Category Archives: Donald Trump

Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump three of ex-President Donald Trumps adult children continue to stick taxpayers with the cost of their Secret Service protection.

They racked up more than $140,000 in charges in the first month following President Joe Bidens inauguration on Jan. 20, according to watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which analyzed Secret Service spending records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Agents protecting Trumps progeny spent $52,296.75 on travel and $88,678.39 on hotel costs during the 30-day period, including on trips to Salt Lake City, Miami and New York, the group said Wednesday.

It works out to around $4,699 per day.

And the total costs to taxpayers could be even higher, because the Secret Service did not provide records of spending at Trump businesses, which is the most controversial aspect of the extended protection, CREW added.

That the Trump offspring can benefit from publicly funded security details at all is down to their fathers six-month extension of their protection following his departure from the White House.

Only the ex-president, former first lady Melania Trump and their son Barron, 15, are entitled to automatic protection.

Trump, however, extended the perk to his aforementioned kids (plus youngest daughter Tiffany Trump) and their partners in the final days of his administration.

While it may be tempting to put the story of the Trump familys profiteering in the past, we cannot until they have actually stopped directing taxpayer money into their own bank accounts, said the group, which has long exposed instances of taxpayer money being funneled to Trump properties. Thanks to Trumps unusual extension of their protection, theyve got a few more months to continue the grift.

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Donald Trump's Adult Children Are Still Costing Taxpayers Thousands Of Dollars A Day - HuffPost

Former President Donald Trump, who reportedly has $590 million in debts due over the next four years, is set to receive a $617 million cash payout as part of a bond deal made by Vornado Realty Trust, his longtime majority-stake partners.

Trump apparently scored the massive $600-million plus in cash after investors bought up $1.2 billion of bonds tied to the refinancing of a San Francisco office tower, 555 California. Trump has a 30 percent minority stake in the building, which makes up a massive portion, as much as $800 million, of his entire net worth. Because Vornado holds the majority stake, Trump doesn't have any control over the two properties he owns with them, the second being 1290 Avenue of the Americans in New York City. The windfall he "stumbled into" comes at a great time for Trump, analysts said, because numerous banks and businesses cut ties with him in the wake of the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot.

The $617 million cash infusion from the Vornado refinancing in San Francisco is likely to precede another large payout for Trump's 1290 Avenue of the Americans office tower. Steve Roth, Vornado's chief executive officer, told investors this past week, that building is "on deck" for refinancing, Bloomberg News reported.

Trump has a lengthy financial record which includes numerous corporate bankruptcies, suing lenders and provoking nearly every bank except for Deutsche to run the other way. But with $617 million of cash and another lucrative refinancing deal about to fall in his lap, analysts said he may have already dug his way out of more than a half-billion of debt his Trump Organization has sat on since entering the White House.

"What the tax records for Mr. Trump's businesses show, however, is that he has lost chunks of his fortune even before depreciation is figured in," according to The New York Times in an eye-opening September 2020 report on Trump's federal income tax payments.

"To see what a successful business looks like, depreciation or not, look no further than one in Mr. Trump's portfolio that he does not manage...he ended up with a 30 percent share of two valuable office buildings owned and operated by Vornado. That's a $176.5 million share of profits for which he has never had to invest more money in the partnership," the Times report said, highlighting Trump as an overall liability to Vornado.

According to financial disclosure forms that first came to light in 2019, Trump has reported holding 14 loans on 12 properties. Six of those loans, representing around $479 million in debt, are due over the next four yearsa debt that a cash-heavy Trump may now be able to pay.

"Trump has been an even less equal partner in the relationship than his 30 percent stake already implies. He more or less stumbled into the arrangement," Mother Jones' Russ Choma wrote Friday, noting that Trump's partnership role was greatly diminished after his "Trump City" project in the 1980s was a "huge flop."

Trump's tax returns, which The New York Times detailed last September, showed that Trump had $6.67 million in taxable interest$6 million of which came from his investment with Vornado.

Newsweek reached out to Vornado's corporate offices as well as those for the Trump Organization Saturday morning.

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Donald Trump, Facing $590 Million in Debt Payments, Gets ...

The big three social media platforms have locked President Trump's accounts because his posts violated their policies during riots at the U.S. Capitol. USA TODAY

WASHINGTON As Facebook decides whether to lift its ban on Donald Trump, the former president unveiled a new website Tuesday designed to communicate to his followers without interacting with them.

