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      CPAC: Nikki Haley calls out Republicans’ failure to win voters’ confidence – live

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      Many, many things have changed in American politics since 2016, but one thing has stayed the same – Donald Trump’s position as the most popular man in the Republican party.He’s been in a commanding position among Republicans ever since clinching its presidential nomination more than six years ago, and that dynamic hasn’t meaningfully changed in the years since. Case in point: the latest batch of opinion polls show him essentially blowing all the other potential contenders for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination out of the water.As Sebastian Gorka made clear at the start of today’s events, CPAC is very much a convention of the “hardcore Maga”. Trump speaks tomorrow, but his most powerful presumed challenger next year, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, isn’t showing up at all. Instead, CPAC attendees will today hear from Nikki Haley, who is running next year, and Mike Pompeo, Trump’s former secretary of state who is expected to launch a campaign.CPAC attracts conservatives from across the country. We’ll try to let you know what they think of Trump’s challengers, and whether they agree that – after all that’s happened – he remains the best man to lead the GOP.Steve Bannon just got off stage after an enthusiastic, 15-minute defense of Donald Trump that was the best received speech of the day.Bannon, a former White House adviser who is appealing a federal prison sentence for ignoring a subpoena from the January 6 committee, won more applause than any speaker before him by singing the former president’s praises and attacking Fox News for ignoring Trump.“Donald J. Trump, let me repeat, in a very volatile time in American history, it was four years of peace and prosperity,” he said, to loud applause, “You know why? He puts you in the room to make decisions.”“And that’s why they hate him,” Bannon continued. “They don’t hate him because he’s Trump. They hate him because he represents you.”He then attacked Fox News for not giving the former president enough coverage. “Note to Fox senior management: when Donald J. Trump talks it’s newsworthy,” Bannon declared.“Maga, Maga, Maga. Remember, Murdoch, you deem Trump’s not going to be president, well we deem that you’re not going to have a network,” Bannon declared as he wrapped up his speech.Conservatives at CPAC today heard from one Republican presidential contender, Nikki Haley, and another potential contender, Mike Pompeo. But the convention remains very much Donald Trump’s show.“I’m still sticking with Trump,” said Gary Wolcott, a 69-year-old retiree from the Virginia suburbs near Washington DC. He acknowledged that Haley’s speech “was definitely impressive, and Pompeo’s, too”. But neither dissuaded him from the support he’s maintained for Trump since his first days as a candidate in 2015.“I just believe he’s the person who is most for America, and he gave up a lot to run for president. He’s not a career politician, and I know he’s always going to try to do what he thinks is best for America,” Wolcott said.Karen and Donald Ruthig’s sentiments were much the same.“He gets things done,” Karen, 77, said of Trump. As for the other candidates, “Maybe they’re wanting to run for vice? I don’t know, but I don’t think they can make it as president.”Her husband, Donald, called Pompeo’s speech “fabulous”, but Haley’s “predictable”. He didn’t think either could win. “I don’t think Nikki Haley is electable. I don’t think Mike Pompeo is electable, and I’m not even sure that Ron DeSantis is at this point,” he said, referring to the Florida governor who is seen as probably the second strongest contender to Trump among Republicans.Donald, a 73 year old who was attending the convention along with his wife from Virginia’s rural eastern shore, worried that if the GOP nominates anyone but Trump, many voters will stay home. “Without Trump’s complete base, we haven’t got a prayer,” he said. “So while there may be some very good candidates in the field, the electability issue (makes) him front and center.”As enduring as his support was for Trump, Wolcott called on the former president to change tactics as he navigates his second GOP primary.“His liability is, he’s got to stop bashing Republicans. He needs to explain why he’s good, not why they’re bad. So long as he can do that he will easily win the presidency. I’m not sure he can do it,” he said.The White House this afternoon decried Tennessee’s aggressive move to limit drag shows in the state.The state’s Republican governor, Bill Lee, yesterday signed a bill passed by the legislature that restricts public drag show performances – the first state to do that this year, CNN reported.The law limits “adult cabaret performances” on public property, defining such as a show “that features topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest, or similar entertainers.”At the White House press briefing on Friday afternoon, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “American people are focussed on so many issues..the economy..healthcare..safety in schools” and lamented Republicans’ targeting activities like drag shows as their priority instead.“Going after drag shows, how is that going to help people’s lives?” she asked. KJP is the first out gay White House press secretary.She added that these “ridiculous policies” are “dangerous. They vilify our fellow Americans at a time when LGBTQ Americans are facing heightened violence.”Joe Biden has the backs of LGBTQ Americans, she noted, “and will continue to be there for the community.”Earlier this month, famous Tennessee drag queens, including Eureka and Jaidynn Diore Fierce spoke up to Entertainment Weekly, with Eureka calling the bill “blatantly unconstitutional.”They talked to a competitor on this season’s Ru Paul’s Drag Race, and now fellow Tennessean, Aura Mayari, who said she was deeply upset and saddened by the push and said the law was nothing more than “a mask used to hide discrimination toward the LGBTQ+ community and the desire to erase drag.”Jaidynn Diore Fierce for all stars / lipsync assassin when? pic.twitter.com/H8XnYY7qTQ— ᴅʀᴀɢᴍᴇᴛᴏꜰɪʟᴛʜ ◡̈ (@dragmetofilth) February 8, 2023
