
Dameon Farrow
Superstar
She still managed to pull 77k after dropping out.
She isn't going anywhere.
We'll definitely need to vote and we will. Left leaning voters are more fired up than they were in 2020.
Polls can't show you something like that.
And 2016 was 8 years ago.....
But polls....
Json
Superstar
That’s the real America.Plan a retreat in West Virginia of all places Repugs
Watch your mouth
they don’t wanna go to these coastal elite liberal bankrupt sanctuary cities with beaches, fine dining ,5 star hotels and Michelin star restaurants
Yeah a real dump.. have you ever driven through WV? Holy shyt I thought Arkansas was bad.. Both are like neck and neck of the most depressing fukked up places in America.. put MS and Alabama in there tooThat’s the real America.
Watch your mouth
‘Make the RNC White Again’: GOP Ends Minority Outreach Program
With Trump allies taking over the RNC and cleaning house, one of the casualties was a minority outreach program that seemed to be working for Republicans.
www.thedailybeast.com
‘Make the RNC White Again’: GOP Ends Minority Outreach Program
COMMUNITY SERVICEWith Trump allies taking over the RNC and cleaning house, one of the casualties was a minority outreach program that seemed to be working for Republicans.
Roger Sollenberger
Senior Political ReporterUpdated Mar. 13, 2024 6:40AM EDT / Published Mar. 13, 2024 4:53AM EDT
EXCLUSIVE
Animation by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
After years of accusations of financial mismanagement, the Republican National Committee is overhauling its 2024 election operations—a full-on MAGA makeover that the RNC claims will curb excessive spending and steer as much money as possible to supporting Donald Trump’s campaign.
But it appears that one of those strategic spending moves may have a profound effect on a successful minority outreach program, which two people with knowledge of the plans characterized as self-defeating, potentially erasing gains with groups of gettable new voters who have cooled on the Democratic Party.
As one of the sources put it to The Daily Beast, the tagline might as well be “Make the RNC White Again.”
The program at issue is an initiative from the 2022 midterms where RNC field staff engaged voters through gatherings and events held at community centers in areas with heavy minority populations, most specifically Latino communities.
In January, The Messenger reported that the RNC had already shuttered most of the nearly two dozen Hispanic Community Centers that served as the base for the program, leaving just five open. (The Messenger’s content vanished when it went out of business shortly thereafter, but the article was captured by the nonprofit Internet Archive.)
At the time, however, the RNC chalked the closures up as a temporary byproduct of its budget cycle. However, the organization also announced that it was preparing to double down on these efforts for 2024, opening 40 new centers in Latino, Black, Asian American, Native American, Jewish, and veteran communities across the country. That would include establishing outposts in key battlegrounds like Las Vegas, Nevada, Tuscon, Arizona, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Allentown, Pennsylvania, The Messenger reported.
Jaime Florez, the RNC’s Hispanic communications director, told The Messenger that “Democrats have taken the Hispanic community for granted for far too long” and vowed that the RNC planned to capitalize on those opportunities.
“Republicans will continue to make historic investments in Hispanic voter outreach, from opening more community centers to launching ‘Deposita Tu Voto’, that will further our gains with Hispanic voters and deliver Republican victories in 2024,” Florez said at the time.
But two people with knowledge of the plans told The Daily Beast that the RNC has decided to scrap that effort. Instead, the people said, the community center program now appears to be another casualty of the RNC’s recent restructuring— a bloodbath that has already claimed several dozen jobs, including senior leadership posts, along with the apparent decimation of field operations and other strategic realignments that could come at the cost of Republican candidates across the country not fortunate enough to be named Trump.
Instead of going after minority voters, the RNC apparently plans to remake itself even more in Trump’s image.
While the size and complexity of modern presidential races demands close coordination between the candidate’s campaign and the national party, the unique pressures on Trump and the RNC—external and internal—forced a reckoning that has taken that standard teambuilding exercise to a new realm.
The catalyst for those events is the very real prospect of financial crisis now facing the two groups, thanks to stratospheric personal legal costs on Trump’s part and unsustainable fundraising and spending for both organizations. Coupled with demands for unconditional fealty to the MAGA brand—which have exacerbated fault lines within the party—the RNC found itself at an inflection point coming into 2024.
To resolve the tension, Trump essentially took control of the RNC. He forced out longtime chair Ronna McDaniel, replacing her with a trio of MAGA loyalists—including his own daughter-in-law, Lara Trump—who uprooted some of the RNC’s most experienced staff and welded the two organizations into what amounts to a single-purpose machine designed to fuel Trump’s attempt to reclaim the White House.
Former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel.
Joshua Roberts/Reuters
While one short-term goal is to minimize costs, the moves could come at great political expense in the long term, especially for down-ballot candidates who depend on the RNC for critical funding and other resources. But there are other intangible losses, like the exodus of talent, a blooming vacuum of institutional knowledge, and sapping momentum from field projects like the community center program.That project not only had promise, it came at the right time. After ignoring their own “autopsy” of the GOP’s 2012 presidential loss, many Republicans began to court minority voters in the wake of Trump’s 2016 win. As paradoxical as that may seem, given Trump’s rhetoric and policies, those efforts appear to be bearing some fruit.
