Category Archives: Donald Trump

The GOP strategist who just helped a Republican win the Virginia governor's mansion expects a crowded primary field in 2024 but only if former President Donald Trump doesn't run.

"If Trump runs, Trump will be the nominee," said Jeff Roe, a veteran GOP operative who served as a top strategist on the Republican Glenn Youngkin's gubernatorial campaign in Virginia.

But if Trump opts out, Roe thinks Republicans from all over the political spectrum will consider hopping into the race, he said. Roe is in a position to know. The former manager of Ted Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign now runs Axiom Strategies, a consulting firm that represents GOP candidates all over the country.

"Gosh, if Biden runs for reelect," Roe expects many of his clients will think about running, he said.

"We have 14 senators, and we've elected 12 governors and have 107 members of Congress that are clients," Roe told Insider. "I think it's going to be wide open in '24 wide, wide open."

He expects the 2024 GOP hopefuls to break down into three buckets.

"Who's going to carry the Trump flag if he doesn't run the Trump agenda, who's the most conservative that might not be the same person and then who's the most electable?" he said. There is "no lane" for a Republican opposed to Trump, he added.

He expects a competitive field on the Democratic side, too, if Biden doesn't run.

"I think it's probably open on the Democrat side, and the Republican side, because I don't think Kamala has a lock on it at all. I think, in fact, she'd find herself in a pretty bad spot," he added.

Roe thought Harris "was pretty talented at the beginning," he said, but "she was just not a good candidate and has not been a very good VP in my estimation."

But Roe said he wasn't worried about the Democratic competition heading into 2024.

"A general election in the United States is a tough race, but it's still a center-right country," he added. "I think it's an eminently winnable race."

Immediately after Youngkin's upset win last week, political pundits started chattering about whether the Virginia governor-elect was on a fast track to the White House.

But Roe said he never spoke with Youngkin about a White House bid.

"I think the best way to get another job is do a great job with the job you have. And so I think that's what he'll focus on," Roe said. "He's 54 years old, so he's got a lot of years left and a lot of gas in the tank, and so he could do whatever he wants."

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Cruz's Top '16 Aide Says Trump Will Be '24 Nominee If He Runs - Business Insider

Former U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a member of the news media after attending a border security briefing with Texas Governor Greg Abbott to discuss security at the U.S. southern border with Mexico in Weslaco, Texas, U.S. June 30, 2021.

GLASGOW, Nov 9 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Donald Trump did his damnedest to yank America from global efforts to combat climate change. The former president is not actually at COP26, the big UN climate conference in Glasgow, but his presence is palpable. And not just because he owns a Scottish golf club not so far away which played host to Indonesias delegation. A potential return to the White House hovers over the deliberations.

As nations sign up to long-term commitments to reduce their carbon emissions, banks pledge their balance sheets to assist and multinationals outdo each other with glossy promises to make their businesses cleaner and greener, many COP26 attendees wonder if Trump will return to the presidency in 2024. Their worry is that he will try to undo many of the things that have been agreed to try to keep the planet from warming up more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.

Those fears are legitimate. For starters, soon after occupying the Oval Office, Trump pulled the United States from the Paris Agreement, reached at a previous COP in 2015. There, signatories agreed to keep the earth from warming by no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. He then set about unwinding numerous environmental rules and regulations at home and shilled loudly for hydrocarbons. On the sidelines of the 2018 climate shindig in Poland, he even tried to stage a glitzy pro-coal event.

The hope among business leaders and policymakers in Glasgow is that things will be too far along to unwind should Republican Trump win the American election in three years and renege on commitments made by President Joe Biden, who would be both his Democratic successor and predecessor. That should lend greater urgency, as if the end of the human species were insufficient motivation, to the negotiations in the second and final week of COP26.

For the private sector, theres little chance of an easy backslide were Trump to become the first commander in chief since Grover Cleveland to hold two non-consecutive terms in office. The worlds biggest banks and corporations are baking net-zero ambitions into their strategies, incentive structures and the composition of their balance sheets and investment portfolios largely because customers, investors and employees are insisting they do so rather than politicians.

Climate change is a political issue. Inequality is a political issue. And as a business leader, you need to take a position on those things. However, we try to stick to things that are close to our own business operations, says Alan Jope, chief executive of the $135 billion consumer goods giant Unilever (ULVR.L), which is aiming for net-zero nirvana by 2039. The reason why we care about climate change is because a world that's on fire or under water is a terrible place for Unilever to do business.

With the possibility of a Trump 2024 victory becoming more conceivable following a string of electoral setbacks for Bidens party last week in state and local elections most notably the Virginia governorship - American leaders, including Biden himself and Trumps predecessor Barack Obama, are making extra efforts to convince delegates in Scotland that the United States is serious about combatting climate change. This reflects widespread distrust that Washington will be able to keep its word, even if its many multinational companies are largely on board with eradicating greenhouse gas emissions.

To wit, in a speech on Monday, Obama characterised Trumps tenure as four years of active hostility towards climate science. That followed Bidens promise the week before that the United States is not only back at the table but hopefully leading by the power of our example, adding my administration is working overtime to show that our climate commitment is action, not words."

When pictures emerged appearing to show Biden closing his eyes during the conference, Trump blasted his followers with an email saying: Even Biden couldnt stand hearing so much about the Global Warming Hoax, the 7th biggest Hoax in America, followed closely behind by the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2 and, of course, the No Collusion finding of the Mueller Report. It is fair to say Trumps characterisation of global warming is not widely accepted by the tens of thousands of COP delegates.

This is not just a case of ignorable domestic American politics, however. U.S. moral leadership, combined with economic might, is critical to arm-twisting climate laggards including China, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia to accelerate their carbon reduction targets. If America is not on board, it will be difficult for the remaining developed nations to get China, for example, to move quicker on phasing out coal.

But its also about the money. One of the key announcements in Glasgow was an $8.5 billion package of grants and concessional loans and investments to support South Africas decarbonisation efforts. The deal was reached after months of high-level diplomacy between Germany, France, the UK, the European Union and Washington, and may prevent up to 1.5 gigatonnes of emissions over the next 20 years.

The South Africa agreement, with strong U.S. financial backing, is being heralded as a blueprint for enticing other poor countries, like Indonesia and Vietnam, to up their ambitions in leapfrogging hydrocarbons. That gives added urgency to sealing a few of these deals, with money firmly committed, before the 2024 U.S. elections.

Even if Trump runs and wins, American attitudes toward fighting climate change have shifted since he pulled out of the Paris Agreement in 2017. There is also an increasingly bipartisan support for certain policies, such as tax credits, to hasten the adoption of renewable energy. And many states have moved to insulate their efforts to reduce carbon emissions from federal policy. Thats according to David Livingston, senior advisor to U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, in a panel discussion on hydrogen moderated by Breakingviews last week in Glasgow.

One of the hidden benefits ofthe past four years is that the sort of reaction of much of the United States to the lack of leadership on the global stage under the Trump administration was to create these sorts of antibodies of state and local level and corporate leadership that we in the Biden administration are not trying to replace, Livingston said. We are trying to amplify and empower (them) because we know we need a diverse fabric of allies and policies moving forward on this.