      This feels like the year when CPAC’s centre of gravity shifted from Fox News to Newsmax – more extreme, more fringey and less relevant.Fox News personnel are thin on the ground as the network, embroiled in crisis over its part in pushing Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud, tilts away from him towards rival Ron DeSantis.Meanwhile Chris Ruddy, chief executive of Newsmax, was fawningly interviewed on stage by CPAC co-organiser Mercedes Schlapp. Adverts for Newsmax are running regularly on screens here.CPAC is teeming with Trump loyalists. Donald Trump Jr, Steve Bannon, Mike Lindell and Sebastian Gorka are causing crowd congestion as the live stream and podcast loudly cluster outside the main ballroom.Such scenes might symbolise how Trump has lost Fox News but dominates the likes of Newsmax, One America News Network and far right social media. Fox no longer carries his rallies live whereas those channels do – with smaller audiences.It could be good news for DeSantis, a regular on Fox, as he seeks to command the Republican base and banish Trump to the margins.Fox News reportedly imposes ‘soft ban’ on Donald TrumpRead moreHere are some more bits and pieces from Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s interaction with reporters at CPAC.She called on everyone in the Republican party to support the eventual nominee for president in 2024 – something that former president Donald Trump seems unlikely to do.But Greene confirmed that she is endorsing Trump, saying she talks to him “every week” and “I absolutely adore him”.The Guardian asked: “Would you be his running mate?” Greene replied: “We haven’t really engaged. That’s up to President Trump who he chooses.”Questioned about her message to former ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and other potential candidates, she added: “Well, it’s nice that they’re running but they’re not going to win. President Trump is going to be the primary. I don’t know what they’re doing it for in the first place.”And Greene said of Ron DeSantis: “I think he is a fantastic governor for the state of Florida and, at the snail’s pace things get done here in Washington, if I were Florida, I’d give him a third term and beg him to stay as governor.”Rightwing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene just held an impromptu question and answer session with a group of reporters at CPAC – who therefore paid little attention to Kimberly Guilfoyle’s speech from the nearby stage.The Guardian asked the first couple of questions. Greene, an influential figure in the House of Representative, said: “I think the US should be pushing for peace in Ukraine instead of funding and continuing a war that seems to be escalating and putting the entire world at risk of world war three.”The Republican from Georgia called for US funding to cease immediately. “Look, I voted for the resolution to support the Ukrainian people and against what Russia has done invading their country. But what the United States is doing is we are actually accelerating a war there and this war should be over.“We should be promoting peace. Europe should have peace and the United States should do their part. Ukraine is not a Nato member nation and Joe Biden said in the beginning he would not defend Ukraine because they’re not a Nato member nation. It doesn’t make sense and the American people do not support it.”Later Greene added that Biden is more interested in Ukraine’s border than America’s own or the victims of a toxic rail disaster in East Palestine, Ohio. She also floated an unfounded conspiracy theory that Biden’s son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine is likely underpinning the president’s motivations there.“Does that play a role in Joe Biden’s commitment to Zelenskiy as if Zelinskiy and Ukraine is the 51st state of the United States of America?… Is that why we’re all going to be dragged into World War three? And I’m sorry, I’m not going on that train and most Americans – pretty much everyone I talk to – is not interested in that either.”In the final days of the Trump administration, after he had lost the 2020 election, then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo declared that “there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.”Pompeo seems to have acknowledged reality in the years since, and stated the grim truth about the GOP’s recent election record in his speech at CPAC today. Here’s a clip:Potential GOP presidential candidate Mike Pompeo, who declared in November 2020 that there would be a “second Trump administration” even after the election was called for Biden, seems to acknowledge Trump’s loss at CPAC:“We lost three elections in a row.” pic.twitter.com/C2AixiOdXf— The Recount (@therecount) March 3, 2023
      He later appeared to throw some shade at his former boss:Potential GOP presidential candidate Mike Pompeo signals some new distance from Donald Trump:“We can’t become the left, following celebrity leaders with their own brand of identity politics; those with fragile egos who refuse to acknowledge reality.” pic.twitter.com/maZP39yVyE— The Recount (@therecount) March 3, 2023
      Still no word yet from Pompeo on whether he plans to run for the GOP nomination next year.At the Conservative Political Action Conference today, Republicans who are not Donald Trump are trying their best to convince the audience to give them a shot in 2024. Up first was his former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, who argued that the GOP’s struggle to win the popular vote in recent elections is a sign the party needs a change in leadership. And then she walked out of the speech venue to crowds of conservatives chanting “Trump! Trump! Trump!” That’s how it goes when you’re not on his side at a conference were Maga rules supreme. We’ll see if candidate Vivek Ramaswamy or Mike Pompeo, who hasn’t announced a run for president yet but is seen as a potential candidate, have better luck with the crowd.Here’s a recap of the day’s events:
      A call to defund the police was a surprise applause line at CPAC.