Today, a sizable portion of minority voters—historically a reliable well of Democratic support—have exhibited a disaffection with the party, particularly in younger demographics, drifting towards Republicans who champion conservative ideologies that have long been culturally ingrained in those communities but had not in themselves inspired voters to change parties.
There are competing explanations for this shift. For instance, some analysts argue it’s more an expression of educational shifts than of racial realignment. But no matter the underlying cause, after Trump’s decisive 2020 defeat in the popular vote, the RNC set about trying to connect with Hispanic groups on the grassroots level.
{continued}
The community centers were key to that effort. They were viewed as a success and point of pride, sources with knowledge of the project told The Daily Beast. The Messenger described the project’s pitch as “a dream intersection of fun, civic life, candidate recruitment, and GOTV muscle,” reporting that in the midterms the centers hosted events like toy drives, religious services, holiday meals, cultural celebrations—and, for some reason, cryptocurrency workshops.
“Community centers continued to pop up in Hispanic communities and positive headlines continued to flow,” The Messenger reported.
While it’s difficult to measure the cost of these programs, people familiar with the effort shrugged off the expenses as comparatively minimal, especially given the positive preliminary returns. Most of the overhead, they said, would be related to renting space for the centers, along with staffing expenses and incidentals for events.
The RNC previously indicated that the rationalization for temporarily closing the centers was financial, considering the party’s cash woes. But if that’s also the explanation for a permanent shutdown, the savings would be thin.
Federal Election Commission filings show that in 2022, the RNC spent a grand total of just over $2 million on rent, with much of it going to campaigns and state and local parties for joint field work in the midterms. But some outlays give an idea of the cost—such as the $3,500 per month that the RNC paid to “No Limits Community Development” in Georgia. By comparison, around the same time, the RNC agreed to pay $1.6 million to cover Trump’s personal legal costs.
These rent payments also wouldn’t divert a penny of the RNC’s political money. Instead, the rent expenses came out of the party’s “building” account, a specially segregated bank account that can only be tapped for expenses related to buildings and maintenance.
The Daily Beast reached out to an RNC spokesperson for comment, who provided a statement from Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung. The statement called the criticism of the community center closures “racist” and “complete bullshyt,” but did not deny that the program had shut down.
“The racist accusations about the RNC and Trump campaign are complete bullshyt, President Trump did more to benefit minority communities during his first term than any other President, especially Crooked Joe Biden, and that’s why he’s polling better with Black and Hispanic Americans,” Cheung said in the statement. (The metric Trump most favors to measure his efficacy as an advocate for the Black community—Black unemployment—reached new record lows under Biden.)
Cheung was apparently referencing a recent New York Times/Siena poll that put Trump 6 points ahead of President Joe Biden in Hispanic voters—a major shift, but in line with the recent inroads that Trump and the GOP have made in certain Latino communities, like southern Florida.
However, the same poll showed that, while Biden’s support among Black voters has appeared to weaken, he still holds a 66-23 lead in that demographic over Trump, who has repeatedly expressed that his multiple criminal indictments are something he has in common with the Black community.
“I think that’s why the Black people are so much on my side now," Trump told attendees at an event for Black conservatives in South Carolina last month. "Because they see what’s happening to me happens to them.”
“President Trump will only continue to make gains with minority communities, just as he did from 2016 to 2020, no matter what the lowlifes at the Daily Beast report,” Cheung added.
The shuttered community outreach program would certainly be one way to do so. But that program was not an entirely smooth ride. It had its critics even within the GOP, who argued that while the initial effort was commendable, minority outreach works best as a long-term, continual investment, not an election-year burst of interest.
“They tried; we appreciate that,” Daniel Garza, executive director of grassroots Latino outreach group the LIBRE Initiative, told The Messenger in January. “But you have to have people on the inside who can advise you—these are long-term things that need to be backed by resources.”
In fairness, some projects themselves had setbacks. In Oklahoma City, the RNC Hispanic Community Center—which has since shuttered—got off to a rocky start.
At the opening of the site in July of 2022, the RNC honored Jonathan Hernandez, president of the Oklahoma College Republicans and a political operative in the state. But Hernandez was arrested less than a week later on charges of indecent or lewd acts with a minor and forcible oral sodomy. He pleaded guilty, got a five-year suspended sentence, and was ordered to register as a sex offender.
After the charges, he had no further involvement with the community center. Now, no one else will either.[/SIZE][/SIZE]
The community centers were key to that effort. They were viewed as a success and point of pride, sources with knowledge of the project told The Daily Beast. The Messenger described the project’s pitch as “a dream intersection of fun, civic life, candidate recruitment, and GOTV muscle,” reporting that in the midterms the centers hosted events like toy drives, religious services, holiday meals, cultural celebrations—and, for some reason, cryptocurrency workshops.