"From the desk of Donald J. Trump" went operational more than fours months after Facebook, Twitter, and other social media companies banned him for lies about the general election that helped trigger the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

The website, which includes written statements the ex-president has issued since leaving office Jan. 20, includes a camera feature that Trump can use to make video statements.

More: Will Donald Trump's Facebook, Instagram bans stick? Facebook's Oversight Board to issue ruling Wednesday

"Straight from the desk of Donald J. Trump," said a 30-second video posted on the site that included references to his banning from social media.

Will former President Donald Trump remain banned from Facebook and Instagram? The decision from Facebook's Oversight Board comes Wednesday.(Photo: Gerald Herbert, AP)

The new Trump website, first reported by Fox News,surfaced a day before Facebook'sOversight Board is scheduled to announce a decision on whether to keep the ex-president off Facebook and Instagram.

More: President Trump blocked from posting to Facebook, Instagram 'indefinitely,' at least through end of term

More: President Trump permanently banned from Twitter over risk he could incite violence

This is not the social media platform that Trump has pledged to create; there is no way for viewers to interact or respond to the Trump messages that are posted on the new website.

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Trump spokesman Jason Millersaid on Twitter that the new website is "a great resource to find his latest statements and highlights from his first term in office," but added "this is not a new social media platform. Well have additional information coming on that front in the very near future."

Others offered a different description of the venture that allows Trump to post comments, images, and videos.

"Its basically a blog," tweeted pollster Frank Luntz.

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/05/04/from-desk-donald-j-trump-ex-president-creates-new-website/4945717001/

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Trump launches 'From the desk of Donald J. Trump' as potential Facebook ban looms - USA TODAY

The Guardian

A social media campaign featuring a self-described cisgender millennial Latin intelligence officer drew ire from right and left The CIAs attempt to brush up its image for a new generation drew criticism from left and right but others were supportive. Diversity is an operational advantage, said one former officer. Photograph: Dennis Brack/EPA In its long and colourful history, US intelligence has come in for a lot of criticism, for engineering coups, drug trafficking and torture, but just over 100 days into the Biden administration it faces a new charge no one saw coming: is the CIA just too woke? A social media campaign, Humans of CIA, aimed at boosting diversity at the agency has united critics on the right and left in a moment of shared derision, albeit for different reasons. The focus of the uproar is a video about a Latina intelligence officer, who declares: I am a cisgender millennial, who has been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. I am intersectional, but my existence is not a box-checking exercise, she says, in the voiceover to a film of her walking confidently through the CIAs Langley headquarters with a T-shirt emblazoned with a clenched fist motif. I used to struggle with impostor syndrome, but at 36 I refuse to internalize misguided patriarchal ideas of what a woman can or should be, she adds. The terminology of wokeness drew a volcanic response on Fox News. One guest, Bryan Dean Wright, a former CIA operations officer turned political strategist, called it propagandist garbage and the culmination of what he claimed was a liberal takeover. What happens when you hire a bunch of folks who are wokesters going out into the world that is not woke? he asked. Is an analyst who is a wokester are they going to bring nuance to their analysis? Of course not, Theyre activists now. The Republican senator Ted Cruz joined in, tweeting: If youre a Chinese communist, or an Iranian Mullah, or Kim Jong Un would this scare you? Weve come a long way from Jason Bourne, he added, before being swiftly reminded in Twitter replies that Bourne was an entirely fictional amnesiac carrying out rogue assassinations, and that Donald Trump, who Cruz had steadfastly supported, had openly declared his love for Kim Jong-un. On the left, the critics accused the agency of appropriating woke language to gloss over an unsavoury history. The job for the US & UK intelligence services, and, indeed, for other centers of establishment power, is to transform the Woke wolf into a domesticated Woke dog. Im betting they succeed, wrote the author and policy analyst David Rieff. A CIA spokesperson said the campaign has been going on for some time. In 2019 we started our ongoing social media series, Humans of CIA, for real officers to share their firsthand experiences, the spokesperson said. Some veteran spies came to the CIAs defence, lauding the agencys efforts at diversity (other videos were about a gay CIA librarian and a blind receptionist), and arguing it would make it more effective. Diversity is an operational advantage. Simple as that. I want case officers who look like the UN, Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior officer, said on Twitter. [The] Agency needs to push Diversity efforts to win, not to be woke. I applaud their efforts, but also note they have a ways to go.

