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      Doubts vanish as Democrats unite over Biden’s 2024 bid: ‘He will win’

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      Doubts vanish as Democrats unite over Biden’s 2024 bid: ‘He will win’House Democrats issues’ conference sees lawmakers across party’s ideological spectrum embrace idea of president’s re-electionWith the 2024 election season already under way, Joe Biden has faced questions over whether he is best suited to represent the Democratic party at the top of the ticket next year. Surveys show that Americans fret over his age, as Biden would be 86 years old at the end of his second term.Progressives have previously shied away from offering a full-throated endorsement of Biden’s re-election bid. But those whispers quieted to near silence at House Democrats’ issues conference in Baltimore, Maryland, this week. Rather than wringing their hands over the president’s anticipated announcement, House Democrats from across the party’s ideological spectrum embraced the idea of Biden’s re-election.Joe Biden rallies Democrats in glimpse of possible re-election campaignRead moreAs Biden prepares to formally launch his campaign in the coming weeks, he appears set to enter the 2024 contest with the enthusiastic and unified backing of his congressional allies.“I think he will win. I think he’s our strongest candidate,” Congressman Pete Aguilar, the House Democratic caucus chair from California, said on 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.”That sentiment was echoed by progressive leaders in the House, who have occasionally clashed with Biden over policy matters. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), said on Thursday that she hopes Biden will announce his re-election campaign sooner rather than later. Citing Biden’s efforts to address the climate crisis and raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations, Jayapal complimented the president on delivering results for his supporters.“He’s been faithful to his electorate that elected him – to progressives who turned out in key states like Georgia and Arizona, movements that did that and the ideas that drove them,” Jayapal said.Jayapal’s praise was even more noteworthy because of some CPC members’ past comments about the 2024 race. Asked last June about the next presidential contest, progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declined to endorse Biden.“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Ocasio-Cortez said at the time. “We should endorse when we get to it.”But even Ocasio-Cortez appears to have shifted her tone in recent weeks. While saying that she will still closely watch the presidential primary as it unfolds, Ocasio-Cortez told CNN last month: “I would enthusiastically support [Biden] if he were the Democratic nominee.”The results of the midterm elections appear to have shifted many Democrats’ thinking on 2024. Although Democrats lost the House in November, the widely expected red wave failed to materialize, leaving Republicans with a narrow majority in the lower chamber. In the Senate, Democrats even managed to gain a seat.Multiple Democratic leaders said at the issues conference that they interpreted the midterm results as a vindication of Biden’s presidency and legislative achievements.“We had unexpected results last November because we put people over politics and explained time and time again exactly what we were doing,” Congressman Jim Clyburn, the assistant House minority leader, said on Wednesday. “We are going to further that.”Biden and congressional Democratic leaders repeatedly referenced the need to “finish the job” of the work done over the first two years of his presidency. The theme seems likely to play a major role in Biden’s re-election campaign messaging.“As much as we’ve done, we have a lot of unfinished business as well to finish the job that needs to be done,” Biden told House Democrats on Wednesday. “But we’ve got more to do … We’ve just got to keep going.”Has Bernie Sanders really helped Joe Biden move further left?Read moreAlthough Biden declined to make his 2024 plans official this week, recent signs indicate that a formal announcement could come in the next several weeks.“It’s Joe’s decision,” the first lady, Jill Biden, told CNN late last month. “And we support whatever he wants to do. If he’s in, we’re there. If he wants to do something else, we’re there too.” Asked whether there was any chance her husband may not seek a second term, the first lady replied: “Not in my book.”Although Biden would enter the 2024 race with the strong backing of Democratic leaders, the president still faces several liabilities in his quest for the nomination. Biden’s approval rating remains underwater, as more than half of Americans disapprove of his job performance, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average. One survey taken by the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in late January found that just 37% of Democrats want Biden to seek a second term. The self-help author Marianne Williamson has also launched a long-shot bid for the Democratic nomination.Despite those challenges, House Democrats showed little interest in considering another candidate for 2024, instead arguing that Biden would be an asset in their efforts to recapture the majority next year. Republicans currently represent 18 House districts that Biden carried in 2020, as several Democratic leaders noted at the issues conference, and they believe the president’s re-election campaign could help the party swing those seats.