      Rightwing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to make providing gender-affirming care to minors a felony.
      Democrats remain behind Joe Biden, if the statements of House lawmakers are any indication.
      CPAC is a tough place for Republicans who are not on Donald Trump’s side.Following her speech, Nikki Haley stepped outside the venue to greet conservative attendees – who made their preference for next year’s GOP presidential nomination clear, as this video from Bloomberg News shows:Crowd chanting “Trump!” as Nikki Haley take photos with supporters after her CPAC speech. pic.twitter.com/iI7WSKSwT9— Christian Hall (@christianjhall) March 3, 2023
      The parade of speeches by former Trump officials continues with Mike Pompeo, who served as secretary of state from 2018 to 2021.He’s thought to be considering a run for the White House next year, but hasn’t yet said one way or the other. Let’s hear what he has to say.Nikki Haley has a tall order in overcoming the former president’s popularity among Republicans.The latest polls have shown her support well below that of Trump’s. Here’s one from Yahoo News/YouGov, which shows Trump in the lead with 45% support, against Haley’s 4%.Haley, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, is surely aware of where she would end up if the Republican primary were held today. As she closed out her speech, she appealed to the audience to consider an alternative to the former president.“We’ve lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. Our cause is right, but we have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans. That ends now. If you’re tired of losing, then put your trust in a new generation. And if you want to win – not just as a party, but as a country – then stand with me,” Haley said.Nikki Haley is now on stage at CPAC, and started her stump speech off by reiterating her call for politicians over the age of 75 to take a mental competency test.“When I launched my campaign, I said every politician over 75 years old should be required to take a mental competency test. Have you seen DC lately? We should start with Joe Biden – and we shouldn’t stop there,” she said. The last part seemed to stir a murmur of disapproval from the audience, considering that Donald Trump is 76, and would also be subject to one of these tests.Many seats noticeably empty.At CPAC at National Harbor in Maryland. Nikki Haley enters to standing ovation but also many empty seats. “The liberal media’s head are exploding about me running for president… Liberals are the most sexist by far.” pic.twitter.com/u7SZOZUCqu— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) March 3, 2023
      At their retreat in Baltimore this week, House Democrats voiced enthusiasm about Joe Biden‘s likely reelection campaign, with the president expected to formally announce his 2024 bid in the next several weeks.“I think he will win. I think he’s our strongest candidate,” congressman Pete Aguilar, the House Democratic caucus chair, said Thursday at an event with Punchbowl News. Aguilar added, “I think that he can and should run, and he’s going to have the support of the House Democratic caucus.”Even House progressives, who have previously clashed with Biden over policy concerns, appear to be rallying behind the president. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Thursday that she hopes Biden will announce his reelection campaign sooner rather than later.“Nobody is surprised that Biden was not my choice in the first election for the primary,” Jayapal said. “But the CPC and the President and his administration have formed an incredibly strong partnership.”The mayor of a Maryland city has resigned after authorities arrested him on charges of possessing and distributing images of child sexual abuse, according to multiple reports.Patrick Wojahn, 47, had been the mayor of College Park since 2015 and, before that, a member of the city council there for eight years when he was arrested Thursday. He had submitted his resignation later the previous night, as the local news outlet WBAL reported, but that did little to head off the scandal that his arrest ignited, drawing headlines nationally.Charging documents cited by the local news station WTOP accused Wojahn of using an anonymous account to upload child abuse imagery to the mobile messaging application Kik in January. Kik officials then alerted the federal missing and exploited children center, which prompted police to subpoena internet service providers’ records that linked the uploads to Wojahn.Local county investigators searched Wojahn’s home in February, and they seized cell phones, a tablet, a computer and a storage device before Thursday’s arrest.Wojahn faces 40 counts of possessing child abuse imagery and 16 of distributing it.College Park has a population of about 35,000 and is just northeast of Washington DC. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Wojahn’s arrest shocked the city’s residents.Local resident Drake Allen said he feared the scandal showed that College Park was “headed in the wrong direction”.“I don’t know if this is going to wake anybody up. It should, but it probably won’t,” Allen said, before describing how he wishes Wojahn’s successor is “just a regular mayor who does his job.”On stage at CPAC now is Donald Trump Jr, who came bearing gifts.“There’s a little surprise for all of you,” he told the audience. “Check under your seats. If there happens to be a gold chocolate bar underneath there … that’s a VIP ticket to my father’s reception tomorrow at CPAC,” the former president’s son said.Wonder what Roald Dahl would think of that. More

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      Nikki Haley seeks support from Republicans ‘tired of losing’ at CPAC