So, while there is a strong whiff of Trump redux about the proceedings in Glasgow, there is also a sense that with effort and maybe a little luck, current U.S. momentum will be maintained.

Follow @rob1cox on Twitter

Editing by George Hay and Karen Kwok

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Cox: Whiff of Donald Trump redux hangs over COP26 - Reuters

Donald Trump has spoken about the "let's go Brandon" chant and its predecessor "F**k Joe Biden," which have become a popular slogans for conservative figures in recent months, saying how he prefers the explicit version criticizing the current president.

Trump spoke about the chants which have frequently broken out at sports areas and other public events since September while appearing at the The America First Policy Institute event in his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on November 5.

As reported by Page Six, a chant of "let's go Brandon" began ringing out from the crowd. In response, Trump said: "I still like the first phrase better somehow. It's more accurate."

It is the first time that Trump has personally spoken publicly about the chants criticizing the president.

The "let's go Brandon" chant is a less obscene version of the "f**k Joe Biden" chant which had already been breaking out across the country.

Its origins stems from NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast claiming on air that a section of the crowd at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama were chanting "let's go Brandon" in support of NASCAR driver Brandon Brown following his victory, instead of "f**k Joe Biden."

Conservative figures and Trump supporters then started singing "let's go Brandon" instead, with the phrase becoming so popular that Trump's campaign team even started selling T-shirts "Let's Go Brandon" t-shirts on his Save America PAC website.

Speaking of the original comments from Stavast, Trump said: "I still haven't figured out, was that young, attractive female reporter, was she trying to cover up? Or was she being nice? Did she not understand what was happening? She works for NBC. So it's about 94 percent sure that she knew exactly what she was doing.

"Anyway, well, Brandon has become a big star. Nobody ever heard of this guy. Now. He's one of the biggest stars. Nobody ever heard of Brandon's history," Trump added.

Elsewhere during the event, Trump heavily criticized the man who beat him in the 2020 election, describing Biden's planned withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan towards the end of August as the "most embarrassing moment," reported Real Clear Politics.

Trump also made reference to unsubstantiated claims that Biden had a "bathroom accident" ahead of a meeting with Pope Francis in Rome in late October.

The rumor, which was pushed by former Nevada Republican Party Chairwoman Amy Tarkanian, was labeled "false" by fact checking website Snopes.

"You just saw what happened to Joe Biden on his travails in Europe. That wasn't good," Trump said.

"He went to see the pope. He was, uh ... a little late. What the hell happened to him? Does anybody know what happened?"

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Donald Trump Speaks Out on 'Let's Go Brandon' Meme For the First Time - Newsweek

A media star with no political experience throws his hat into the ring and soars in the presidential polls. Hurling crude insults at his critics, bashing the elites, vilifying the press, and lavishing praise upon Russia, he rides a wave of populist anger, fear, and xenophobia as he promises to restore his demoralized country to its former glory. No wonder many pundits are calling Eric Zemmour the French Donald Trump. Zemmour, 63, who aides say is about to announce his candidacy, freely acknowledges Trumps rise to power as a blueprint for his own potential run. He even modeled the cover of his latest book, France Has Not Said Its Final Word, on Trumps 2015 manifesto, Great Again. Both men pose like patriotic saviors in front of their national flag. Both men have been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. (Zemmour has declined to respond to the allegations.)

Beyond the obvious similarities, however, the differences between Trump and Zemmour are substantial. Trump is an uncultivated vulgarian. Zemmour, in contrast, is an articulate, well-read intellectual whose speeches are peppered with literary and historical references. Trump succeeded by taking over the Republican Party; Zemmour, who belongs to no party, is scrambling to improvise a movement of his own. With his height, girth, and outlandish coiffure, Trump is physically imposing; Zemmour is balding, of modest stature and slight build, with a reedy voicethe kind of guy Trump would make fun of if he were in the opposing camp.

Perhaps the main thing the two men share is their status as outsiders that no one took seriously until they began to get traction in national polls. In Zemmours case, the rise has been meteoric: Credited in June with a 5.5% share of the theoretical vote, he has more than tripled that margin and now has a serious chance of facing off against President Emmanuel Macron in the runoff of Frances two-round election next April. Until recently, conventional wisdom had pointed to a replay of the 2017 matchup between Macron and Marine Le Pen, of the far-right anti-immigrant National Rally (R.N.) party, who has been trying to moderate her image. But by outflanking her on the radical rightand relentlessly insisting that Marine cant winZemmour could lure a substantial number of Le Pens 2017 voters to his camp.

Though he is not yet an official candidate, Zemmour has been sucking up all the media oxygen. He is a constant feature in TV interviews and debates. His face is emblazoned on the covers of major magazines. Crisscrossing the country on a book tour that is in fact a proto-campaign blitz, he has been drawing enthusiastic crowds at each stopalong with gaggles of sometimes violent demonstrators denouncing him as a fascist and racist.

Zemmour would deny both accusations, of course, but his words speak for themselves. His pronouncements and writings paint a bleak picture of France in decline: threatened by hordes of Muslim immigrants he contends are bent on turning the country into an Islamic republica process he calls the great replacement, the supplanting of Frances white population and its Christian culture by what he characterizes, in effect, as Muslim invaders. Declaring Islam in any form to be incompatible with democracy, he proposes, if he makes a play for the presidency, to close French borders to further immigration and expel 2 million foreigners over his five-year term. He also wants to outlaw the wearing in public of the Muslim veil and ban the use of Muslim first names such as Mohammed in favor of proper French monikers like Pierre and Jacques. Once he curbs the foreign invasion, Zemmour promises to restore France to its past grandeur, invoking the legends of Joan of Arc, Napoleon, and Charles de Gaullea pantheon of French heroes he apparently intends to occupy.

The French-born son of Jewish Berbers who immigrated from Algeria in 1952, Zemmour studied at Sciences Po and began his career as a journalist, radio commentator, and author of popular books expounding his acerbic views. For the past two years the fiery polemicist has been a star commentator on CNews, a right-wing TV network created about four years ago that is often compared to Murdochs Fox News. (Last September, he suspended his relationships with CNews and the conservative daily Figaro in order to comply with French watchdog rules concerning media access by political candidates, or in his case, quasi-candidates.)

With immigration as his main bugaboo, Zemmour voices a litany of racist, sexist, and otherwise extreme views that place him at the outer edge of Frances far right. Virulently anti-feminist and homophobic, contemptuous of all forms of political correctness, Zemmour favors a restoration of the death penalty, the lifting of highway speed limits, and curbs on what he calls the counter powersmeaning judges, the media, the minorities. He warns darkly of a looming civil war and has been sanctioned multiple times by French courts for inciting racial hatred. He also has a penchant for Trump-style provocations: In a shocking gesture that drew widespread criticism last month, he trained an unloaded snipers rifle on a group of journalists at a security event and jokingly ordered them to get back. When citizenship minister Marlne Schiappa called the act horrifying, Zemmour dismissed her as an imbecile. (A day later, the dangers of unloaded guns were tragically demonstrated by actor Alec Baldwins accidental killing of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on a New Mexico movie set.)

