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      Trump committed treason and will try again. He must be barred from running | Robert Reich

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      The most obvious question in American politics today should be: why is the guy who committed treason just over two years ago allowed to run for president?Answer: he shouldn’t be.Remember? Donald Trump lost re-election but refused to concede and instead claimed without basis that the election was stolen from him, then pushed state officials to change their tallies, hatched a plot to name fake electors, tried to persuade the vice-president to refuse to certify electoral college votes, sought access to voting-machine data and software, got his allies in Congress to agree to question the electoral votes and thereby shift the decision to the House of Representatives, and summoned his supporters to Washington on the day electoral votes were to be counted and urged them to march on the US Capitol, where they rioted.This, my friends, is treason.But Trump is running for re-election, despite the explicit language of section three of the 14th amendment to the constitution, which prohibits anyone who has held public office and who has engaged in insurrection against the United States from ever again serving in public office.The reason for the disqualification clause is that someone who has engaged in an insurrection against the United States cannot be trusted to use constitutional methods to regain office. (Notably, all three branches of the federal government have described the January 6 attack on the US Capitol as an “insurrection”.)Can any of us who saw (or have learned through the painstaking work of the January 6 committee) what Trump tried to do to overturn the results of the 2020 election have any doubt he will once again try to do whatever necessary to regain power, even if illegal and unconstitutional?Sure, the newly enacted Electoral Count Reform Act (amending the Electoral Count Act of 1887) filled some of the legal holes, creating a new threshold for members to object to a slate of electors (one-fifth of the members of both the House and the Senate), clarifying that the role of the vice-president is “solely ministerial” and requiring that Congress defer to slates of electors as determined by the states.But what if Trump gets secretaries of state and governors who are loyal to him to alter the election machinery to ensure he wins? What if he gets them to prevent people likely to vote for Joe Biden from voting at all?What if he gets them to appoint electors who will vote for him regardless of the outcome of the popular vote?What if, despite all of this, Biden still wins the election but Trump gets more than 20% of Republican senators and House members to object to slates of electors pledged to Biden, and pushes the election into the House where Trump has a majority of votes?Does anyone doubt the possibility – no, the probability – of any or all of this happening?Trump tried these tactics once. The likelihood of him trying again is greater now because his loyalists are now in much stronger positions throughout state and federal government.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionYes, they were held back in the 2020 midterms. But in state after state, and in Congress, Republicans who stood up to Trump have now been purged from the party. And lawmakers in what remains of the Republican party have made it clear that they will bend or disregard any rule that gets in their way.In many cases, the groundwork has been laid. As recently reported in the New York Times, for example, the Trump allies who traveled to Coffee county, Georgia, on 7 January 2021 gained access to sensitive election data. They copied election software used across Georgia and uploaded it on the internet – an open invitation to election manipulation by Trump allies in 2024.If anything, Trump is less constrained than he was in 2020.“In 2016, I declared I am your voice,” Trump said last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference, a line he repeated at his first 2024 campaign rally, in Waco, Texas, a few weeks later. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”Filing deadlines for 2024 presidential candidates will come in the next six months, in most states.Secretaries of state – who in most cases are in charge of deciding who gets on the ballot – must refuse to place Donald Trump’s name on the 2024 ballot, based on the clear meaning of section three of the 14th amendment to the US constitution. More

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      ‘Four-time loser’ Trump may not be nominee for 2024, Republican insists