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      00:50 Nikki Haley seeks support from Republicans ‘tired of losing’ at CPACEx-UN ambassador and 2024 contender presents herself as face of ‘new generation’ in pitch to crowd still largely wed to TrumpRepublican presidential candidate Nikki Haley ventured onto Donald Trump stomping grounds on Friday, seeking support from rank-and-file Republicans who are “tired of losing”.In remarks at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside of Washington DC, Haley presented herself as the face of a “new generation” of Republican leaders, making her pitch to a crowd still largely wed to Trump, her 76-year-old former boss and rival for the party’s nomination..Trump’s war with DeSantis heats up with details of 2024 battle planRead more“We’ve lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections,” Haley said. “Our cause is right, but we have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans. That ends now.”Haley, 51, highlighted her conservative victories as governor of South Carolina and UN ambassador during the Trump administration, vowing as president to “renew an America that’s strong and proud – not weak and woke”.Playing to the audience of conservative activists, Haley spent much of her speech slamming the subjects that dominate outrage on the right: Joe Biden, socialism and the liberal media.“In case you didn’t notice, the liberal media’s heads are exploding about my run for president,” she said. “We all know why. The media can’t stand that I’m a conservative. Think about it. I’m a woman – a minority – and the daughter of immigrants. I am proof that liberals are wrong about everything they say about America.”One of her loudest applause lines was when Haley, after describing herself as the “first minority female governor in history”, declared, as she has in the past: “America is not a racist country!”Haley also lashed out at Don Lemon of CNN after he suggested she was past her “prime”. He later expressed regret for the comment. (Her campaign is selling beer koozies that say “Past my prime?” and “Hold my beer”.)After finishing her speech, Haley waded into the crowd in the main hall of the venue. As she posed for photos with supporters, some attendees heckled her, shouting: “We love Trump” and “Rino”, a derogatory label for conservatives viewed as insufficiently loyal. It stands for “Republican in name only”.Haley never mentioned Trump by name, and has been careful to avoid direct criticism of him since launching her bid for president. In a recent interview, she pledged to support him if he were to win the nomination.Haley was the first major Republican candidate to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination. But she was not the only potential aspirant to speak at the conservative gathering. Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech multimillionaire and author who announced his candidacy for president, was also scheduled to speak at the conference following another 2024 hopeful, Trump’s former secretary of state Mike Pompeo.Trump will headline the event with an hour-long speech on Saturday evening.But once a magnet for Republican rising stars, CPAC will not hear from several possible 2024 hopefuls this year. The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who is widely expected to announce a run for president in the coming months, is skipping the conservative conference and is instead slated to appear at a dueling event hosted by the conservative Club For Growth in Florida this weekend.Also absent are potential presidential aspirants were former vice-president Mike Pence, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and South Dakota’s governor, Kristi Noem.Public opinion surveys underscore Haley’s uphill climb to winning the Republican nomination. She trails far behind Trump and DeSantis, hovering at around 5%, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average.That enduring affection for Trump was on full display at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, underscoring the challenge his rivals face as they vie for the nomination.Attendees wearing “Trump 2024” hats and “Trump was right” T-shirts posed for pictures in an Oval Office replica. “Trump’s rump” was bedazzled on the backside of one woman’s jeans. And the former president is all but certain to win the unscientific presidential straw poll of CPAC attendees, as he did last year.“I made up my mind on November 3, 2020 and haven’t changed it since,” said Donna Shannen of Pennsylvania, who was attending her first CPAC along with Dawn Bancroft. Both derided Haley as a “traitor” for condemning Trump’s role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.They saw Haley’s attempts to soften those comments later as a sign of “weakness” and hypocrisy. But Shannen said she’d give Haley more credit if she directly challenged Trump, rather than trying to have it both ways with veiled criticism and overt praise.“If she can’t even attack her own opponents in her own party, how is she going to attack Kim Jong-Un or Xi Jinping,” she said.Haley did resonate with some attendees. Leaving the ballroom after her remarks, several young women said they were inspired by her message, her foreign policy experience – and the possibility of electing the first female president.“I think she is a way better candidate than Trump would be. I don’t think he can win,” said Ashleigh Dyson, a college student at St Mary’s College of Maryland,, who said it “crazy” that the US has never elected a woman to the White House.Chiming in, Carolyn Wilson, also a student at St Mary’s College of Maryland said she believed Haley could win over independent and swing voters who recoiled from Trump during his presidency. She added that being a woman will likely help Haley navigate a bare-knuckled primary race.“She’s used to that pushback,” Wilson said, noting that there was a man in the audience who booed Haley as she spoke. “She didn’t even bat an eye!”TopicsCPACNikki HaleyRepublicansUS politicsUS elections 2024Donald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Nikki Haley calls out Republicans’ failure to win voters’ confidence – video

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      The Republican candidate Nikki Haley appealed to the audience to consider an alternative to the former president Donald Trump at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday. The former South Carolina governor is challenging her one-time boss for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The 2024 contender pointed out in her speech that the party has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections

      CPAC: Nikki Haley calls out Republicans’ failure to win voters’ confidence – live
      Nikki Haley to seek Republican nomination for 2024 presidential election More