“Community centers continued to pop up in Hispanic communities and positive headlines continued to flow,” The Messenger reported.
While it’s difficult to measure the cost of these programs, people familiar with the effort shrugged off the expenses as comparatively minimal, especially given the positive preliminary returns. Most of the overhead, they said, would be related to renting space for the centers, along with staffing expenses and incidentals for events.
The RNC previously indicated that the rationalization for temporarily closing the centers was financial, considering the party’s cash woes. But if that’s also the explanation for a permanent shutdown, the savings would be thin.
Federal Election Commission filings show that in 2022, the RNC spent a grand total of just over $2 million on rent, with much of it going to campaigns and state and local parties for joint field work in the midterms. But some outlays give an idea of the cost—such as the $3,500 per month that the RNC paid to “No Limits Community Development” in Georgia. By comparison, around the same time, the RNC agreed to pay $1.6 million to cover Trump’s personal legal costs.
These rent payments also wouldn’t divert a penny of the RNC’s political money. Instead, the rent expenses came out of the party’s “building” account, a specially segregated bank account that can only be tapped for expenses related to buildings and maintenance.
The Daily Beast reached out to an RNC spokesperson for comment, who provided a statement from Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung. The statement called the criticism of the community center closures “racist” and “complete bullshyt,” but did not deny that the program had shut down.
“The racist accusations about the RNC and Trump campaign are complete bullshyt, President Trump did more to benefit minority communities during his first term than any other President, especially Crooked Joe Biden, and that’s why he’s polling better with Black and Hispanic Americans,” Cheung said in the statement. (The metric Trump most favors to measure his efficacy as an advocate for the Black community—Black unemployment—reached new record lows under Biden.)
Cheung was apparently referencing a recent New York Times/Siena poll that put Trump 6 points ahead of President Joe Biden in Hispanic voters—a major shift, but in line with the recent inroads that Trump and the GOP have made in certain Latino communities, like southern Florida.
However, the same poll showed that, while Biden’s support among Black voters has appeared to weaken, he still holds a 66-23 lead in that demographic over Trump, who has repeatedly expressed that his multiple criminal indictments are something he has in common with the Black community.
“I think that’s why the Black people are so much on my side now," Trump told attendees at an event for Black conservatives in South Carolina last month. "Because they see what’s happening to me happens to them.”
“President Trump will only continue to make gains with minority communities, just as he did from 2016 to 2020, no matter what the lowlifes at the Daily Beast report,” Cheung added.
The shuttered community outreach program would certainly be one way to do so. But that program was not an entirely smooth ride. It had its critics even within the GOP, who argued that while the initial effort was commendable, minority outreach works best as a long-term, continual investment, not an election-year burst of interest.
“They tried; we appreciate that,” Daniel Garza, executive director of grassroots Latino outreach group the LIBRE Initiative, told The Messenger in January. “But you have to have people on the inside who can advise you—these are long-term things that need to be backed by resources.”
In fairness, some projects themselves had setbacks. In Oklahoma City, the RNC Hispanic Community Center—which has since shuttered—got off to a rocky start.
At the opening of the site in July of 2022, the RNC honored Jonathan Hernandez, president of the Oklahoma College Republicans and a political operative in the state. But Hernandez was arrested less than a week later on charges of indecent or lewd acts with a minor and forcible oral sodomy. He pleaded guilty, got a five-year suspended sentence, and was ordered to register as a sex offender.
After the charges, he had no further involvement with the community center. Now, no one else will either.[/SIZE][/SIZE]
Dameon Farrow
Superstar
Judge dismissed 6 charges in the GA interference case.
In one of the instances where I dislike the media just running for headlines....he still has 10 charges hanging over his head. 35 total charges still intact for the whole lot. Included in that are the racketeering charges.
So I guess this is some kind of 'win' for him. But he is far from out of the woods.
These judges imo are scared to be the one to set certain precedents. Who wants to be the first to say certain groundbreaking indictments have their names attached to it? Smh.
Ultimately it'll be up to the voters. And I have faith in them. In us.
In one of the instances where I dislike the media just running for headlines....he still has 10 charges hanging over his head. 35 total charges still intact for the whole lot. Included in that are the racketeering charges.
So I guess this is some kind of 'win' for him. But he is far from out of the woods.
These judges imo are scared to be the one to set certain precedents. Who wants to be the first to say certain groundbreaking indictments have their names attached to it? Smh.
Ultimately it'll be up to the voters. And I have faith in them. In us.
Dameon Farrow
Superstar
A black Trump supporter over the weekend told me the charges will endear 45 to black folks. I kid you not. This was at a barber shop. We really have some clown out there. I wanted to ask him if he bought the shoes.
Outside of the 45 support he's a cool dude, too.