In foreign policy, Zemmour is an ultranationalist who wants to pull France out of NATOs integrated command and forge a cozy relationship with Vladimir Putins Russia. Aides say he values Washington as an ally but insists on being treated as an equal partner and seeks an equilibrium between the U.S. and the Russian state. Yet his rhetoric is often tinged with undisguised anti-Americanism. Speaking at a rally in Rouen last month, for example, he called the D-Day invasion an occupation and colonization by the Americans. While he does not call for an outright Frexit from the European Union, he wants to curtail the E.U.s powers and reaffirm French sovereigntyhence his chumming up to Hungarys nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbn, with whom he met in September.

Though he is himself a practicing Jew, Zemmour has been accused of antisemitism by prominent members of Frances Jewish community based on a series of troubling remarks and writings. Recently, he suggested that the families of the Jewish children who were murdered by an Islamist terrorist in 2012 were not good French citizens because their families had chosen to inter their remains in Israel. He has cast doubt on the innocence of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer charged with pro-German espionage and ultimately acquitted in 1906. Most troubling is his revisionist claim that the Vichy government under Philippe Ptain actually protected French Jews during the Nazi occupation, whereas Vichys active role in rounding up and deporting Jews to Hitlers death camps (on French trains) is well documented. Whatever his motivations, Zemmours dog whistles clearly appeal to those on the far right who are unhappy with Marine Le Pens rejection of the blatant antisemitism for which her father was notorious.

The most remarkable thing about the Zemmour phenomenon is that no one saw it coming. Its a spectacular rise, says Frdric Dabi, head of the IFOP polling institute. In the history of the Fifth Republic, we have never seen someone who was not part of the political establishment gain this kind of momentum. One explanation, says Dabi, is that Zemmour benefits from a leadership vacuum on the right. Marine Le Pen, after two failed attempts at the presidency, has lost much of her credibility, while her strategy of softening her messageshe calls it ddiabolisation, or un-demonizinghas left many followers hungry for the kind of red meat that Zemmour doles out.

As a result, Zemmour is eating Le Pens lunch. Since his appearance in the political arena, the R.N. leader has seen her poll numbers drop sharply and the two are now running neck-and-neck. At this early stage of the campaign, of course, there is no telling whether Le Pen or Zemmouror another candidatewill make it to the runoff round. But for now the fiercest infighting pits these two right-wing rivals against each other. One bad sign for Marine: Her own father, the sulfurous party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, 93, says he will support his friend Zemmour if he retains his command in the polls. Marine has abandoned her strongest positions, he has noted, and Eric is occupying that terrain.

Meanwhile, supporters of the right-center Republicans have still not recovered from the humiliating elimination of their champion, Franois Fillon, in the election five years ago. Divided by competing claimants, the Republicans will not settle on a candidate until their December 4 convention. The apparent front-runner, former labor minister Xavier Bertrand, currently lags behind both Zemmour and Le Pen in most polls.

As for the left, also divided by internecine squabbles, no candidate appears to have a realistic chance of reaching the runoff round. Fewer and fewer French voters identify with the left, says IFOPs Dabi. The countrys values lie very much on the right today. Some analysts even speak of an extreme right-ization of French opinion. Indeed, the combined poll numbers of Zemmour and Le Pen comprise more than one third of the French electorate. (At the same time, Zemmour has the highest negatives of any potential candidate: 70% believe he lacks presidential stature, 57% say he worries them, and 71% think he gives France a bad image internationally.)

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The French Have a New Donald Trump in Eric Zemmour, the Far-Right Firebrand - Vanity Fair

Democrats are still licking their wounds from defeats in last weeks elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere. Some are calling for the party to refocus on popular moderate policies. Perhaps thats the most realistic path forward; its the formula that top Republicans settled on following their own stinging electoral defeat in 2012. But instead of following its party leaderships prescription, the GOP base nominated a celebrity, and rode his popularity to electoral triumph. Why cant Democrats do the same?

After all, former President (and former reality-TV star) Donald Trump is currently tied with the two-term wartime president George W. Bush for the rank of most famous Republican, according to YouGov. He is also the second-most-popular Republican, after Arnold Schwarzenegger, another former entertainer. The late actor Ronald Reagan consistently ranks among Americans favorite presidents. But if you define celebrity as initially well known for something other than politics, the Democratsthe party that once counted the comedian Al Franken, the basketball player Bill Bradley, and the astronaut John Glenn among its elected officialsnow have no celebrities among their 20 most well-known or 20 most popular politicians.

The argument in favor of the Democrats recruiting more-famous candidates is pretty clear cut: Celebrity offers a number of important advantages to aspiring politicians. Most Americans consume more television than political news, so they see more actors than they do legislators. Trump was the best-known GOP primary candidate in 2015: 92 percent of Republicans and independents said they were familiar with him, compared with 81 percent who said they were familiar with the next-best-known candidate, Jeb Bush. In one 2016 poll, 96 percent of respondents correctly identified a photo of Trump. Some preliminary research suggests that Trump performed better in the 2016 Republican primary in areas where more people had watched The Apprentice.

As trust in institutions craters, people may look to unconventional candidates for leadership. This is happening all around the world, says Eunji Kim, a Vanderbilt University political-science professor. Ukraines president is currently a man who played Ukraines president on TV. A boxer and an actortwo different guysare currently running for president of the Philippines.

In crowded primary fields, or in nonpartisan elections, fame can be especially helpful. Name recognitionthe main advantage celebrity buys youmatters primarily in low information elections. Thats because in any multiparty election, the most important factor influencing whether someone will vote for a candidate is their party affiliation. Republicans vote for Republicans; Democrats vote for Democrats. But in elections that dont have a partisan dividelike most primaries and some mayoral racesthe candidate who is more well-known has an edge.

What do people know about the typical person running for office? Actually very little, says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania. When they have little information about candidates, people gravitate toward familiar nameseven if those names are simply ethnically similar to their own. If youre Irish, and the name is Murphy on the ballot, and the other name is, say, Anderson, all things being equal, youre gonna vote for Murphy, Jamieson says. Even having a common name can help you win down-ballot races, says Jeffrey Glas, a political-science professor at the University of Georgia. A voter might get to the polling place and think, I knew a Joe Davis beforeyeah, he was a good guy. A name like Taylor Swift would presumably be even better.

Television and movies shape our politics more than many people realize. Americans watch more TV than people in other rich countries, but more and more people are opting out of news, Kim says. Kim estimates that, during The Apprentices heyday, its audience was three times as large as that of the NBC Nightly News and that, before Twitter deleted Trumps account, 69 percent of The Apprentices followers on Twitter also followed Trump. Another recent study found that Reagans tenure as the host of the 1950s TV show General Electric Theater gave him an electoral boost two decades later, in the 1976 Republican primary. In Italy, people who as children watched more of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconis low-brow network, Mediaset, became more likely to support populist ideas and politicians as adults. A celebrity candidates brand also matters: Trumps Apprentice persona was that of a successful businessman who ushered other Americans into the American dreama strong pitch for president, even if it was far from reality.