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      Donald Trump is a “four-time loser” who will not necessarily be the Republican presidential nominee despite dominating primary polling, the New Hampshire governor said on Sunday.“Donald Trump is positioning himself to be a four-time loser in 2024,” Chris Sununu said. “We need candidates that can win.”A Republican governor in a Democratic part of the country – and of a key early voting state – Sununu is seen as a potential candidate in the moderate lane, should such a lane still exist in a party dominated by Trump.Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press, Sununu was confronted by comments to the same network just two months ago, when he said Trump was “not going to be the nominee”.“We’re just moving on as a party, as a country,” Sununu said in February. “He’s not going to be the nominee. That’s just not going to happen. Here’s the good news … Ready? … You’re dead wrong. He’s not going to be the nominee.”Since then, particularly since Trump was this month arraigned on criminal charges in New York, relating to his hush money payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels, the primary paradigm has shifted.Trump dominates polling, expanding his lead over Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who has not declared a run, and other actual or likely candidates.Trump also faces legal jeopardy over his election subversion and incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress, his handling of classified material, his business and tax affairs and a civil rape case due to go to trial in New York next week.He denies wrongdoing and claims victimisation by Democrats. On Sunday, NBC released a poll in which a fraction under 70% of Republicans agreed.Sununu told NBC there had “definitely [been] a shift” but insisted: “I still don’t think he’s necessarily going to be the nominee.“Look, I think your poll is spot on in all these areas. I think that’s actually a great poll. I hope folks listen to it.“I’ll say this. Republicans are rallying. They’re supporting former president Trump over these indictments, right? … Now, does it actually translate into a vote? We will see, I mean, most folks don’t decide who they’re voting for until about three weeks before the election.“… There’s not even a single debate has been had. Other candidates are going to get in the race. I just think it’s so far away.“And at the end of the day, we want a winner, right? Republicans want someone who can win in November of ’24. Donald Trump is a loser. He has not just lost once. He lost us our House seats in 2018. He lost everything in ’20. We should have 54 US senators right now and we don’t because of his message.“So, Donald Trump is positioning himself to be a four-time loser in 2024. We need candidates that can win.”Many within and without Republican ranks are questioning whether DeSantis is that sort of candidate. The Florida governor has fallen away in polling, experiencing problems including a pause by a major donor who said he was turned off by hard-right policies including school book bans and a six-week abortion ban.Thomas Peterffy, an online trader, did not say he would not support DeSantis at all. But he also gave $1m to the Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin, who has not declared a run.On Sunday, Rolling Stone quoted a source formerly allied to DeSantis but now “in the Trump orbit” as saying: “If Ron thinks the last couple months have been bumpy, he’s in for a painful ride.”As Florida Republicans in Congress have endorsed Trump, so DeSantis has come under fire for an alleged lack of personal warmth. Rolling Stone described an evolving attempt by Trump to trash his rival personally as well as politically.The unnamed source said: “The nature of the conversations among the people who used to work for Ron is just so frequently, ‘OK, how can we destroy this guy?’ It is not at all at a level that is normal for people who hold the usual grudges against horrible bosses. It’s a pure hatred that is much, much purer than that.“People who were traveling with Ron every day, who worked with him very closely over the years, to this day joke about how it was always an open question whether or not Ron knew their names … And that’s just the start of it.”Unlike DeSantis, Sununu barely registers in polling. On NBC, he was asked for his timetable for deciding on whether to run.“Probably by lunch,” he joked.“I think everybody will have to make a decision by 4 July … There’s a lot of opportunity here … a lot of folks want to get on that stage. I think the threshold for the debate are going to be very low to start in terms of polling numbers and donors, so I think we’re going to have a very crowded stage early on.”That stage may yet include Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence. In Iowa on Saturday, at a Faith & Freedom Coalition event which Trump addressed by video, the former Indiana governor flirted with confirming a run.“I think if we have an announcement to make, it’ll be well before late June,” Pence told CBS’s Face the Nation, adding: “Anyone that would be serious about seeking the Republican nomination would need to be in this contest by June.“If we have an announcement to make it will be well before then.” More

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      Mike Pence will enter presidential race ‘well before late June’ – if he does at all