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Ted Cruz and Donald Trump Jr. mocked a new CIA recruitment ad in which a staffer identified as a millennial with anxiety - Yahoo News

The lead item in Politicos signature morning newsletter asked if a certain public figure was losing his mind. His rants made him seem ever more unhinged. Then again, they might be theatrical, a way to keep you guessing as to whether hes just putting you on.

Those words, or their rough equivalents, were used scores if not hundreds of times to describe Donald Trump.

But they were written last Tuesday about Tucker Carlson. And they settled the matter: Hes the new Trump. Not Ron DeSantis. Not Josh Hawley. Not Rick Scott. Certainly not Ted Cruz.

Those other men are vying merely for Trumps political mantle, with the occasional side trip to Cancn.

Carlson is seizing Trumps theatrical mantle as well.

Moving to fill the empty space created by Trumps ejection from the White House, his banishment from social media and his petulant quasi-hibernation, Carlson is triggering the libs like Trump triggered the libs. Hes animating the pundits like Trump animated the pundits.

Case in point: Carlsons endlessly denounced, exhaustively parsed jeremiad against masks on his Fox News show on Monday night.

Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid at Walmart, Carlson railed. Call the police immediately. Contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives. What youre looking at is abuse. Its child abuse.

What lunatic hyperbole. What ludicrous histrionics. And what timing. Carlson shares Trumps knack for that for figuring out precisely when, for maximum effect, to pour salt into a civic wound.

His free-the-children bunk played on the weariness of more than a year of coronavirus vigilance. It came just as Americans were puzzling over the need for masks once theyre vaccinated or when theyre outdoors. It was juiced by arguments about what degree of caution remains necessary and whats just muscle memory or virtue signaling.

And it was helpfully succinct and tidily packaged so that other commentators could tee off on it. Carlson understands what Trump always has and what every practiced provocateur does: You dont just give your detractors agita. You give them material. That way, everything you say has a lengthy half-life and durable shelf life.

Several shows on MSNBC covered Carlsons rant. Several shows on CNN, too. The View waded in. So did Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel. When youre the subject of late-night comedians monologues, youve really made it.

Just two and a half weeks earlier, another of Carlsons soliloquies in which he peddled the far-right paranoia about a Democratic Party scheme to have dark-skinned invaders from developing countries supplant white Christian Americans became its own news story, making him more of an actor in our national drama than a chronicler of it.

It was hardly his first lament about immigration, and he had dabbled in the great replacement theory before. But this time around it was more helpfully succinct, more tidily packaged, more honed. Every time they import a new voter, I become disenfranchised as a current voter, he fumed. I have less political power because they are importing a brand-new electorate.

He made voters sound like Mazdas and America like a car lot.

Like Trump, he has decided that virality is its own reward. And hes being amply rewarded, as exemplified in this very column. Id prefer to ignore him, but I face the same irreconcilable considerations that all the others who arent ignoring him do.

To give him attention is to play into his hands, but to do the opposite is to play ostrich. In April, his 8 p.m. Eastern show drew an average nightly audience of about three million viewers. That made him the most-watched of any cable news host ahead of Sean Hannity, ahead of Rachel Maddow and it meant that he was both capturing and coloring how many Americans felt about current events. His outbursts, no matter how ugly, are relevant.

Remind you of anyone now clomping through the sand traps near Mar-a-Loco?

The amount of real estate that Carlson occupies in political newsletters that I subscribe to seems to have grown in proportion to the amount that Trump has lost. (Thats my own replacement theory.) And it proves that we need not just villains but also certain kinds of villains: ones whose unabashed smugness, unfettered cruelty and undisguised sense of superiority allow us to return fire unsparingly and work out our own rage. Carlson, again like Trump, is cathartic.

Trumps dominance was so profound from early 2016 through early 2021 that theres now something of an obsession with naming his successor, even though its not at all clear that hes willing to be succeeded. All the men I mentioned earlier covet that crown. But not all of them fully understand that Trumps mtier wasnt politics. It was performance.

Carlson gets that. If advancing arguments was his exclusive or primary goal, he wouldnt allow for so much confusion regarding the flavor of his invective. But debates about whether hes genuinely making points or disingenuously pressing buttons might well be a ratings boon. To keep people guessing is to keep people tuned in.