Celebrity candidates tend to be more charismatic communicators than generic white guys who spent their lives bouncing between the State Department and the Harvard Kennedy School. We watched Ronald Reagan do this brilliantly over the course of his political career, says Costas Panagopoulos, a political scientist at Northeastern University. His ability to deliver a speech or to connect with viewers and live audiences was spectacular. And that was part of not only his appeal, but also what allowed him to bring the country together at times when it would have been very difficult for someone who lacked those skills to do so.

Plenty of celebrities have flirted with running for office as Democrats. We are currently living through the Matthew McConaissance. And can you smell what potential presidential candidate The Rocks been cooking? Maybe its universal health care. Although some voters care too much about policy to back a celebrity candidate, others are repulsed by politicians. The Rock may not be a Middle East expert, but speaking plainly about ones lack of expertise can be charming.

Some Democratic strategists I reached out to seemed open to prominent celebrities running, as long as they have a good reason to seek office. The most important thing is that the celebrity has a story about how they have served the community or why they are running and want to serve the community, says Jessica Post, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

When I asked the Democratic strategists who their dream celebrity candidates would be, they played along: The San Antonio Spurs coach and Trump critic Gregg Popovich came up twice. Democrats have approached the actor and activist Eva Longoria about running in her home state of Texas. Alyssa Milano, another actor-activist, occasionally takes to the Hill in combat boots. Jon Hamm and Ashton Kutcher are from the tantalizingly purple states of Missouri and Iowa, respectively. Who knows, maybe Camila Cabello becomes a staunch advocate for immigration reform and runs in Florida? I would love Demi Lovato to run, Post said, referring to the singer. They really are the voice of a generation. Run, Demi, run!

But one by one, most of the strategists also rejected the idea of recruiting more celebrities as candidates: Nothing is telling me that we have to go recruit a celebrity, said Ashanti Gholar, the president of Emerge, which recruits Democratic women to run for office. If you dont have some kind of a rsum that says, This is what Ive done for people, and this is what Ive fought for then we dont have any business recruiting such a person to run for office, said Gilberto Hinojosa, the chair of the Texas Democratic Party. The idea that you can recruit celebrities to run for political office is a fallacy and a fools errand, said David Turner, the communications director for the Democratic Governors Association. Democratic primary voters tend to be really engaged on substance, Amanda Litman, a co-founder of Run for Something, which helps progressive candidates seek local office, told me. They have less of a tolerance for emptiness. She pointed out that Andrew Yang had high name recognition going into the New York City mayoral race, but lost anyway.

In other words: Yes, some examples of extremely successful celebrity candidates exist. But, no, professional Democrats dont want to recruit more of them. Although celebrity candidates offer the political benefit of high name recognition, they sometimes prove disastrous if they appear reckless or ill-prepared. Turned out to be a surprisingly effective leader is something few Americans would say about the 45th president.

Trump was an unusual case. Though polling showed that he was well known in 2015, Republicans viewed him negatively. But soon after he announced his candidacy, he gave his base some red meat that they really liked hearing, and suddenly they just switched their opinion on him, says Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. Thats not a feat just any celebrity can pull off: Schwarzenegger may have captured enough Republican hearts to win the 2003 California recall, but nobody was listening to him when he was opposing Trump over the last few years, Murray says.

Name recognition is important, but rich people who arent celebrities can buy themselves name recognition by funding other candidates and buying ads. Whats more, if it becomes clear that [the celebrity] is poorly qualified, that could shoot the parties in the foot, Panagopoulos says. And celebrities sometimes have skeletons in their closets that can be damaging if theyre not suitably vetted. The average actor is likely to have had a more interesting youth than the average city-council member, and not in a way that plays well with voters. For those reasons and others, says Cindy Kam, another Vanderbilt political scientist, Im sort of skeptical as to whether simply looking for celebrities is going to really help win elections.

Given that Hollywood is notoriously liberal, one might expect more celebrity candidates on the left. But getting celebrities interested in running for office can be difficult. A name-recognition advantage is no guarantee of victory: Just ask the failed celebrity candidates Caitlyn Jenner, Cynthia Nixon, and Kanye West. Many celebrities want to be vaguely engaged, writing Instagram captions about climate change, but they balk when it comes to campaigning. With one very notable exception, most politicians start out in state or local office; they dont skyrocket to the presidency with no experience. The average salary for a state legislator is $39,000, and the job is a lot of unglamorous work. Several TV newscasters and college-sports coaches have successfully run for local officeand even Congress, in the case of Iowas Ashley Hinson. These kinds of localized celebrities might be a better fit for political office than big-time actors, several strategists said.

If they do decide to run, celebrity candidates, accustomed to being adored, face a rude awakening when nitpicky reporters and angry voters ask them tough questions on the trail. No one should run and expect that theyre just going to walk into elected office because of their name, said Post, of the DLCC. Thats in addition to another very important hurdle: Many celebritieskeeping a cautious eye on box-office salesavoid saying outright that they are either a Republican or a Democrat. Jeff Bezos has a generally favorable opinion in the United States, Glas says, but once he declares a party, half the country is gonna hate him. If he thought people detested his business practices, wait til he takes a position on abortion.

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Trump and the Celebrity-Candidate Phenomenon - The Atlantic

Nov 8th 2021

by James Astill: Washington bureau chief and Lexington columnist, The Economist, Washington DC

The usual routine for former presidents is to sink into the background, graciously refuse to criticise their successor and plan a library. But Donald Trump does not do background or graciousness or books. In rallies, interviews and impromptu speeches to wedding parties at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, Mr Trump has lambasted President Joe Biden, the media and the handful of Republicans who have dared acknowledge that he suffered electoral defeat in 2020. He has repeatedly teased the possibility of a comeback. In 2022 that will look increasingly inevitable.

It already seems that only a health crisis could deny Mr Trump the second tilt at the presidency he clearly craves. Most Republican voters want him to run again. He has raised well over $100m just by hinting that he will. And if the Republican establishment did not roll over for him that could only be because it was too prone already to effect the contortion. Trump cheerleaders such as Lindsey Graham began exhorting him to retain command of their party the day he left office. Mr Trumps only serious rivals for the nomination, such as Governor Ron deSantis of Florida and Mike Pompeo, his former secretary of state, are his imitators. Every indication is that Republicans would prefer the real thing.

Mr Trump also appears to have pre-arranged the politics of his returnthrough his claim to have been robbed of electoral victory against Mr Biden by a corrupt establishment. Around 80% of Republican voters say they believe that lie. This explains why Republican lawmakers quashed an effort to hold a serious investigation into the January 6th insurrection on Capitol Hill that it inspired; and also why the handful of Republicans who resisted that, such as Representative Liz Cheney, have been pilloried. Republican lawmakers and candidates at every level are meanwhile sounding the alarm on election integrity. The implication in many Republican-controlled states, where the delusion is most pronounced, is that the Democrats cannot win legitimatelyand that special measures are therefore required to stop them winning at all.