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      Mike Pence has not decided whether to enter the Republican presidential primary but if he does he will enter “well before late June”.The former congressman, Indiana governor and vice-president to Donald Trump has been moving towards a run for months, releasing a memoir, visiting early voting states and establishing a political staff.He made his less-than-bold prediction in an interview with CBS Face the Nation.“I think if we have an announcement to make, it’ll be well before late June,” Pence said, adding: “Anyone that would be serious about seeking the Republican nomination would need to be in this contest by June.“If we have an announcement to make it will be well before then.”Pence must perform a balancing act, distancing himself from Trump, the rival candidate whose supporters chanted for Pence to be hanged when they attacked the US Capitol, while trumpeting their achievements together in office.It seems a doomed effort in a party and primary dominated by Trump, particularly as Pence recently dropped attempts to avoid testifying in the justice department investigation of the January 6 attack.In March, in perhaps his boldest break from Trump, Pence told a Washington dinner: “President Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election, and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”On CBS, asked if he was “leaning in or leaning away”, Pence said: “Well, I’m here in Iowa.”His interviewer, Robert Costa, said: “Sounds like you’re leaning in.”Pence said: “I would tell you that I’m very humbled by the encouragement that we’re receiving. And I promise when we have something to announce, you’ll be among the first to know.”Pence spoke on Saturday at an event in Clive, Iowa, staged by the Faith & Freedom Coalition, a rightwing nonprofit.Trump also addressed the event. Responding to a recent rebuke from a leading anti-abortion group, which called his opposition to a federal abortion ban “morally indefensible”, the former president highlighted the decision by which a supreme court including three justices he named removed the right to abortion last year.“Those justices delivered a landmark victory for protecting innocent life,” Trump said, in a speech delivered by video. “Nobody thought it was going to happen. They thought it would be another 50 years. Because Republicans had been trying to do it for exactly that period of time, 50 years.”The Roe v Wade decision which protected the right to abortion came in 1973 – 49 years before it was overturned by Dobbs v Jackson.The Iowa caucuses will kick off the Republican primary in February. Ten months out, Trump enjoys clear leads in polling.The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, has maintained a hold on second place without declaring a run.But DeSantis’s numbers are tanking. The governor faces his own difficulties at state level while Trump surfs a wave of support generated by his criminal indictment in New York, over a hush money payment to an adult film star, and other forms of legal jeopardy including a civil rape trial due to open next week.Trump denies wrongdoing and claims to be the victim of Democratic witch-hunts: a potent combination for attracting donations and support. On Sunday, an NBC poll said 68% of Republican voters thought Trump was the victim of politically motivated attacks and it was important to support him.Pence is contesting third place with Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who declared her run in February. Both are at around 4% support.The other mainstream Republican to have declared, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, struggles to break 1%. The South Carolina senator Tim Scott has all but declared a run but remains all but invisible in polling.Polls do not provide uniformly good news for Trump. A poll this week from the Associated Press and the University of Chicago said 44% of Republicans (and 70% of Americans) do not want him to be the nominee.The Dispatch, a conservative anti-Trump site, said Pence was planning a launch in Indiana, followed by another trip to Iowa.Pence, the site said, “plans to campaign as the traditional conservative he is, eschewing momentary cultural flashpoints that inflame passions and attract eyeballs … [to] instead focus on wonky topics fraught with political peril, like how to address the ballooning federal debt and reforming popular programs like Social Security and Medicare.“On abortion, Pence is eager to highlight his opposition – and his commitment to signing federal legislation limiting the procedure.”Such positions have proved unpopular with general election voters. The Dispatch also said Pence planned to “aim fire directly at” Trump. More

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      Ron DeSantis is flaming out – and Trump is on course for a Republican coronation | Lloyd Green