Im not saying that hes Trumps doppelgnger. Hes neither orange nor ostentatious enough. He can be as verbally dexterous as Trump is oratorically incontinent, as brimming with information as Trump is barren of it. Carlson reminds you of a prep school debate team captain all puffed up at his lectern. Trump reminds you of a puffy reality-show ham what he was before he rode that escalator downward, a harbinger of the countrys trajectory under him.

But both barge through the contradictions of being both populists and plutocrats. Both pretend to be bad boys while living like good old boys. Both market bullying as bravery.

Part of the appeal of Carlsons show is its tendency to generate knockouts rather than split decisions, Kelefa Sanneh wrote in an excellent profile of Carlson in The New Yorker in 2017. His unofficial Reddit page features pictures of guests judged to have performed especially poorly; over each face is written wasted.

That wasted reminds me of Trumps loser. Its the vocabulary of mockery, a sport in which Carlson is a champion. But its stranger when played by him than when played by Trump, who never pretended to be thoughtful. Carlson was thoughtful, back in the days when he was writing long articles for ambitious magazines.

Then came television and then high-decibel duels on television and then Trump, the shark to Carlsons pilot fish. Carlson, who flattered him, got the time slot on Fox News that had belonged to Megyn Kelly, who feuded with Trump.

And now? The pilot fish has grown his own mighty jaws, and the oceans only a little bit safer.

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Opinion | Tucker Carlson Is the New Donald Trump - The New York Times

Former President Donald Trump is headed north for the summer, and will move temporarily to his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to a new report.

Trump has spent the first few months of his post-presidency life at Mar-a-Lago, the beachside club in Palm Beach, Fla., that the New York real estate mogul has owned since 1985. But sources close to the former president told Business Insider that Trump is relocating temporarily and plans to use the move to jumpstart fundraising efforts for his 2024 campaign effort not exactly an unexpected move for those in Trump's orbit.

Mar-a-Lago traditionally closes for the season after Memorial Day, when the moneyed membership disperses to escape the state's cloying summer heat the club's peak season usually lasts from Thanksgiving to Easter, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the local newspaper that covers Palm Beach.

This doesn't appear to be a permanent address change Trump made that switch in advance of the election, declaring in a 2019 Declaration of Domicile, "I hereby declare that my above described residence and abode in the state of Florida constitutes my predominant and principal home and I intend to continue it permanently, as such."

The move to Mar-a-Lago has already been a personal boom for Trump, who has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars by hosting speeches and events for the Republican National Committee at the club and the bonanza doesn't appear to be ending anytime soon.

Right-wingers of all stripes have flocked to the property in recent months, including a recent event at which Trump's former CIA Director Mike Pompeo was spotted hobnobbing with anti-Muslim internet provacateur and former Florida congressional candidate Laura Loomer.

This week,Sean Hannity even dropped $5.3 million on a condo just a few miles away, joining a number of other Fox News personalities who now call the wealthy enclave home.

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Donald Trump relocating to New Jersey to jumpstart ...

Trump was tired.

He was exhausted, the former senior administration official said of the immediate aftermath of his tenure as president. And he just did something he hadnt done in five years. He just relaxed.

People whove watched him closely over the years and even for decades? They noticed. And they were, they told me, surprised. Quieter than I would have expected, Trump biographer Michael DAntonio said. A slower pace than I had anticipated, presidential historian Doug Brinkley said.

There were, of course, reasons beyond mere overwork. In his last few months in office, Trump fanned the flames of the toxic fiction that Novembers election was illegitimate and therefore so, too, was his loss. Supporters of his stormed the Capitol, wanting to reverse the results, leaving five dead. He was impeached for a second time. All of this was in addition to Trumps already pending legal peril. Regardless of the cause, however, he got off to a sluggish, almost subdued start as a former president, lying low (for him) for weeks after Air Force One dropped him off at PBI.

In January, near the end of the month, he opened the Office of the Former President, according to a Statement from the Office of the Former President. It was the first time he used in that context that wordformer. Notably, it also was the last. Thereafter, he did away with the moniker evocative of the past and shifted to the number that will always be hisDonald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America. Trump loves comebacks. Formers for losers.

Beyond practically obligatory, mostly pro forma communications concerning the impeachment proceedings and the trial in the Senate, at the end of which he again was acquitted, Trump endorsed former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in her Arkansas gubernatorial bid, highlighted numbers from a friendly pollster saying House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming was extremely vulnerable to a primary on account of her anti-Trump impeachment vote and crowed about his very good and cordial meeting with House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy at Mar-a-Lago. Trump took the opportunity as well to suggest his endorsement means more than perhaps any endorsement at any time.