Few of the 75m voters who chose Mr Trump in 2020 appear to have been repelled by the January 6th insurrection

At least 18 Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed election laws that will make it harder to vote, many of which appear to target African-Americans and other traditionally Democratic groups. Probably worse, many of those Trumpified legislatures have also seized control of their states handling of elections.

This is especially troubling given how concerted Mr Trumps effort to steal the election in 2020 turned out to be. Had a handful of state officials buckled, he might have produced more chaos; or conceivably succeeded in his attempted heist. And that handful has already been reduced. Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state for Georgia whom Mr Trump importuned to find 11,780 votes could not reprise his role in defending democracy, for example. The states Republican legislature has stripped his office of the power to do so.

The Republican congressional primaries, mostly due in the first half of 2022, will indicate how far the party has succumbed to this extremism. Of the 212 Republican House members, ten voted to impeach Mr Trump over the insurrection, of whom one, citing death threats, has already announced his intention to quit politics. The other nine, including Ms Cheney, will face Trump-backed primary challengers. If most lose, as appears likely, Mr Trumps grip on his party will be tighter and its adoption of election scepticism as a strategy more advanced. (And if they win, the Trumpists will cry foul, which could have much the same effect.)

The mid-term elections in November 2022 will be a more important weather-vane. They will represent the first opportunity for Trump Republicans to air their election conspiracies to the electorate at large. The leading role that Mr Trump will take in their campaign will encourage them to do so. The big question, then, is whether enough centre-right voters will find this sufficiently off-putting to make it a losing strategy.

It would be a heavy blow to Mr Trumps prospects of recapturing the presidency if they did. But there appears to be little reason to hope for that. Remarkably few of the nearly 75m voters who chose Mr Trump in 2020 appear to have been repelled by his election denialism or the violence on Capitol Hill. If they do not share his authoritarian instincts, they appear not to take them terribly seriously. America may come to rue that.

James Astill: Washington bureau chief and Lexington columnist, The Economist, Washington DC

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2022 under the headline The second coming of Donald Trump

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The second coming of Donald Trump - The Economist

In late October 2020, Donald Trumps chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was attending the confirmation hearing for Amy Coney Barrett when his cellphone rang. He answered with a whisper and walked out to the hallway to take the call. What was so urgent as to pull the chief of staff out of a Supreme Court confirmation hearing just two weeks before a presidential election?

On the line was Andrew Hughes, the top staffer at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Meadows had asked him to call because it had been brought to Meadowss attention that a young assistant at HUD had been caught consorting with the enemy.

She had liked an Instagram post from the pop star Taylor Swift.

The first photo in the post was of Swift with the word VOTE superimposed on it in large blue letters. But a swipe revealed a second photo, of Swift carrying a tray of cookies emblazoned with the Biden-Harris campaign logo. We really cant have our people liking posts promoting Joe Biden, Meadows told Hughes.

Never mind that nearly 3 million other people had liked the post or that the young woman was a Taylor Swift fan who liked just about everything Swift had ever posted. To the enforcers of Trumpian loyalty, this was a sign of treachery in the ranks.

Those enforcersincluding the eagle-eyed official who had first spotted the offending likeworked for the Presidential Personnel Office, a normally under-the-radar group responsible for the hiring and firing of the roughly 4,000 political appointees in the executive branch. During the final year of the Trump administration, that office was transformed into an internal police force, obsessively monitoring administration officials for any sign of dissent, purging those who were deemed insufficiently devoted to Trump and frightening others into silence. (Many sources for this story asked to remain anonymous so they could talk about sensitive personnel issues.) Some Trump aides privately compared the PPO to the East German Stasi or even the Gestapoalways on the lookout for traitors within.

The office was run by Johnny McEntee. Just 29 when he got the job, hed come up as Trumps body guythe kid who carried the candidates bags. One of Trumps most high-profile Cabinet secretaries described him to me as a fucking idiot. But in 2020, his power was undeniable. Trump knew he was the one person willing to do anything Trump wanted. As another senior official told me, He became the deputy president.

McEntee and his enforcers made the disastrous last weeks of the Trump presidency possible. They backed the presidents manic drive to overturn the election, and helped set the stage for the January 6 assault on the Capitol. Thanks to them, in the end, the elusive adults in the roomthose who might have been willing to confront the president or try to control his most destructive tendencieswere silenced or gone. But McEntee was therebossing around Cabinet secretaries, decapitating the civilian leadership at the Pentagon, and forcing officials high and low to state their allegiance to Trump.

When Trump wasnt happy with the answers he was getting from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, McEntee set up a rogue legal team. This back-channel operation played a previously unknown role in the effort to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the vote. Just days before January 6, McEntee sent Pences office an absurd memo making the case that Pence would be following Thomas Jeffersons example if he used his power to declare Trump the winner of the 2020 election.

More than anyone else in the White House, McEntee was Trumps man through and througha man who rose to power at precisely the moment when American democracy was falling apart.

I first met Johnny McEntee when I visited Trump Tower in 2015, not long after Trump announced he was running for president. McEntee was polite, earnest, and eager to please. He identified himself as Trumps trip director and gave me a tour of the campaign headquarters. (He declined to comment for this story.)

McEntee was one of the first full-time staffers on the campaign, and he went everywhere Trump went. When Trump became president, McEntee had a workspace outside the Oval Officeright against the curved wall. The boss liked having McEntee around. A former quarterback for the University of Connecticut, he was good-looking and tallbut not too tall, about an inch shorter than Trump. During the first 14 months of the Trump presidency, McEntee did what he had done during the campaign: He carried Trumps bags.

Adam Serwer: If you didnt vote for Trump, your vote is fraudulent

In March 2018, it looked for a moment like his Washington career was over. He was fired by thenChief of Staff John Kelly after a long-delayed FBI background check revealed that he had deposited suspiciously large sums of money into his bank account. It turned out that the money was from gambling winnings. After Kelly himself was fired, McEntee returned to his old spot outside the Oval. It was January 2020, and he wouldnt be just a body guy for long.

In mid-February, Trump called his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to a meeting. Ominous signs of the coming pandemic were beginning to emerge. Hundreds of Americans who had been evacuated from Wuhan, China, were in quarantine on military bases. The World Health Organization had just reported a frightening new developmenta small number of COVID-19 cases in people who had never traveled to China. But the subject of the meeting wasnt the virus. It was staffing. Trump, newly acquitted in his first Senate impeachment trial, was looking to make some changes.

I want to put Johnny in charge of personnel, the president told Mulvaney.

The director of presidential personnel is responsible for vetting and hiring everybody, including ambassadors, Cabinet secretaries, and top intelligence officials. McEntee had never hired anybody for anything. Now he was going to be in charge of perhaps the most important human-resources department in the world?

Mulvaney called his top deputy, Emma Doyle, who oversaw the current director of personnel, into the meeting. Mr. President, she said, I have never said no to anything youve asked me to do, but I am asking you to please reconsider this. I dont think it is a good idea.