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      The Ron DeSantis boomlet is done. He consistently trails Donald Trump by double-digits. A Wall Street Journal poll out Friday pegs Florida’s governor in severe retrograde, slipping 27 points since December. DeSantis mistakenly conflates his campaign’s bulging war chest with adulation. Wrong!He forgot that working-class Americans dominate the Republican party and that mien matters. Voting to gut social security comes with fatal backlash, and eating pudding with your fingers is gross. Said differently, largesse from the party’s donor base coupled with little else is a losing recipe.Charles Koch has but a single vote and David Koch is gone. Before he goes any further, DeSantis needs to be reminded of past campaign flame-outs – Jeb Bush, John Connally and Mike Bloomberg – if he is to avoid their inglorious endings.In 2016, Trump bludgeoned Bush to an early primary exit. His name recognition bought a ton of campaign donations but little else. A son and brother to presidents and a grandson to a US senator, Bush left the race with a grand total of four convention delegates and zero primary victories.He sat in the Florida governor’s mansion between 1999 and 2007. The gig doesn’t scream springboard.Connally is another cautionary tale. Lee Harvey Oswald seriously wounded him as he was riding with President Kennedy that fateful November day in Dallas. Fast forward, Ronald Reagan left Connally in the dust in 1980.The jut-jawed former Texas governor garnered just a single convention delegate after parting with $500,000 from his own pockets and nearly $12m from everyone else’s.And then there’s Mayor Bloomberg. He dropped $900m of his own money, netted 58 delegates and a lone victory – American Samoa. As a coda, he tussled with campaign staff over unpaid wages.If primaries were held tomorrow, DeSantis would probably suffer beatings in New Hampshire, Georgia and South Carolina, and lags in Florida. And if he can’t win in the Sunshine state, he is not likely to win anywhere else.Home-state losses are fatal. Just ask Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar. Joe Biden resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Warren and Klobuchar continue to toil in the Senate.Don’t expect DeSantis to regain traction any time soon. He has not benefited from Trump’s legal woes. DeSantis also remains plagued by a likability deficit, and his war on “woke” is beginning to bite him.When news broke in March of Trump’s indictment, DeSantis reflexively rushed to his defense. In the moment, he accused Alvin Bragg, Manhattan’s district attorney, of pushing an “un-American” political “agenda”. DeSantis also stood ready to fight Trump’s extradition to New York, a meaningless gesture. Trump voluntarily surrendered days later.Subsequently, DeSantis took a swipe at Trump’s extracurricular hobbies, but it was too little, too late. Subtlety doesn’t work on Trump. To be the man, you need to beat the man.This coming week, E Jean Carroll’s defamation and sexual assault civil case against Trump begins in a Manhattan courtroom. Trump is noncommittal about attending. Expect the infamous Access Hollywood tape to be re-aired. The circus is back.Regardless, there is no indication that DeSantis will have much to say about any of that. Whether Casey DeSantis, his wife, offers any empathetic words for Ms Carroll or Melania Trump is also unknown. A former television broadcaster, Casey DeSantis knows how to wield a shiv with a smile, not a snarl.On that score, DeSantis’s lack of social skills has cost him plenty. At Politico, the headline blares: “How to lose friends and alienate people, by Ron DeSantis.”This past week, his gambit to woo Florida’s House Republicans flopped. He flew up to Washington only to be met by a passel of Trump endorsements.“A great group of supportive Florida Congressmen and Congresswomen, all who have Endorsed me, will be coming to Mar-a-Lago,” the 45th president posted. “Our support is almost universal in Florida and throughout the USA.”Trump takes the time to wine, dine and threaten. DeSantis can’t be bothered. Voters in early primary states expect to be stroked or entertained. The governor appears incapable of doing either.Last, Disney is fighting back, to DeSantis’s chagrin and Trump’s delectation. To burnish his stock with social conservatives, DeSantis attempted to put the torch to one of his state’s biggest business and largest employers. By contrast, when Trump taunted the National Football League, he was playing with other people’s money.Right now, Mickie, Minnie and Trump are winning. The path to the 2024 Republican nomination looks ever more like a coronation.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 More

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      Biden may announce 2024 presidential campaign next week – report

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      The US president Joe Biden and his team may announce his re-election campaign by video next week, according to a source familiar with the matter on Thursday.An announcement on Tuesday by Biden, 80, would coincide with the anniversary of his 2020 campaign launch four years earlier, the source said, asking not to be identified.Biden aides have ramped up planning for the long-expected launch of the president’s bid for a second, four-year term in 2024. Last week, Biden said he would launch his campaign “relatively soon”.He has long said he intends to run again but the lack of a formal announcement had seeded doubt among supporters about whether one of the oldest world leaders would or should commit to another four-year term. He would be 86 at the end of a second term.In recent weeks, Biden has laid out the likely themes of a re-election bid in political speeches, secured a doctor’s note that he is “fit for duty”, told Democrats to re-order the party’s primary calendar in a manner favoring his nomination and picked Chicago as the city where he would ostensibly formally become the nominee next year. More

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      ‘Most pro-life president’: Trump’s stance on a federal abortion ban isn’t what you think