“In those 18 districts that are held by Biden Republicans, he’s the best [candidate] in terms of his message and how he approaches this and the coalition that he built in 2020 coming back even stronger in 2024,” said Congresswoman Annie Kuster, chair of the center-left New Democrat Coalition.Even Democrats who faced tough races in 2022 – and will probably deal with close contests again in 2024 – voiced enthusiasm. Congresswoman Lauren Underwood, co-chair of the House Democratic policy and communications committee, appeared at an event with Biden in her home state of Illinois days before polls closed in November, as election forecasters predicted her seat could be up for grabs. Underwood ultimately won the race by 8 points.Joe Biden’s train ride to Kyiv makes history but will it win him a second term?Read more“We are so proud of the progress that the Biden-Harris administration [has] made,” Underwood said on Thursday. “I certainly am very pleased to have the opportunity to be on a ballot with President Biden in 2024 – unequivocally, full stop.”Echoing many other Democrats’ message during the conference, Underwood celebrated her party’s unified message, and it is clear that she can already envision a positive outcome in 2024 with Biden at the top of the ticket.“House Democrats are united behind a single mission: delivering for our majorities – sorry, delivering for our communities,” Underwood said, eliciting laughter from reporters. She then admitted: “I’ve got the majority on my mind.”TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsUS elections 2024DemocratsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Mike Lindell backs rightwing California county as it ditches voting machines

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      Mike Lindell backs rightwing California county as it ditches voting machinesShasta county officials have ended their contract with Dominion Voting Systems, leaving them with no replacementProponents of the lie that the presidency was stolen from Donald Trump are eying an often overlooked region of California as they continue to promote falsehoods around the 2020 election: Shasta county, population 182,000.Shasta county, a conservative stronghold in the state’s far north, recently ended its contract with Dominion Voting Systems, the voting machine company that has been the subject of a conspiracy theory that it played a role in swinging the election for Biden. The move has left the semi-rural county without a voting system and no replacement ready to implement when its Dominion contract ends next week.Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow and one of the leading promoters of falsehoods about election fraud and Dominion, has pledged to support the county’s efforts, even offering financial assistance. Lindell and other Trump allies have maligned the company for years and Dominion is suing the chief executive, as well as Fox News, for defamation.“As I promised, if you have any pushback, including lawsuits against you or your county, I will provide all of the resources necessary, including financial and legal for this fight,” Kevin Crye, a Shasta supervisor, said while reading an email from Lindell at a meeting this week. Lindell confirmed his support for the county to the LA Times.The northern California county may seem an unlikely target for Lindell, but it’s become a growing hotbed for fringe thinking and far right politics since the pandemic began. Anger over pandemic restrictions and the loss of Donald Trump brought tensions in Shasta to a boiling point, fueling a political upheaval. With outside funding from a Connecticut millionaire and support from the area’s militia groups, an ultra-rightwing majority gained control of local government and has overseen a “devastating” exodus of county employees.Those contentious politics were on full display this week during a 13-hour public meeting, during which the board weighed a hand-counting paper-ballot system and speakers offered passionate praise and criticism of the county’s decision, with some calling the election process “competent and honest” and others a “facilitated fraud”.The culture of misinformation led to harassment and threats against election officials in Shasta county, who have have reported hostility and bullying from residents who believe there is widespread voter fraud, some of whom have inundated elections offices with public records requests to try to prove their claims.Proponents of the national election denial movement have visited the area, speaking to the board of supervisors, which has a hard-right majority, and holding events at local churches. Local supporters of the movement have spoken regularly at county board meetings, gathered in large numbers for election observation, and visited the homes of some voters while wearing gear labeled “official voter taskforce”.Shasta county has had a longtime relationship with Dominion that goes back decades, Cathy Darling Allen, the Shasta county clerk and registrar of voters, told the Guardian last fall. “It’s people that we have long standing relationships with, that we know and trust.”Dominion, one of three companies whose voting equipment is permitted to be used in California, is used by 40 of the state’s 58 counties. But as falsehoods about the company spread, some Shasta residents were increasingly critical of the county’s connection to the company and management of elections. They urged the board to do away with Dominion and to make Shasta and example for other areas of the US.