Doyle had spent a lot of time around the president, but she had never seen him as angry as he was about to become.

You people never fucking listen to me! Trump screamed. Youre going to fucking do what I tell you to do.

A few hours later, Doyle was on Air Force One, along with McEntee, en route to a Trump rally in New Hampshire. She asked him about his interest in the position.

People have been telling me I should do that for a long time, McEntee told her. I didnt feel ready before, but I am 29 now and Im ready. He added, Im the only person around here thats just here for the president.

McEntee told the president exactly what he wanted to hear: that his political problems were caused by people who pretended to support him but were really against him, the secret Never Trumpers right there in his administration. It was time to root out the deep state.

Franklin Foer: Letat cest Trump

McEntee began scouring federal agencies for people who didnt support all things Trump. Beginning in June 2020in the middle of both the pandemic and the presidential campaignthe personnel office informed virtually every senior official across the federal government, regardless of how long they had worked in the administration, that they would need to sit down for a job interview.

A president has a right to expect that his political appointees support his policies and will work to carry them out. These are, after all, political appointees. But most of the people McEntees team questioned were already devoted to Trump; they were still putting their reputations on the line to work for him three and a half years into his administration. But that wasnt enough for the loyalty enforcers.

McEntees underlings were, for the most part, comically inexperienced. He had staffed his office with very young Trump activists. He had hired his friends, and he had hired young womenas one senior official in the West Wing put it to me, the most beautiful 21-year-old girls you could find, and guys who would be absolutely no threat to Johnny in going after those girls.

It was the Rockettes and the Dungeons & Dragons group, the official said.

In fact, one McEntee hire was literally a Rockette; she had performed with Radio City Music Halls finest in the 2019 Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade. The only work experience listed on her rsum besides a White House internship was a stint as a dance instructor. McEntee also hired Instagram influencers. Camryn Kinsey, for example, was 20 and still in college when McEntee gave her the title of external-relations director. In an interview with the online publication The Conservateur, she said, Only in Trumps America could I go from working in a gym to working in the White House, because thats the American dream. (Kinsey went on to work at the pro-Trump One American News Network.)

The interviews with McEntees team usually lasted about an hour. They included questions such as Do you support the policies of the Trump administration and, if so, which ones? That question was asked of Makan Delrahim, the head of the Department of Justices antitrust division. As the person carrying out the presidents antitrust policies, he found the question strange.

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency and HUD were asked, Do you support the presidents plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan? It was a bizarre question, given that neither official had anything remotely to do with Afghanistan policy.

The DOJ spokesperson Kerri Kupec was asked, What are your political inclinations? A little amused, she responded, Are you asking if I am Republican?

McEntees enforcers scoured the social-media accounts and voting records of officials high and low. An office assistant at the DOJ was asked to explain why she had voted in a local Democratic primary a few years earlier. She explained that her parents had told her thats where her vote would count most, because the Democratic primary winner was all but certain to win the general election. Nonetheless, after the interview, she was denied a promotion and raise that she had been eligible to receive.

McEntee took a particular interest in one job category: White House liaisons to Cabinet agencies. Traditionally, the liaison job is a mid-level position, responsible for coordinating messages between the agencies and the White House. But McEntee didnt want messengers. McEntee wanted people who would boss around the senior officials and report back to him.

In early November 2020, he installed a conservative activist named Heidi Stirrup as liaison at the DOJ. Stirrup was primarily known as an anti-abortion activist who had worked as a mid-level staffer for Republicans in Congress. She had no legal experience, but she was intensely loyal to Trumpand to McEntee. Her car was easy to spot in the DOJ parking lot; it was covered with Trump bumper stickersunusual at a department where even the most political of political appointees try to appear to be above the fray.

A few days after the election, in her first full day in the office, she went in to meet a senior official on Attorney General Bill Barrs team. It didnt go well. You need to wake up to the fact this election is being stolen! she screamed. It needs to be stopped! (The Atlantic was not able to reach Stirrup for comment.)

Barrs team saw Stirrup as more than just annoying; they worried she would snoop into DOJ investigations. This would have been highly unethicalthe White House is not supposed to interfere in criminal cases.

Jonathan D. Karl: Inside William Barrs breakup with Trump

The next time Stirrup came around to berate the senior official, he asked her if she would like to deliver her message directly to the attorney general, and with that he brought her in to see Barr. Most people find Barr intimidating, but not Heidi Stirrup. The election is being stolen, she lectured him. You need better people doing these investigations. And she told him she had a list of people, presumably provided by McEntee, whom he needed to hire.

Barr later told me hed never seen this kind of behavior. By the end of the week, he had ordered her banned from the DOJ building. Her pass was deactivated, and security was instructed not to let her in.

A similar run-in between a White House liaison and senior leadership had taken place at the Department of Homeland Security a few months earlier. McEntee had installed Josh Whitehouse, a 25-year-old Trump supporter from New Hampshire, at DHS, and Whitehouse immediately started throwing his weight around, often threatening to fire people (though he had no direct authority to do so).

Two people who worked with Whitehouse on the second floor of DHS headquarters told me his mood swings were so wild that they worried he could get violent. He was overheard screaming things into the phone such as, If they dont do this, I will literally go to their house and burn it down. (Whitehouse said the quote sounded exaggerated and he didnt think he had said it.) As one DHS official told me, I was legitimately worried he was going to come and kill us. When I asked Whitehouse about this comment, he told me, They need help. He added: I cant imagine anybody should be afraid of another person working there if they are in it for the right reasons and aligned with the agenda.

In mid-August 2020, Whitehouse had a loud confrontation with Acting DHS Secretary Chad F. Wolf in front of several witnesses. It happened after Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff at DHS, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post criticizing Trump. Taylor wrote that the country is less secure as a direct result of the presidents actions and that he would be crossing party lines to vote for Joe Biden.

There are plaques in the office that include the names of all the past secretaries of Homeland Security and their chiefs of staff, each engraved on a metal plate. After the op-ed, Whitehouse set out to remove Taylors name. He was in the process of unscrewing the plate when Wolf walked by.

What are you doing? Wolf asked him.

I am removing the name of this traitor, Whitehouse answered.

Stop. That doesnt belong to you. It doesnt belong to me. And we dont erase history here at the Department of Homeland Security.

Whitehouse erupted at the Cabinet secretary: Miles Taylor is a traitor! This just shows you dont really support President Trump!

By the fall, Whitehouse would be reassigned to a more important job: White House liaison at the Pentagon. When the move was announced, he told people, Im going to the Pentagon to fire [Defense Secretary Mark] Esper and those deep-state bastards!

But before he left, he had one piece of unfinished business. At a moment when he saw that Secretary Wolf was out of the building, Whitehouse once again went over to the list of names. He removed Miles Taylors plate and flipped it over so the metal face was blank, before screwing it back into the wall.

In October 2020, Whitehouse helped the Presidential Personnel Office write a series of memos identifying nearly two dozen Pentagon officials they thought should be fired, each outlining transgressions allegedly made against Trump.

