Monthly Archives: April 2021

Former President Donald Trump is staking his claim to the Republican Party in a closed-door speech to donors Saturday night, casting his populist policies and attack-dog politics as the key to future Republican success

By STEVE PEOPLES AP National Political Writer

April 11, 2021, 12:01 AM

4 min read

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Former President Donald Trump staked his claim to the Republican Party in a closed-door speech to donors Saturday night, casting his populist policies and attack-dog politics as the key to future Republican success.

Trump also reinforced his commitment to the GOP in his address, according to prepared remarks obtained by The Associated Press, which comes as Republican officials seek to downplay an intraparty feud over Trump's role in the party, his commitment to GOP fundraising and his plans for 2024. While Trump's advisers report he will emphasize party unity, he rarely sticks to script.

The key to this triumphant future will be to build on the gains our amazing movement has made over the past four years, Trump told hundreds of leading Republican donors, according to the prepared remarks. Under our leadership, we welcomed millions upon millions of new voters into the Republican coalition. We transformed the Republican Party into a party that truly fights for all Americans.

The former president delivered his remarks behind closed doors at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, in the final address of the Republican National Committee's weekend donor summit in Palm Beach. Most of the RNC's invitation-only weekend gathering was set at a luxury hotel four miles away, but attendees were bused to Trump's club for his remarks.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to address donors Saturday night as well. Earlier in the weekend, a slew of candidates already positioning themselves for a 2024 presidential run made appearances. Besides DeSantis, the potential White House contenders included South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio of Florida and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina also spoke.

In his remarks Friday night, Cotton leaned into the GOPs culture wars, attacking the Democrats positions on transgender youth, voter ID laws and Major League Baseball's decision to move its All-Star Game to protest Republican voting laws just as Trump does in his prepared remarks.

While a significant faction of the Republican Party hopes to move past Trumps divisive leadership, the location of the weekend gathering suggests that the GOP, at least for now, is not ready to replace Trump as its undisputed leader and chief fundraiser.

Trump's team reports that his remarks are intended to reinforce his continued leadership role in Republican affairs, a sharp break from past presidents.

Saturdays speech will be welcomed words to the Republican donors visiting Mar-a-Lago to hear directly from President Trump," Trump adviser Jason Miller said. "Palm Beach is the new political power center, and President Trump is the Republican Partys best messenger.

Despite Saturday's intended message, Trump's commitment to the GOP is far from certain.

Earlier in the year, he raised the possibility of creating a new political party. And just a month ago, Trumps political action committee sent letters to the RNC and others asking them to immediately cease and desist the unauthorized use of President Donald J. Trumps name, image, and/or likeness in all fundraising, persuasion, and/or issue speech.

GOP officials have repeatedly tried to downplay the fundraising tensions and see Trumps participation as a sign that he is willing to lend his name to the party. At the same time, Trump continues to aggressively accumulate campaign cash to fuel his own political ambitions.

Trump has also regularly attacked his Republican critics in recent weeks, especially Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and No. 3 House Republican Liz Cheney. Neither attended the weekend donor summit.

Trump did not attack Cheney or McConnell or any Republicans in Saturday's speech, at least according to his scripted remarks.

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Trump: The key to Republican success is more Trumpism - ABC News

For four decades, the basic deal between big American corporations and politicians has been simple. Corporations provide campaign funds. Politicians reciprocate by lowering corporate taxes and doing whatever else corporations need to boost profits.

The deal has proven beneficial to both sides, although not to the American public. Campaign spending has soared while corporate taxes have shriveled.

In the 1950s, corporations accounted for about 40% of federal revenue. Today, they contribute a meager 7%. Last year, more than 50 of the largest US companies paid no federal income taxes at all. Many havent paid taxes for years.

Both parties have been in on this deal although the GOP has been the bigger player. Yet since Donald Trump issued his big lie about the fraudulence of the 2020 election, corporate America has had a few qualms about the GOP.

After the storming of the Capitol, dozens of giant corporations said they would no longer donate to the 147 Republican members of Congress who objected to the certification of Biden electors on the basis of the big lie.