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      Donald Trump considers a federal abortion ban as a losing proposal for Republicans as the party prepares to enter the first presidential election since the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade and is unlikely to support such a policy, according to people close to him.The former president has told allies in recent days that his gut feeling remains leaving the matter of reproductive rights to the states – following the court’s reasoning in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization that ended 50 years of federal abortion protections.But Trump’s crystallizing stance appears to be, in essence, a recognition that a federal abortion ban could cost him in the 2024 election should he become the Republican nominee, mainly because a majority of Americans simply do not support making abortion mostly or entirely illegal.The thinking is informed in part by Republicans’ losses in the midterm elections they were supposed to dominate, which interviews showed were tied to the supreme court ruling. And in the six states where abortion-related questions were on the ballot in 2022, voters chose to reject further limits.The issue has emerged as an early litmus test for Republican presidential candidates, and Trump’s reluctance to endorse national restrictions would put him squarely at odds with prominent leaders of the anti-abortion movement who are demanding federal action.Yet his refusal to embrace the most hard-line position of party activists provides an opening for potential rivals such as Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and his former vice-president, Mike Pence, to run to his right on an issue.Worried about the political risks of being viewed as over draconian on abortion, Trump’s allies told him that they were surprised last week to see DeSantis, his expected rival in the 2024 race, sign into law and become the face of the state’s six-week abortion ban.The feedback to Trump – which is shaping his stance – was that for all the claims by DeSantis that he was supposedly an electable alternative to Trump for the GOP nomination, the Florida governor would undermine his chances in general elections by becoming the face of a six-week abortion ban.Trump has talked about striking a balance, people close to him said: leaving abortion up to the states, while endorsing exceptions for rape, incest and in cases of harm to the mother, as well as appointing conservative judges to the federal bench and removing federal funds for planned parenthood, which he did as president.Trump’s less extreme stance on abortion underscores the enduring potency of one of America’s most politically charged issues. But his posturing could prove risky in the Republican primary, where social conservatives have outsized influence in the early-voting states, especially in Iowa.On Saturday, Trump is scheduled to speak at Iowa’s Faith and Freedom Coalition event – one of the most conservative conferences in the country – where he may be pressed on his abortion stance.Asked about Trump’s stance on abortion for 2024, the campaign reiterated his White House policies. “President Trump believes that the supreme court, led by the three justices which he supported, got it right when they ruled this is an issue that should be decided at the state level.”“Republicans have been trying to get this done for 50 years, but we were unable to do so. President Trump, who is considered the most pro-life president in history, got it done. He will continue these policies when re-elected to the White House,” the statement said.Trump’s political thinking was also on display when the draft supreme court decision to overturn Roe v Wade was leaked last year, the people said, when he turned to friends and said it would anger suburban women and lead to a backlash against Republicans in the midterms.He initially demurred about taking credit for the ruling – unusual for someone typically so keen to claim any credit – and was silent even as his former vice-president Mike Pence and other conservatives from his administration declared victory for the anti-abortion movement.Later, Trump made sure to issue a statement applauding himself for sticking with his three nominees to the supreme court, who all ended up in the 6-3 majority opinion reversing Roe v Wade. “Today’s decision … only made possible because I delivered everything as promised,” he said.Trump has described himself as the “most pro-life president” in history, though he is also a former Democrat from New York who once supported abortion rights until around the time that he ran for president in 2016.While in office, Trump paved the way for the post-Roe legal landscape, also appointing to the federal bench in Texas US district court judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, whose recent ruling revoked the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of the abortion drug, mifepristone. The decision has been temporarily stayed.Trump’s comments about abortion being a political liability for Republicans have angered former allies. When Trump blamed the party’s midterm losses on “the abortion issue”, prominent anti-abortion groups fired back with a pointed warning that the former president still needed to earn their support.Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America group, told reporters prior to the March For Life in January that any candidate who did not support national restrictions on abortion had “disqualified him or herself as a presidential candidate in our eyes”.Jon Schweppe, policy director of the conservative American Principles Project, said Trump was not wrong that abortion had hurt Republicans in recent elections. But he said the answer was not to abandon the push for a nationwide ban, rather it was to build consensus within the party around a federal standard, such as a prohibiting the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy.“I think [Trump] sees abortion as why we lost the midterms and he’s not totally wrong,” Schweppe said. “But the answer is not: ‘There’s no federal role. We’er not going to do anything any more – I delivered you Dobbs.’ It’s gotta be: ‘This is the next step.’”“The pro-life movement still has quite a bit of sway,” he added, “and it’s going to have a major sway in the presidential primary.” More

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      Ron DeSantis ally backs Trump for president in latest Florida defection