In February? Largely similarly languid. He endorsed Kansas Senator Jerry Moran. Ditto Max Miller, a former aide, in his Ohio congressional primary effort against Anthony Gonzalez, another one of the 10 House GOP impeachment dissidents. He hosted Lindsey Graham and Steve Scalise. He did a trio of cable-news phone-ins the day of Rush Limbaughs death. He seemed to snap to with a lengthy statement excoriating Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, calling him a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack. He went to Orlando to speak at the annual gathering of the Conservative Political Action Committee. Miss me yet? he said. He listed the names of those whove crossed him. He promised retribution. He dropped a tease. I will be actively working to elect strong, tough and smart Republican leaders, he said. We will take back the House. We will win the Senate. And then a Republican president will make a triumphant return to the White Houseand I wonder who that will be.

In March, though, Trump showed more oomphmuch more.

Hunkered down at Mar-a-Lago, he rolled out endorsementsSenators Tim Scott of South Carolina, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Mike Crapo of Idaho, John Boozman of Montana, Jody Hice in his run for Secretary of State in Georgia against Trump nemesis Brad Raffensperger, others including a pair of Trump-supporting state party chairs. Never just an endorsementmy Complete and Total Endorsement! In an appreciation of sorts of Roy Blunt, the retiring Missouri senator, he introduced a new phrasethe Impeachment Hoax #2 (IH-2).

He blasted Karl Rove, the former top adviser to George W. Bush. A pompous fool, he called him. If it werent for me, he said in what he said about Rove, the House would have lost 25 seats instead of gaining 15adding characteristic ranting about ratings (31 million people listened to my CPAC speech online, and it had among the largest television audience of the week) and working in some old standby epithets (Liddle Bob Corker, Jeff Flakey Flake, Sleepy Joe).

He urged former football star Herschel Walker to run for Senate in Georgia. He urged his supporters to give money to him and not to other Republican coffers. Send your donation to Save America PAC at DonaldJTrump.com, he said. If you donate to our Save America PAC at DonaldJTrump.com, you are helping the America First movement and doing it right, he said.

He went back to announcing his pending appearances on TV the way he did when he was tweeting from the residence in the White House.

Enjoy!

He went on Newsmax. He went on Fox News. He talked on the podcast of a Fox News host.

He kept calling the election rigged. Rigged, he said. Illegitimate, he said. Fraud, he said. You saw what happened, 10:30 in the evening, all of a sudden, I said, Thats a strange thing, why are they closing up certain places, right? he said in an impromptu speech at a wedding he dropped in on at his club. Its an honor to be here. Its an honor to have you at Mar-a-Lago. You are a great and beautiful couple.

He sent out a statement that read like a late-night tweet: Wheres Durham? Is he a living, breathing human being? Will there ever be a Durham report? He flagged Fox flattery from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He met with Marjorie Taylor Greene. He castigated public health professionals Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx. He called them self-promoters trying to reinvent history. He called Fauci the king of flip-flops and said he was moving the goalposts to make himself look as good as possible. He called Birx a proven liar with very little credibility left and a very negative voice who didnt have the right answers.

I was the one to get it done, he said.

Time has proven me correct, he said.

Most importantly, though, Trump started in earnest, and in utterly unprecedented fashion, to aim his ire at Bidenfrom the situation at the border with Mexico to changes in tax plans to matters of pandemic response, endeavoring to retrain the spotlight on his legacy while repurposing lines of criticism he once endured as cudgels against his successor.

Our border is now totally out of control thanks to the disastrous leadership of Joe Biden. He has violated his oath of office to uphold our Constitution and enforce our laws, he said in a statement on March 5. All they had to do was keep this smooth-running system on autopilot. Instead, in the span of a just [sic] few weeks, the Biden Administration has turned a national triumph into a national disaster. They are in way over their heads, he said on March 21. Joe Bidens radical plan to implement the largest tax hike in American history is a massive giveaway to China, he said on March 31, describing it as a classic globalist betrayal and a cruel and heartless attack on the American Dream.

In April, the onslaught only intensified.

Along with more endorsements of allies and call-outs of antagonists, an expression of mourning of the passing of Prince Philip of the British royal family and the passing along of links to pro-Trump opinion pieces in the New York Post and the Palm Beach Daily NewsWow, so nice!Trumps missives this month got particularly manic, beginning around Easter.