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      Trump’s war with DeSantis heats up with details of 2024 battle plan

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      Trump’s war with DeSantis heats up with details of 2024 battle planAxios reports Trump’s intention to attack Florida governor for disloyalty as he prepares for likely face-off in presidential primaryThe incipient Republican civil war between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis heated up on Friday, with news of how the former US president reportedly plans to attack the rightwing Florida governor in the coming 2024 presidential primary.‘Hardcore Maga’ on display as Republican contenders make their pitches at CPAC – liveRead moreCiting “sources and friends familiar with Trump’s thinking”, the news website Axios reported that the former president plans to attack “Ron DeSanctimonious, as he delights in branding the governor”, in areas including perceived disloyalty, support for changes to Social Security and Medicare and his response to the Covid pandemic.Trump recently denied road-testing another derogatory nickname, Meatball Ron, which he conveniently repeated in his denial.Signs of heightened tension between the two Republican powerhouses also emerged in Florida earlier this week, when a group of Trump supporters including the far-right activist Laura Loomer, were told to leave an event promoting DeSantis’s new memoir, according to a police officer on the orders of the governor’s staff.Loomer called DeSantis a “tyrant”.On Friday, Axios quoted “a Trump confidant” as saying: “There’s a pre-Trump Ron and there’s a post-Trump Ron. He used to be a Reagan Republican. That’s where he comes from. He’s now awkwardly trying to square his views up with the populist nationalist feeling of that party.”DeSantis did not comment. Axios pointed out, however, that earlier this week the governor told Fox News Trump’s attacks were “background noise”.Trump and the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley are the only major declared candidates for the Republican nomination, though DeSantis is among others widely expected to run.Trump and DeSantis dominate polling, though Trump has recently enjoyed a boost, with healthy leads over DeSantis in multiple surveys.Many Republicans oppose a third Trump candidacy after his chaotic presidency, two impeachments, incitement of the January 6 insurrection and poor record in successive midterm elections.But many fear a split field could hand him the nomination without needing majority support, as was the case in 2016. Surveys have shown Haley and DeSantis splitting anti-Trump support.Axios said the former president planned to focus on votes DeSantis cast as a congressman to raise the eligibility aid for Medicare – a hot-button issue in Washington as Joe Biden, the likely Democratic nominee in 2024, hammers Republicans on the issue.In a related attack line, Trump reportedly wants to link DeSantis to Paul Ryan, the former vice-presidential nominee, House speaker and advocate of privatised social benefits now on the board at Fox.Covid, Axios said, “is a top Trump target, even though the governor is known for resisting mask mandates. Trump plans to attack DeSantis’ caution in the earliest days of the pandemic – and try to fight the issue to a draw”.On a similarly muddy issue, Trump reportedly wants to portray DeSantis as “wishy-washy on the war” in Ukraine, while he himself “toes the Maga line of cutting aid” to Kyiv in its war with Russia.Trump has a better shot at the Republican nomination than people realize | Osita NwanevuRead moreFinally, Axios said Trump planned to attack DeSantis for perceived disloyalty, after Trump supported his first bid for governor in 2018, and likability.Speaking to Fox News this week, DeSantis said Trump “used to say how great of a governor I was. And then I win a big victory [in the 2022 midterms] and all of a sudden he had different opinions. And so you could take that for what it’s worth.”If a Trump-DeSantis face-off seems inevitable, it will not happen this week at CPAC, the conservative convention outside Washington at which Trump will speak on Saturday. DeSantis is not scheduled to appear.Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist turned leading anti-Trump activist, accused DeSantis of having “a glass jaw”.“He chickened out of facing Trump at CPAC because his carefully curated tough-guy shtick can’t take a hit,” Wilson said.TopicsRepublicansRon DeSantisDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump has a better shot at the Republican nomination than people realize | Osita Nwanevu

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      Trump has a better shot at the Republican nomination than people realizeOsita NwanevuIn some ways, Trump may be even more difficult for his Republican rivals to beat next year than he was seven years agoIt’s worth remembering that most Republican voters didn’t back Donald Trump in the race for the party’s nomination in 2016. Trump came away with something like 45% of the vote in the Republican primaries; though the field had by then shrunk to just three candidates – Trump, John Kasich, and Ted Cruz – polls showed Trump struggling to hit 50% support among Republicans as late as early April of that year.Most explanations for his victory justifiably center around his political style and the rise of the rightwing populism we’ve come to call Trumpism ⁠– though it significantly predated Trump ⁠– among a growing share of Republicans. But as a practical matter, Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016 for a very simple reason: he built and kept a large minority of incredibly loyal supporters within the party, while the majority of Republican voters, who would have preferred another candidate, split their votes among too many alternatives. Had they united behind one candidate early enough in the race, Trump may well have lost. Instead, they divided themselves into defeat.Feminism taught me all I need to know about men like Trump and Putin | Rebecca SolnitRead moreOnce Trump was nominee, the vast majority of Republicans ⁠– voters, politicians, and major donors alike ⁠– dutifully set aside whatever reservations they had and backed him, even as his campaign was hit by increasingly