Then came the GOPs wave of restrictive state voting laws, premised on the same big lie. Georgias are among the most egregious. The chief executive of Coca-Cola, headquartered in the peach tree state, calls those laws wrong and a step backward. The chief executive of Delta Airlines, Georgias largest employer, says theyre unacceptable. Major League Baseball decided to take its annual All-Star Game away from the home of the Atlanta Braves.

These criticisms have unleashed a rare firestorm of anti-corporate Republican indignation. The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, warns corporations of unspecified serious consequences for speaking out. Republicans are moving to revoke MLBs antitrust status. Georgia Republicans threaten to punish Delta by repealing a state tax credit for jet fuel.

Why are we still listening to these woke corporate hypocrites on taxes, regulations and antitrust? asks the Florida senator Marco Rubio.

Why? For the same reason Willie Sutton gave when asked why he robbed banks: thats where the money is.

McConnell told reporters corporations should stay out of politics but then qualified his remark: Im not talking about political contributions. Of course not. Republicans have long championed corporate speech when it comes in the form of campaign cash just not as criticism.

Talk about hypocrisy. McConnell was the top recipient of corporate money in the 2020 election cycle and has a long history of battling attempts to limit it. In 2010, he hailed the supreme courts Citizens United ruling, which struck down limits on corporate political donations, on the dubious grounds that corporations are people under the first amendment to the constitution.

For too long, some in this country have been deprived of full participation in the political process, McConnell said at the time. Hint: he wasnt referring to poor Black people.

Its hypocrisy squared. The growing tsunami of corporate campaign money suppresses votes indirectly by drowning out all other voices. Republicans are in the grotesque position of calling on corporations to continue bribing politicians as long as they dont criticize Republicans for suppressing votes directly.

The hypocrisy flows in the other direction as well. The Delta chief criticized the GOPs voter suppression in Georgia but the company continues to bankroll Republicans. Its Pac contributed $1,725,956 in the 2020 election, more than $1m of which went to federal candidates, mostly Republicans. Oh, and Delta hasnt paid federal taxes for years.

Dont let the spat fool you. The basic deal between the GOP and corporate America is still very much alive.

Which is why, despite record-low corporate taxes, congressional Republicans are feigning outrage at Joe Bidens plan to have corporations pay for his $2tn infrastructure proposal. Biden isnt even seeking to raise the corporate tax rate as high as it was before the Trump tax cut, yet not a single Republicans will support it.

A few Democrats, such as West Virginias Joe Manchin, dont want to raise corporate taxes as high as Biden does either. Yet almost two-thirds of Americans support the idea.

The basic deal between American corporations and American politicians has been a terrible deal for America. Which is why a piece of legislation entitled the For the People Act, passed by the House and co-sponsored in the Senate by every Democratic senator except Manchin, is so important. It would both stop states from suppressing votes and also move the country toward public financing of elections, thereby reducing politicians dependence on corporate cash.

Corporations can and should bankroll much of what America needs. But they wont, as long as corporations keep bankrolling American politicians.

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Republican attacks on corporations over voting rights bills are a hypocritical sham - The Guardian

Republicans, conservatives, libertarians and people of traditional faith love to whine about the policies they believe are destroying the America they love. Isnt it just awful what the liberals and the far-left have done to our nation with their socialist policies, they say to each other, wringing their hands, before going about their daily lives.

After the 2020 election legally won by President BidenJoe BidenBiden eyes bigger US role in global vaccination efforts Trump says GOP will take White House in 2024 in prepared speech Kemp: Pulling All-Star game out of Atlanta will hurt business owners of color MORE egged-on by former President TrumpDonald TrumpHarry Reid reacts to Boehner book excerpt: 'We didn't mince words' Man arrested for allegedly threatening to stab undercover Asian officer in NYC Trump says GOP will take White House in 2024 in prepared speech MORE and some of his loyalists, their cry became: Look what the far-left media and their allies in Big Tech did to us!

All this has been heaped upon their constant complaints about the disgraceful far-left bias in the media, academia, entertainment and, of late, science and medicine.

Since before I entered the Reagan White House in 1987, I have been listening to such incessant whining. Poor us, they cry, We Americans who believe in God, the rule of law, sovereign and protected borders, a strong military, smaller government, lower taxes and personal accountability. What are we to do in the face of such unfairness?