Why is it that every time the 2020 ELECTION FRAUD is discussed, the Fake News Media consistently states that such charges are baseless, unfounded, unwarranted, etc.? Sadly, there was massive fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election, and many very angry people understand that. With each passing day, and unfortunately for the Radical Left CRAZIES, more and more facts are coming out, he said the Friday of the holiday weekend. Other than that, Happy Easter!

That Saturday, he decried WOKE CANCEL CULTURE and then (with no apparent irony) called for boycotts of baseball, Coke, Delta and other major companies after Georgia passed restrictive voting laws Republicans insisted were necessary reforms. We will not become a Socialist Nation, he said. Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to ALL, Trump added on actual Easter Sunday, including the Radical Left CRAZIES who rigged our Presidential Election, and want to destroy our Country!

The next week, donors descended on Palm BeachMecca, a top GOP operative called it when we talkedshuttle-busing from the Four Seasons to listen to the former president speak at Mar-a-Lago. Immediately leaked were the more incendiary snippets. He railed at the rigged election. He called McConnell a dumb son of a bitch. He indicated hes bothered by Bidens overall popularity relative to his lack thereof. Saintly Joe Biden, Trump said.

It spurred a renewed round of strikes at Bidenthe type of bombardment that (maybe) wouldnt be out of place in the thick of the stretch of a presidential campaign.

The Biden Administration did a terrible disservice to people throughout the world by allowing the FDA and CDC to call a pause in the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, Trump said on April 13. They didnt like me very much because I pushed them extremely hard, Trump said of Pfizer. But if I didnt, you wouldnt have a vaccine for 3-5 years, or maybe not at all.

On April 18, he commented on Bidens stated date of September 11 to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. Trump made it possible, he said. I planned to withdraw on May 1st.

If Joe Biden wants to keep our Country safe from Radical Islamic Terrorism, he said before his sitdown with Sean Hannity, he should reinstitute the foreign country Travel Ban.

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Trumps Battle to Win the First 100 Days - POLITICO

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Former President Donald Trump is stepping up his involvement in the final hours of the Saturday special election to fill the seat of the late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington.

Trump who endorsed Wright's widow, conservative activist Susan Wright, for the seat on Monday is hosting a tele-town hall for her on Thursday night, The Texas Tribune has learned. The town hall is being put on by the Club for Growth, the national conservative group that endorsed Susan Wright on Wednesday.

The Club for Growth has also launched an 11th-hour radio ad to spread the word about Trump's endorsement, which came on the second-to-last day of early voting. The minute-long spot warns that "out-of-state anti-Trump forces" are working against Susan Wright and says the race "may be a key test of Trump's continuing power in the party."

The race is arguably the first major electoral gauge of Trump's clout within the party since he left office in January. He made an endorsement in another special congressional election last month in Louisiana, but it was far less competitive. Trump has made clear he plans to remain a force in GOP politics moving forward.

Susan Wright, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, is one of 11 Republicans on the ballot Saturday, which features 23 candidates total and is likely to go into a runoff. While she secured Trump's backing Monday, it came as at least two GOP rivals continue to tightly align themselves with the former president, possibly stirring confusion about who he is truly supporting in the crowded special election.

One GOP candidate Brian Harrison, the former chief of staff at the Department of Health and Human Services under Trump has been airing broadcast TV ads showing him standing beside Trump in the Oval Office. Another Republican running, former pro wrestler Dan Rodimer, is leaning heavily on the fact that Trump endorsed him when he ran for Congress last year in Nevada, regularly advertising that he is the "only candidate [in the special election] to have ever received a Trump endorsement."

Susan Wright and her allies have limited time to capitalize on the Trump endorsement, which arrived Monday afternoon. By the end of that day, 32,000 votes a significant chunk of the total anticipated vote had already been cast. The early voting period ended Tuesday with over more than 45,000 ballots cast.

In addition to the radio ad, the Club for Growth is spending on text messages and phone banking to boost Susan Wright in the race's closing hours, according to disclosures made Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission.

While the Club for Growth formally backed Susan Wright on Wednesday, it has been involved in the special election for weeks, spending over a quarter-million dollars attacking one of her closest GOP competitors, state Rep. Jake Ellzey of Waxahachie. The group backed Ron Wright when he first ran for the seat in 2018 and then again when he sought reelection in 2020.