grotesque scandals. And today, Trump, battered as he might seem, is both a former president and a demigod even to many Republicans who were wary of him in his first run. Barring dramatic, unexpected events ⁠– which, in fairness, are always a possibility with Trump ⁠– he’ll go into next year’s primary contests as an even more broadly popular and respected figure than he was in 2016, when his favorability among Republicans seldom cracked 60%.Unlike that race’s ramshackle operation, Trump will also have a large working infrastructure of competent operatives – and state and local Republican officials across the country who back him this time around. All told, Trump should, by all rights, be even more difficult for his Republican rivals to beat next year than he was seven years ago. And that makes it all the more remarkable that the Republican elites and donors who’ve soured on him ⁠– believing, correctly, that Trump is a weak and weakening general-election candidate ⁠– seem poised to make the very same mistake that delivered him the nomination last time.The non-Trump field has already split. Although Nikki Haley’s campaign announcement two weeks ago was seemingly forgotten by the political press almost as soon as it was made, she’ll do everything she can as the year wears on to eat into the support of likely candidate Ron DeSantis, who drew some rather inauspicious praise from former anti-Trump frontrunner and fellow Floridian Jeb Bush last week, and whoever else wants to grab a spot in the clown car next to her and also-rans-to-be Vivek Ramaswamy and Corey Stapleton.That’s likely to include South Carolina senator Tim Scott, who made a major address in Iowa last week, and perhaps former vice-president Mike Pence, who’s been publicly mulling a bid despite his popularity within the party taking a predictable and significant hit after his refusal to assist Trump’s coup plot on January 6.Though it might consolidate earlier than it did in 2016, Trump really ought to feel good about how crowded the field is already beginning to feel. It suggests two possibilities: either the Republican powers-that-be are inept enough to believe the field can bear another sizable slate of non-Trump candidates; or they’re ambivalent enough about Trump winning the nomination again that they don’t think lining up behind a single alternative to stop him is worth their while. Those alternatives, after all, are actively working to close the substantive gap between Trump and themselves anyhow.Take Ron DeSantis, a man lauded by conservative elites as the anti-Trump throughout the 2022 campaign season even as he stumped for Trump’s favored and fraud-alleging candidates. His crusade against critical race theory, which takes after Trump’s broadsides against political correctness and propagandistic stunts like the 1776 Project, has predictably expanded into a proposed ideological overhaul of higher education in Florida; lax Covid policies and a crackdown on undocumented immigrants ⁠have been central to establishing what a recent DeSantis ad called a “citadel of freedom” in the Sunshine State.And, on LGBT matters, DeSantis has arguably pulled Trump and the party back to the right. While Trump publicly professed support for the LGBT community during his administration ⁠– even as he dismantled federal protections for transgender people ⁠– DeSantis has helped force their open demonization and harassment back to the top of the social conservative agenda.Meanwhile, Tim Scott, supposedly one of the right’s most sensitive and sensible voices, accused Democrats last week of concocting a “blueprint to ruin America”, echoing DeSantis’ rhetoric against teachers “indoctrinating your kids with radical nonsense” as well as Trump’s tough-on-crime posturing against Democrats who “demand empathy for murderers and carjackers”, even as the state sends “SWAT teams after pro-life Christians.” ⁠(This a reference to the FBI’s non-SWAT arrest of a pro-life activist who allegedly assaulted an abortion clinic volunteer at a protest.)That mix of mendacity and vitriol is indistinguishable from Trump’s political approach ⁠– and, for that matter, from the animus behind Marjorie Taylor Greene’s case for “national divorce”. The need to compete with Trump for Trump’s voters has erased any meaningful differences between the supposedly staid establishment wing of the Republican party and Trump’s camp; those who hope to replace Trump on the ballot in the general election next year are doing all they can, whether they know it or not, to make themselves appear almost as radical and unappealing to the bulk of the general electorate – which, granted, may lose out again in the electoral college – as Trump himself does.The fact that the candidates thus far seem unwilling to run against Trump’s actual record in office doesn’t help matters. According to Scott, the Trump administration produced “the most pro-worker, pro-family economy” of his lifetime ⁠– a sentiment that makes it hard to understand what the substantive argument against another Trump term is supposed to be. The obvious knock on him is that he was defeated in 2020 ⁠– but the conservative base isn’t going to want to hear that their preferences hurt the party, and many Republicans still don’t believe Trump really lost the election in the first place. That leaves Trump’s opponents wobbling on a tricky tightrope: trying to temper their criticisms of him and glom onto his appeal without encouraging Republican voters to consider backing the original, genuine article.Trump, for his part, is sticking to the considerably simpler task of being Donald Trump. He managed to beat both President Biden and Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, to the scene of the East Palestine rail disaster, and used the free media attention he remains good at attracting to deliver a familiar message.“This is really America right here,” he told the town’s conservative white working-class residents in a brief statement. “Unfortunately, as you know, in too many cases, your goodness and perseverance were met with indifference and betrayal.”Though the political landscape has changed, that kind of rhetoric and showmanship, as empty, yet evocative, as ever, could well deliver him the nomination again ⁠– more easily than his rivals seem to appreciate.
      Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist
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      Fox News reportedly imposes ‘soft ban’ on Donald Trump

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      Fox News reportedly imposes ‘soft ban’ on Donald TrumpThe former president has not made a weekday showing on the channel since appearing on Sean Hannity’s show in SeptemberFox News has imposed a “soft ban” on Donald Trump appearing on the channel, his inner circle is reportedly complaining, even as the broadcaster extends a warm invitation to other Republican hopefuls in next year’s presidential election.Trump not entitled to immunity from civil suits over Capitol attack, says DoJRead moreThe news startup Semafor reports that the cooling of relations between the former president and his once-beloved cable news channel has gone so far that a “soft ban” or “silent ban” is now holding Trump at arm’s length. The former US president has not made a weekday showing on Fox News since he chatted with his closest friend among the network’s star hosts, Sean Hannity, in September.Meanwhile, Trump’s rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination are currently frequent guests on Fox. Media Matters for America, a watchdog that keeps a close eye on the network’s output, has counted seven weekday appearances by the former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley since she launched her presidential bid last month.Even the lesser known right-wing activist and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who threw his hat into the ring last week, has appeared four times on Fox. Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, who is widely expected to compete with Trump though he has yet to declare, is also repeatedly seen on the network.Semafor said it based its story on information supplied by four members of Trump’s circle. It quoted an unnamed individual “close to Trump” saying: “Everyone knows that there’s this ‘soft ban’ or ‘silent ban’. It’s certainly – however you want to say, quiet ban, soft ban, whatever it is – indicative of how the Murdochs feel about Trump in this particular moment.”The Guardian asked Fox News to confirm or deny the existence of such a ban, but did not immediately receive a reply.The undeniable tailing off of Trump’s exposure on Fox comes at a tense moment for the network, which is battling a $1.6bn lawsuit from the voting machines company Dominion. The suit claims that Fox News Network, with the complicit approval of its parent company Fox Corp, allowed wild defamatory conspiracy theories to proliferate on its platform, falsely accusing Dominion machines of stealing the 2020 presidential election from Trump by flipping votes from him to Joe Biden.In excerpts of a deposition given in the case by Rupert Murdoch in January, the owner and chair of Fox Corp admitted that he knew that several Fox hosts were endorsing lies about the election being stolen from Trump yet he chose not to stop them. Legal and media experts have suggested that the admission places Murdoch’s empire in considerable legal and financial peril.During Trump’s rise to the White House in 2015-16, and his ensuing years in office, he was virtually inseparable from Fox News. He regularly made impromptu calls into his favourite shows, and in the single year 2019 posted 657 tweets responding to content aired by the channel or its sister outlet Fox Business.In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s defeat in the November 2020 election, Fox hosts were permitted to continue broadcasting lies about massive voter fraud. But since the stolen election campaign reached its nadir on 6 January 2021, with the insurrection at the US Capitol, followed later that year by the lodging of lawsuits by Dominion and another voting machine company, Fox has gradually backed away.In turn, Trump has increasingly vented his anger towards his former media friend. This week he posted a rant on his social media platform Truth Social in which he accused Murdoch himself of peddling “fake news” after the Fox chief was revealed to have said in a deposition that he did not believe the stolen election lie from the beginning.“If Rupert Murdoch honestly believes that the presidential election of 2020, despite massive amounts of proof to the contrary, was not rigged & stolen, then he & his group of Maga hating globalist Rinos [Republicans in name only] should get out of the news business as soon as possible,” Trump said.There is no evidence that the election was rigged, as numerous top officials, including Trump’s own former US attorney general Bill Barr, have attested.TopicsDonald TrumpRupert MurdochFox NewsFoxUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump not entitled to immunity from civil suits over Capitol attack, says DoJ

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      Trump not entitled to immunity from civil suits over Capitol attack, says DoJJustice department said ex-president could be held liable for physical and psychological harm suffered during January 6 Donald Trump does not have absolute immunity from civil suits seeking damages over his alleged incitement of the January 6 Capitol attack, the US justice department said in a court filing that could have profound implications for complaints against the former president.In an amicus brief in a case brought by two US Capitol police officers and joined by 11 House Democrats, the justice department said Trump could be held liable for physical and psychological harm suffered during the attack despite his attempts to seek blanket protections.Pence declines to support Trump if he’s 2024 nominee: ‘I’m confident we’ll have better choices’Read more“Speaking to the public on matters of public concern is a traditional function of the presidency,” read the 32-page brief to the US court of appeals for the DC circuit. “But that traditional function is one of public communication. It does not include incitement of imminent private violence.”The justice department stressed that it was not weighing in on whether the lawsuit had made a plausible argument that Trump’s speech immediately before the January 6 attack incited thousands of his supporters to storm the Capitol in an effort to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election win.But the department said that because actual incitement of imminent private violence – the key legal standard – would not be protected by presidential immunity, the appeals court should reject his contention that he had absolute immunity from civil litigation.