What they generally do is howl at the moon.

If Republicans, conservatives and people of traditional faith truly believe the left has come to dominate the media, entertainment, academia, science and medicine, then they should take steps to change that.

Almost a quarter-century ago, I sat down with my old boss, former Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, to discuss this reality and the political and power-balancing enigma. Back then, long before tech giants Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube came to dominate society, Dole the former Senate majority leader and Republican presidential and vice presidential nominee was honestly astounded that more ultra-wealthy Republicans and conservatives were not getting into the media and entertainment fields. What we were told then was that those fields either did not fit their business models or that they might adversely affect their bottom lines.

As Dole and I discussed, commonsense and pragmatism dictates that not having a voice in the largest megaphones of our nation the media, entertainment and academia is a losing strategy destined to create negative consequences for those trying to advance conservative or faith-based thought or arguments.

It can most certainly be argued that, for the past few decades, the left has come to dominate these fields, as well as science and medicine. And in some ways, liberals should be congratulated for achieving such dominance. That said, none of it happened in a vacuum or in the dead of night. It was all done with everyones eyes wide open including people who later morphed into complainers about the unfairness of it all, but who voluntarily chose to do nothing at the time. For whatever reason, they looked away while those on the left went about their business creating amazing high-tech achievements such as Google, Amazon and social media platforms.

Now, some on the right want to scream, How dare those liberal entrepreneurs espouse the political or ideological thoughts they believe in, on sites they created, while blocking some they disagree with! Ah, but isnt it basic human nature to exercise control over a private company in which one has invested his or her blood, sweat and tears to create?

The last time I checked, there were thousands of Republican, conservative, libertarian and traditional faith-based millionaires, multimillionaires and billionaires who have amassed collective wealth exceeding $1 trillion. Surely thats enough money to invest in a few newspapers, fund television networks, start a few universities or create some Big Tech sites of their own.

Its time for the right to stop playing victim and put their money where they swear their values lie. If not, those who are complaining should put a cork in it.

Douglas MacKinnon, a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration.

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Republicans and conservatives are to blame for the America they decry | TheHill - The Hill

President Biden told reporters last month that his plan is to run for re-election, despite already being the oldest person to have won a presidential election. So, for now at least, the question of who will lead the Democratic ticket in 2024 has been put to rest.

On the Republican side, however, certainty is in short supply. Its beyond early to be talking about the next presidential election (were still hardly even ready to talk about the midterms!) but thats only if you arent planning to run. Some Republican candidates have already made trips to Iowa and New Hampshire, and others are laying plans to go, in what often represents the first step in building out a campaign operation in those early-voting states.

And on Wednesday, in a conspicuously forward-looking move, former Vice President Mike Pence announced the formation of a new political organization, Advancing American Freedom, whose advisory board is stacked high with former Trump administration officials and allies. The news came on the same day Simon & Schuster announced that it would publish Pences autobiography as part of a two-book deal.

The G.O.P. is badly fractured, trying to hold together a dominant base of those loyal to former President Donald Trump and a stubborn minority of pro-decorum, anti-Trump conservatives. Anyone looking to grab the Republican mantle will have to find some way of satisfying both camps and maybe even expanding upon them.

A national poll from Pew Research Center last month found that most Republicans didnt think the G.O.P. should be accepting of elected officials in the party who openly criticize Trump. But looking at the nation at large, Pew also found that a majority of Americans called Trump either a poor or terrible president. So it may be tough for Republicans to get very far in a general election if their candidate is seen as too staunch of a Trump loyalist.

With all these factors at play, I caught up with our political reporter and Trump guru Maggie Haberman. Heres what she had to say.

Mike Pence on Wednesday announced that he had started the group Advancing American Freedom, with the self-described mission of promoting traditional conservative values, advocating the successful policies of the Trump administration and opposing Bidens expansion of government. Is this a preliminary move toward a possible 2024 run?

It most certainly gives Pence a perch from which to run, and, more significantly, to differentiate himself from Trump to the best of his ability. He has more of a challenge than most of the potential 2024 candidates in presenting himself as a continuation of what Republicans liked about the Trump era, without the parts they didnt.