The Trump tele-town hall for Susan Wright is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, and the Club for Growth's president, David McIntosh, is expected to join. Trump previously dialed in to similar events last year for two Texas congressional hopefuls, Tony Gonzales and Ronny Jackson, on the eve of their hard-fought primary runoff elections. Both prevailed in their runoffs and went on to win in November.

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Donald Trump makes late push for Susan Wright in special election to fill her late husband's U.S. House seat - The Texas Tribune

Donald Trumps office emailed a statement to reporters Tuesday in which the former president bashed the Oscars, noting its low ratings and suggesting that it return a host to the proceedings and change its name back to the Academy Awards.

What used to be called The Academy Awards, and now is called the Oscars a far less important and elegant namehad the lowest Television Ratings in recorded history, even much lower than last year, which set another record low. If they keep with the current ridiculous formula, it will only get worseif thats possible, Trump said. Go back 15 years, look at the formula they then used, change the name back to THE ACADEMY AWARDS, dont be so politically correct and boring, and do it right. ALSO, BRING BACK A GREAT HOST. These television people spend all their time thinking about how to promote the Democrat Party, which is destroying our Country, and cancel Conservatives and Republicans. That formula certainly hasnt worked very well for The Academy!

As president, Trump also took to criticizing the telecast, including last year, when he bashed Oscar voters for giving best picture to Parasite. At a rally, he said of the South Korean film, What the hell was that all about? Weve got enough problems with South Korea with trade. On top of that, they give them best movie of the year. Was it good? I dont know.

ABC and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences frequently use the term Oscars to describe the ceremony, but AMPAS still refers to the awards as the Academy Awards.

The ceremony drew 10.4 million viewers, a record low, according to final Nielsen numbers released on Tuesday.

Talk hosts and commentators on the right seized on the low viewership to claim that it was due to political statements and speeches made during the telecast, something that even Regina King acknowledged at the outset could be a turnoff. But theres also a strong case to be made that the viewership numbers reflect the popularity of the nominees. With moviegoing curbed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many had yet to see or even hear many of the contenders, even when they were available on streaming platforms.

The political statements that were made during the Oscars did not focus on Trump, but on topics like gun violence and policing.

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Donald Trump Seizes On Low Oscars Ratings To Bash Telecast: Dont Be So Politically Correct And Boring - Deadline

Former President Donald Trump might run for his old job again in 2024, or he might decide to stay in sunny Florida.

No one really knows for sure what Trump will eventually decide to do, or when he might make a decision, and it's causing a bit of consternation among some of his GOP allies, according to a CNN report.

Although Trump has not revealed any concrete plans, he has continued to elevate Republicans who could be potential successors, including Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Kristi Noem of South Dakota, and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri.

However, the former president's indecision about his own run has "frustrated" allies, who fear he is blowing his chance to "take control of the GOP early on" before his supporters develop relationships with other potential candidates, according to CNN.

"It's important to have a field-clearing exercise sooner rather than later if he's going to run, otherwise some of these other guys are going to start getting momentum," a former senior Trump administration official told the news outlet.

Several likely GOP entrants have already begun planting the seeds for potential campaigns, including former Vice President Mike Pence, who will give an address in South Carolina this week, as well as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has already traveled to Iowa and appeared virtually for a New Hampshire GOP event.

Read more: This millennial GOP congressman voted to impeach Trump. Now he's trying to save his party from going off a cliff.

DeSantis and former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley will also make appearances in Iowa and Pennsylvania in the coming months, according to CNN.

Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, would likely play an outsized role in her home state if she decided to run due to its potential to provide political momentum early in the nomination process.

Other potential candidates who have visited or will soon visit Iowa include Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Rick Scott of Florida, and Tim Scott of South Carolina, according to CNN.

Several Trump allies have also told the former president to "fine-tune his post-presidential messaging," arguing that a "vengeance-driven strategy" will not have lasting appeal, per CNN.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia told CNN that Trump would be better off zeroing in on the Democratic Party.

"I think the radicalism of the Democrats is going to rebound enormously to Trump's benefit and he would be better off to focus on the Democrats," he said. "He has enough friends to go after disloyal Republicans."

An individual close to Trump emphasized that the former president misses being in the limelight.

"He hates being off the A block," said the individual, using a reference to a top cable news segment. "He's really thinking of running again in 2024 just to get back to that."

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Trump allies fear his 2024 indecision is blowing chance to 'control' GOP: CNN - Business Insider