“No part of a president’s official responsibilities includes the incitement of imminent private violence,” the brief said. “By definition, such conduct plainly falls outside the president’s constitutional and statutory duties.”The justice department opinion comes after the appeals court asked the government to offer its position while it considered whether Trump was acting within the confines of the office of the presidency when he urged his supporters to “fight like hell” and march on the Capitol.The sensitivity of the case – the potential impact on other civil suits against Trump that could have implications for presidential immunity – meant the department took several months and made two requests for a month’s extension before finalising its response.In siding against Trump’s position that he enjoyed “categorical immunity”, the justice department said it agreed with a lower-court ruling that the first amendment to the constitution did not allow Trump to evade liability in the January 6 suit.The lawsuit was filed under a statute, enacted after the civil war in response to Ku Klux Klan insurrections across the south to stop Black people voting, which allows for damages when force or intimidation are used to prevent government officials carrying out their duties.The amicus brief comes as the justice department controversially continues to defend Trump’s claim of absolute immunity in a defamation case brought by the writer E Jean Carroll, who accuses Trump of raping her in New York in the mid-1990s. Trump has said “it never happened” and said Carroll is not his “type”.Responding to that case, the department argued that while Trump’s comments were not appropriate, they came when he was president. Responding to a reporter’s question about the allegation, the department said part of a president’s responsibility was “to be responsive to the media and public”.TopicsUS newsDonald TrumpUS justice systemLaw (US)US Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Pence declines to support Trump if he’s 2024 nominee: ‘I’m confident we’ll have better choices’

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      Pence declines to support Trump if he’s 2024 nominee: ‘I’m confident we’ll have better choices’Former vice-president, expected to run for Republican nominee for president, says ‘different times call for different leadership’Twice given a chance to say he would support Donald Trump if he was the Republican nominee for president in 2024, Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice-president, declined to do so.Ron DeSantis called a ‘tyrant’ as Trump supporters barred from book signingRead more“I’m very confident we’ll have better choices come 2024,” Pence told CBS on Wednesday. “And I’m confident our standard-bearer will win the day in November of that year.”Pence also said “different times call for different leadership”.Trump, the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and author, are the only declared candidates for the Republican nomination. The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, is widely expected to run and is Trump’s only challenger in polling.Pence joins Haley in scoring single digits in most surveys. He told CBS he would make a decision on whether to run “this spring”.Pence’s reluctance to commit to supporting Trump points to a possible outcome feared by Republicans: that Trump will split the party either by winning the nomination without majority support or losing it and refusing to support the winner.Trump has refused to commit to supporting another nominee.Haley has refused to attack Trump personally but she has called for mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75. Trump is 76.Pence said: “I come from southern Indiana, where people think most politicians should have a competency test. No, I think the American people can sort that out. I really do.”He added: “I really believe that the conservative movement has always been animated by ideas.“We’ve had big personalities, from [Ronald] Reagan all the way to Donald Trump. But I think it’s the ideas – of commitment to a strong national defense, fiscal responsibility, limited government and traditional values – that really I think created this movement and still sustain it.”Pence claimed “the record of the Trump-Pence administration” – four chaotic years which ended with Trump refusing to call off supporters who chanted for Pence to be hanged as they stormed Congress – bore out such Republican values.He also said voters were telling him “they want to see us get back to the kind of civility in politics that the American people show each other every day”.According to testimony before the House January 6 committee, Trump told aides Pence deserved to be hanged, for refusing to block certification of Joe Biden’s win.The Department of Justice is still investigating Trump’s election subversion and incitement of the Capitol attack.Pence has been celebrated for defying Trump but he is now challenging a subpoena from the special counsel, Jack Smith.Pence told CBS: “The notion of compelling a former vice-president to appear in court to testify against the president with whom they served is unprecedented, but I also believe it’s unconstitutional.”TopicsUS elections 2024Mike PenceDonald TrumpRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More