A stubborn divide remains between the partys Trump-supporting base and its establishment wing. Pence, for one, has always done his best to skate along that divide. For Republican presidential hopefuls, will there be any room for being even semi-critical of Trump?

I think they all have to survive a G.O.P. primary, and the bulk of the Republican base is going to want someone who resembles Trump in some way.

There is going to be little room for a Republican to separate from Trump in the primary barring new circumstances that change Trumps standing with those voters and then pivot back in a general election and be viable with swing voters.

Pence has also been so, so reluctant to criticize Trump, even after his own life was at risk in the Capitol attack on Jan. 6.

A number of other prominent Republicans have recently been laying groundwork in Iowa. (Despite the 2020 Democratic caucus shenanigans, the state is certain to hold an early contest in 2024.) Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, and Senator Rick Scott of Florida just went there, and others are reportedly planning trips. After the Conservative Political Action Conference last month, what clues are you seeing about how the 2024 field will shape up? Does any one figure seem particularly well positioned?

Its so early in the cycle, its very hard to say. We dont know what the world or the country will look like closer to 2024, although the midterms will tell us something about the mood of the electorate.

Scott is in a bit of a different position than some candidates, having been a governor and now a senator. Scott surprised leaders in his own party by siding with Trumps objections to the electoral certification, which helps him in a primary but which could be a challenge in other ways.

Where does Trump himself stand in all this? He has been relatively quiet since January, his speech at CPAC aside but hes still running a political operation out of his residence in Florida. Whether or not he runs again in three years, is it safe to say he will be playing an active role in the race somehow?

Remember, Trump keeps telling people hes running. While most of his own advisers are skeptical that he will do it, it could have a chilling effect on the field for a while. He wants to remain dominant in the party and he is a major factor in down-ballot primaries so far.

But that isnt the only impactful factor in these races. He wants to be relevant; remember that only a narrow majority of Republicans want to see him as the nominee again.

Drop us a line

Were nearing the end of three months in which former President Donald Trump has been barred from Twitter and Facebook. This has upset his supporters, of course, but has resulted in a general lowering of the conversational temperature, particularly on Twitter. Our colleague Sarah Lyall is working on an article about the absence of Trumps voice on social media, and wed love to hear from readers.

We want to know:

1. Did you follow (or block) Trump on Twitter?

2. How did his tweets make you feel when you saw them on Twitter, or read about them afterward?

3. Have you noticed his absence from social media platforms since January? Do you miss his voice, or are you happy not to hear it anymore?

Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com and include your name, email address and profession, and you may be included in forthcoming news coverage.

On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.

Is there anything you think were missing? Anything you want to see more of? Wed love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

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For These Republicans, 2024 Is Just Around the Corner - The New York Times

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) President Joe Biden unveiled limited executive action targeting gun violence on Thursday.

The announcement is drawing criticism from leading Tennessee lawmakers who see pending gun control measures as a way to strip 2nd Amendment rights.

And the state of Tennessee will meet the DC thugs at our border, Representative Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby) said on Twitter.

On Thursday, the Republican House Caucus Chairman attempted to walk back the tweet.

Well, thats obviously me just being colorful with my speech number one, Faison said.

The comment comes as mass shootings are on the rise, according to gunviolencearchive.org, and in the shadow of a deadly capitol insurrection.

If D.C. or the White House starts to do a gun grab or anything that we would view as in the state as something thats not constitutional or goes against what we as a state believes is our gun rights and our constitutional rights, we will fight it as hard as we can with everything we have, Faison said, later pointing to combating the issues on guns with the federal government legislatively.

Democrats say the rhetoric should be tampered down.

I dont really think that theres any place for inflammatory rhetoric like that, said Senator Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville), Everybody in America has just experienced one of the most high conflict periods over the last 6 months, and I think its time to bring the temperature down and actually focus on how we solve a problem instead of trying to exchange insults or threats.

The measures from President Biden include rules to combat ghost guns and publishing red flag laws for states to adopt.

Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) says theres rhetoric on all sides.

Is there appropriate rhetoric coming out of D.C. or coming out of other states, I mean we can have that discussion amongst what everybody is saying, Sexton said.

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Republican lawmaker on Bidens executive gun action: Tennessee will meet the DC thugs at our border - WKRN News 2