Read: Top military officers unload on Trump

The memo on Esper, never before made public, provides remarkable insight into the degree to which McEntees team was calling the shots. It includes bullet points outlining Espers sins: He bars the display of the Confederate flag on military bases; opposed the Presidents direction to utilize American forces to put down riots; focused the Department on Russia; was actively pushing for diversity and inclusion; and so on. The memo recommended that Esper be fired immediately after the election and replaced by Christopher Miller, then the director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Trump followed the script. Six days after the election, Esper was fired and replaced by Miller. McEntee also selected Millers senior adviser, Douglas Macgregor, a retired Army colonel and regular guest on Tucker Carlsons show. As Axioss Jonathan Swan first reported, McEntee gave Macgregor a handwritten to-do list for the new team at the Pentagon:

1. Get us out of Afghanistan.

2. Get us out of Iraq and Syria.

3. Complete the withdrawal from Germany.

4. Get us out of Africa.

This is what the president wants you to do, McEntee told him.

Once he had cleaned up the Pentagon, McEntee turned his attention to the election, and the presidents efforts to overturn the results. He began providing legal advice. When White House Counsel Cipollone told Trump that Pence did not have the power to overturn the election, McEntee drafted his own constitutional analysis, with an assist from his own rogue legal advisers, directly contradicting Cipollone and every other serious expert in the country.

McEntee sent the memo via text message on January 1 to Pences chief of staff. Here it is, in its entirety:

Jefferson Used His Position as VP to Win

The Constitution sets precise requirements for the form in which the states are to submit their electoral votes.

In 1801, the ballots of all states were in perfect conformity except Georgias.

Georgias submission dramatically failed to conform to the requirements.

VP Jefferson presided over the counting of the ballots even as he was one of the candidates.

Had the defective ballots been rejected, Jefferson would have most likely lost the election.

Senate tellers told Jefferson in a loud voice that there was a problem with the Georgia ballots.

Rather than investigating, Jefferson ignored the problems and announced himself the winner.

This proves that the VP has, at a minimum, a substantial discretion to address issues with the electoral process.

McEntee was no constitutional scholar and no historian. His bullet-point description was, not surprisingly, deeply flawed. Jefferson didnt discard electoral votes, as Trump wanted Pence to do. He accepted electoral votes from a state that nobody had questioned he had won.

But the facts didnt matter to McEntee. By distorting what happened in 1801, McEntee could turn up the pressure on Pence. Thomas Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence and one of those guys on Mount Rushmore. If it was okay for him to use his power as vice president to get himself elected president, how could it not be okay for Pence to use his power to reelect Trump now?

Trump may have embraced his body guys theory, but Pence didnt. He refused to single-handedly overturn the election, preventing an even bigger disaster from taking place on January 6.

David A. Graham: The new lost cause

Since Trump left the White House, McEntee has kept a low profile. But he remains in close contact with Trump, and over the summer spent time at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, volunteering for his political operation, according to a Trump spokesperson.

People close to Trump say there is no doubt he is going to run for president again in 2024. I am not convinced he will run, but if he does, he will be the clear favorite to win the Republican nomination. The idea of him getting elected again, although highly unlikely, no longer seems impossible. If that happens, McEntee will probably play a key role right from the start. As one of Trumps more levelheaded senior aides told me, I shudder to think what the Cabinet would look like in a second term. Johnny McEntee, I expect, is already working on his list of names.

This article has been adapted from Jonathan Karls forthcoming book, Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show.

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Johnny McEntee: The Man Behind the Man Behind January 6 - The Atlantic

Donald Trump made an appearance at Game 4 of the 2021 World Series. Footage of Trump interacting with a baseball fan at the game is getting attention.

ATLANTA Donald Trump made an appearance at the 2021 World Series. Now footage of the former president accidentally hitting a child with a baseball on the head during his visit is making its way around the internet.

The Atlanta Braves faced off against the Houston Astros in their home Atlanta stadium Truist Park for Game 4 of the 2021 World Series. Former President Donald Trump's expected appearance made headlines ahead of the game. But, one fan managed to walk away with something unexpected a signed baseball from the 45th President of the United States.

Just below the former president's open-air suite within Truist Park, one young baseball fan tried to get Trump's attention. In footage posted to TikTok, the fan can be seen gesturing for the former president to sign his baseball.

Trump obliged, with the child tossing his ball into the suite. Trump signed the ball before tossing it back. But, the billionaire industrialist's aim was a little off. The signed baseball softly hit the fan on the head; no injuries were visibly endured during the video.

Footage of the World Series moment from the former president can be viewed below.

I got Mr. trumps autographs at the World Series

The Atlanta Braves defeated the Houston Astros 3-2 in Game 4 before clinching the Commissioner's Trophy in Game 6. The Peach State's MLB team had not won a World Series title since 1995, marking a 26-year road to championship for the Atlanta Braves.

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Donald Trump accidentally hit child on the head with baseball at World Series - 11Alive.com WXIA

Glenn Youngkins impressive win in the Virginia gubernatorial race immediately sparked talk about what it means for theRepublican Partys future.

Key among those is what does it tell us about the ultimate question for the next presidential race: Will Donald Trump run again?

The Virginia outcome presents questions and potential answers about Donald Trump and 2024. Here are five to consider.

1. Was Trump relevant in Virginia either way?

A major takeaway is that Youngkin not only won back suburban voters who were Republican-friendly before Trump but he outperformed Trump in rural Virginia. He might have carried the Latino vote, though exit polls have conflicting data on that. Trump didnt do a rally in Virginia, and other than releasing a few pro-Youngkin statements, stayed out of the governors race.

But, he was still very much part of the race. Vanquished Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, a former governor, couldnt stop talking about Trump.

Trump appeared in most of McAuliffes ads. When the Democrat A-team, including President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama, stumped for McAuliffe in the statethey also insisted the affable Youngkin was Trump in sheeps clothing.

So, the forty-fifthpresident hovered over the campaign without stumping for Youngkin.

But those suburban swing voters that abandoned Republicans because of those mean tweets and other silly behavior in 2020 didnt care about Trump in 2021.

2. So, does this mean Trump is less relevant in the GOP?

Democrats overestimated Trumps relevance, while Youngkina political rookieadroitly threaded the needle between not offending the Trump base, but not going Make America Great Again (MAGA).

Despite the wishful thinking of readers of The Bulwark, Trump is still relevant. But, to the disappointment of avid Trump supporters, the Virginia race shows his presence isnt necessary to rally the base GOP voters.

That said, if Youngkin had decided to be a Liz Cheney Republican, he would have likely alienated the Trump base, drawn the former presidents wrathand probably would have lost the election if those voters stayed home.

Moreover, the barrage of McAuliffe ads calling Youngkin another Trump might well have encouraged some Trump backers to head to the polls to support Youngkin, who is a rather Romney-esque looking Republican. On the other side, when Trump wasnt on the ballot, Democrats just werent that inspired to swarm to the polls.