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      In a blow to Ron DeSantis, a prominent ally of the rightwing governor was on Tuesday one of two Florida Republicans in Congress to back Donald Trump for president, the latest in a string of such defections.The news came amid reports that DeSantis’s team has pressured US representatives from his state not to endorse Trump.Brian Mast told CNN he planned to endorse the former president and would chair a veterans committee in support of his re-election bid.Peter Schorsch, publisher of FloridaPolitics.com, said: “This is right up there with Byron Donalds picking Trump over DeSantis.”Donalds introduced DeSantis for his election night speech in November, after his landslide win over the Democrat Charlie Crist. Last week, though, Donalds told NBC he plumped for Trump because he was a candidate “ready for prime time”.Schorsch added: “Brian Mast has been DeSantis’s ally on environment and water issues in South Florida. Mast is at DeSantis’s hip during press conferences. They’re both veterans, too. Wow.”Mast and John Rutherford were the sixth and seventh congressional Florida Republicans to endorse Trump. Rutherford announced his decision in a tweet.“As a former sheriff,” he said, “I understand the importance of a fair and impartial system of justice. The systematic targeting of Americans with conservative ideals, especially our 45th president of the United States, disgraces our nation’s legacy.”He was referring to Trump’s criminal indictment in New York this month, on 34 counts of falsification of business records relating to his hush money payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels.Trump also faces legal jeopardy over his election subversion and incitement of the deadly January 6 attack on Congress, his handling of classified material, his business and tax affairs and an allegation of rape. He denies all wrongdoing.His sheriff-turned-congressman supporter added: “As strong Republicans, we must restore law, order and justice to our country … under President Trump’s leadership, America was more safe, more secure, and more prosperous.”Trump lost conclusively to Joe Biden in 2020, a year of chaos amid the Covid pandemic and protests for racial justice.For inciting an insurrection in his attempt to overturn that defeat, fueled by the lie that Biden won thanks to electoral fraud, Trump was impeached a second time. But he escaped conviction and is now the clear leader in the race for the GOP nomination, leveraging his legal predicament to boost fundraising and support.DeSantis has not declared his candidacy but is widely expected to do so. He is Trump’s closest challenger but his numbers have stagnated as he has come under fire for extreme policies including a six-week abortion ban, school book bans and a drawn-out fight with Disney. Last week, a major donor said he was pausing support.By Tuesday, Trump had secured endorsements from one governor (Henry McMaster of South Carolina), nine senators and 47 House members. Lance Gooden, a Texas Republican, released his endorsement of Trump shortly after what he called “a positive meeting” with DeSantis in Washington.NBC first reported DeSantis allies calls to Florida Republicans. An unnamed source said: “There is clearly some angst from the DeSantis camp that so many members of the state’s congressional delegation are throwing their support behind Trump.”Rutherford and Mast were not among Republicans named. The New York Times, however, cited an official “familiar with the effort” when it said “others in the 20-member Republican delegation from Florida are almost certainly on the call list”.One Republican named by NBC, Laurel Lee, endorsed DeSantis on Tuesday. Another, Greg Steube, declared for Trump on Monday. More

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      Republican donor pauses Ron DeSantis funding over abortion and book banning

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      A top Republican donor said he had paused plans to fund Ron DeSantis’s expected presidential run because of the Florida governor’s “stance on abortion and book banning”.Thomas Peterffy, founder of Interactive Brokers, a digital trading platform, told the Financial Times: “I have put myself on hold. Because of his stance on abortion and book banning … myself, and a bunch of friends, are holding our powder dry.”Peterffy also noted that DeSantis “seems to have lost some momentum”.DeSantis has not declared a run but is widely expected to do so. He is the closest challenger to Donald Trump in polling of the Republican primary field but despite winning re-election in a landslide and signing into law a succession of hard-right policies, he has not closed on the former president.Last week, DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban. Nationally, Democrats seized on the move, threats to abortion rights having worked to Republicans’ disadvantage in numerous recent elections.DeSantis has also tried to remove books dealing with LGBTQ+ issues from Florida public schools, while other laws have loosened gun rights and targeted Black voters.After Peterffy’s intervention, the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, a leading voice on Trump and Republican electoral politics, noted: “A major donor finally goes on record with what has been a whisper: donors are getting worried.”But as Haberman also noted, Peterffy still gave himself “a lot of wiggle room to resume with DeSantis without fully breaking from him”.Peterffy said he still supported DeSantis in his fight with Disney, one of the largest employers in Florida, over LGBTQ+ rights.The company has pushed back against DeSantis over a “don’t say gay” law pertaining to the teaching of sexuality and gender in public schools.DeSantis retaliated by attacking Disney’s self-governing powers in the state. The entertainment giant responded, seeking to block the move.Petterfy said: “I think it’s insane that a company would take a stand on gender issues.”Nor did he say he would not support DeSantis at all.“I am more reluctant to back him,” he said. “We are waiting to see who among the primary candidates is most likely to be able to win the general, and then put all of our firepower behind them.” More