3. Did Trump actually show some selfless discipline with the Virginia race that could benefit a 2024 run?

Selfless and discipline are rarely words associated with Trump. So, in this case, we can at least say he showed uncharacteristic restraint.

On October 27, Trump sparked enthusiasm among Democrats and dread among Republicans with a statement saying in part, Thank you, Arlington, see you soon!

McAuliffe falsely claimed Trump was on the way. Trump made headlines, which is probably what he wanted. He temporarily distracted attention from Youngkins message. But, bottom line, he didnt show up and put the GOP campaign at risk.

Thats important when looking at a potential 2024 Trump candidacy.Can he show discipline he didnt in the past?

A big reason Trump lost in 2020 is that he just couldnt get out of his own way. The reason he never polled 50 percent, despite a roaring economy in the pre-Covid-19 years, is that he was constantly his own worst enemy.

The tweeting, the petulance, the hurt feelings all on public display were all unnecessary and self-inflicted wounds. Moreover, it didnt just harm Trump but trickled down the Republican ticket, particularly in 2018.

The fact is that Trump can be a big help to Republicans in certain parts of the country and a big hindrance to Republicans in other parts. Instead of recognizing this, he frequently acted downright jovial about Republicans that lostand blamed them for not embracing Trumpism. Recall, Mia Love gave me no love and she lost, too bad, referring to the former Utah Republican congresswoman defeated in 2018.

Had Virginia gone the other way in 2021, he almost certainly would have blamed Youngkin for not having him in the state to campaign.

However, in the case of Virginia, Trump seemed somewhat disciplined and selfless enough to sit this one out. After the fact, he of course took credit for the Virginia victory, but no one is implying he has metamorphosized into a portrait of humility.

Perhaps Trump correctly strategized he would have been blamed if Youngkin lost after a MAGArally in the commonwealth. Thats at least discipline, even if its not selfless.

The 2022 mid-terms will be a bigger test if he can continue this.Trump thus far seems selective about what primary candidates to endorseusually a candidate somewhat likely to win.

But, he could build goodwill for a 2024 run in cases where his chosen candidate doesnt win a primary. Will he go scorched earth or give at least a tepid endorsement to the Republican nominee to have a fighting chance?

That could be the difference between projecting the image of a kingmaker vs. a wrecking ball.

4. What does Virginiasoutcome say about Trumps invincibility in a GOP primary?

Virginia showed that Republicans can win a high voter-turnout election in a blue-leaning state, as 55 percent of the states eligible voters cast ballotsthe highest of any governors race since 1997.

Again, Youngkin outperformed Trump among rural and suburban voters and women. Youngkin had clear policies on cultural issues as well as tax-cutting economic issues. No two election years are exactly alike, but the GOP could do a lot worse in looking for a roadmap for a national comeback.

Trump brought in new working-class voters and non-white voters that didnt normally vote Republican, while he managed to alienate the suburban voters that felt more comfortable with Mitt Romney-style Republicans. The trick to winning a majority would be keeping and growing each without losing the other. It only took a year after Trumps loss for an example of that to emerge in Virginia.

The conventional wisdom is that Trump is unstoppable in a 2024 Republican primary, and if he runs he will clear the field of any serious competitors.

Maybe.

But the conventional wisdom was also that he could never be elected in 2016. Way before that, the conventional wisdom was that no one could possibly beat Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, and that Obama was possibly harming his political future for even trying.

Voters like boldness.

If Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, or, well, Youngkin, decide to jump into the presidential primary and take on Trump, they might be rewarded. Thats particularly true if these candidates have a conservative vision and Trump cant stop talking about being a victim in 2020.

Today, the hot commodity on the Right is DeSantis. By late 2022 or mid-2023, it might be someone else. A Trump primary opponent doesnt have to beand shouldnt bea knee-jerk Never Trumper. Voters reward boldness not spite and want to vote for someone not just against someone.

5. Does Virginia indicate whether Trump could win if he ran again?

Not directly, but the governors race was more of a referendum on the first tenmonths of the Biden presidency than on four years of Trump. So, from that perspective, it depends.

Biden won Virginia by 10 points over Trump. Whoever the Republican nominee is in 2024, he or she wont likely carry the states nine electoral votes.

The result does prove the flawed belief of McAuliffe and Democrats that saying Trump, Trump, Trump enough times in a blue state would be a winning strategy. This shows that maybe Trump isnt quite as toxic as once assumed.

Yes, Trump incites both irrational, deranged hatred on one side and an enthusiastic, near cult-like fawning love on the other. But those are just two categories of voters from 2020.

A third category is Trump voters that may or may not go to a rally in town, probably wont wear the MAGA hat, and sometimes wince at his uncouthness. But they voted to keep him in 2020 because they thought he was getting the job done.

Its the fourth category that is really up for grabs. These Biden voters didnt quite have an irrational seething hatred for Trump, but just grew tired of the constant drama and thought Biden seemed harmless enough. For some of these voters, mean tweets might not seem so bad about now.

Biden fumbled through the opening months of his presidency. He had a disastrous Afghanistan exit. He looked like a bystander while a civil war played out in the party he is supposed to lead. While it appears the infrastructure and whittled-down social spending bills will both pass before the end of the year, neither seems to resonate with the public.

If inflation continues to spike, new taxes on employers harm the economy, and assorted examples of corporate welfare boondoggles become the face of the Biden spending legislation (as happened with Obamas 2009 Recovery Act), it could be difficult for Democrats to run a winning 2024 campaign.

It seems unlikely that Biden would run for a second term in his eightiesand Vice President Kamala Harris isnt particularly popular. If the economy doesnt improve, its not that difficult to imagine Trump making a compelling case that before an unforeseen pandemic, times were quite good on his watch.

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Do Big GOP Wins in Virginia Mean Donald Trump Runs in 2024? - The National Interest Online

Another Trump administration official is making the rounds to talk about life in the White House; former National Security Adviser Fiona Hill, who revealed Donald Trump's admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin knows no bounds."He saw Putin as the kind of epitome of the badass populist, frankly, you know, the kind of person that he wanted to be: super-rich, super powerful, no checks and balances, and essentially being able to stay in power forever," Hill told the Daily Beast's "The New Abnormal" podcast.

Alyssa Farah and Hill join former communications director Stephanie Grisham, who has also come forward to say Trump is not up to the task."I don't think he is fit for the job. I think that he is erratic. I think that he can be delusional. I think that he is a narcissist and cares about himself first and foremost. And I do not want him to be our president again," Grisham told ABC News.

In early October 2021, The Washington Post reported thatTrump was prepared to announce his candidacy for the 2024 race, but his advisers had told him to back down since the Democrats would likely use that against the GOP during the midterm elections."The biggest point we drove home was that he doesn't want to own the midterms if we don't win back the House or Senate," an unnamed source told The Post. Another reason for the silence?"We're not supposed to be talking about it yet, from the standpoint of campaign finance laws, which frankly are ridiculous," Trump said.

Continued here:

A Former Trump Aide Says This Will Happen If Donald Trump Wins In 2024 - The List