“I believe California is going to benefit from the efforts of Shasta county because we have conscience here,” a resident said last fall as she urged the county to do away with its voting system. “This is our Tiananmen Square. We’re going to stand in front of the tanks and say no more to the machines.”The board opted to cut ties with Dominion earlier this year in a 3-2 vote, a move that was taken “with little regard to the financial burden it places on our community, no plan of action to install new voting technology and no input from the county clerk/registrar of voters”, Allen said in a letter to voters.Seven nonpartisan voter advocacy groups wrote a letter to the board urging them to reconsider their “hasty” decision, warning the county that changing its system so close to an election, without another plan ready to implement, could create difficulties for voters.“[It] could result in numerous otherwise avoidable errors and administrative problems that could, in turn, erode public trust in the county’s voting processes, undermining the stated intent behind the Board’s initial decision,” the letter said.The groups also expressed concern that “the right of people with disabilities to vote privately and independently will be compromised by this process”.They hoped to see the board rescind its decision, said Kim Alexander, the president of the non-partisan California Voter Foundation, one of the groups behind the letter, which did not happen. But Alexander hopes the supervisors will broaden their understanding of how technology is used “responsibly and securely in the voting process”.“There certainly are extra steps the county could take to provide more verification and transparency if they choose to. I think it wold be unfortunate if they decide the right decision is to hand count all their ballots because I don’t think it will provide accurate counts.”Meanwhile, Allen’s office will have an even greater workload as it implements a new voting system. The office, like others across California, has been challenged by back-to-back elections for the last few years, including 2021’s recall election of the governor and a local recall election months later.Misconceptions about voting and election security have grown in recent years, Alexander said, and officials should try to shore up confidence in the process. Switching systems so close to next year’s presidential primary could have to opposite effect, she said.“The next statewide election we have in California is the presidential primary and it is the most complicated of any kind of election in California, so to layer on whole new voting system is a big challenge,” Alexander said. “That can create confusion and result in errors that could exacerbate the problem the supervisors are trying to address – now you’re further undermining voter confidence.”TopicsUS elections 2024CaliforniaThe far rightUS politicsnewsReuse this content 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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      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

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      Joe Biden rallies Democrats in glimpse of possible re-election campaign

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      Joe Biden rallies Democrats in glimpse of possible re-election campaignThe president celebrated in a speech his party’s successes so far in his first term while House Democrats eye regaining the chamberJoe Biden delivered a rallying cry to fellow Democrats on Wednesday, offering a glimpse of the president’s likely re-election message as he prepares to officially announce his plans for 2024.Speaking at House Democrats’ annual issues conference in Baltimore, Maryland, Biden celebrated Democrats’ legislative accomplishments over his first two years in office but told his allies that they still have more work to do.Ron DeSantis called a ‘tyrant’ as Trump supporters barred from book signingRead more“As much as we’ve done, we have a lot of unfinished business as well to finish the job that needs to be done,” Biden said.Biden’s remarks came as the 2024 presidential election has already gotten under way, after Donald Trump announced in November that he would attempt to recapture the White House next year. Biden is widely expected to announce his own re-election campaign in the coming months, but he declined to make those plans official on Wednesday, even as he nodded at the need to build on Democrats’ “historic progress” since he took office.“Our plan is working. It’s growing the economy. It’s reducing the deficit. It’s fiscally responsible. But we’ve got more to do,” Biden said. “We’ve just got to keep going.”Biden specified a number of policies that he would like to see implemented, including banning assault weapons and protecting abortion access at the federal level. But House Democrats will face significant challenges in implementing Biden’s vision over the next two years, now that Republicans control the lower chamber.As they kicked off their annual conference on Wednesday, Democrats expressed confidence in their ability to regain the House majority next year. Noting that the theme of this year’s conference is “people over politics”, House Democratic leaders credited their economic agenda with helping the party avoid widespread losses in the midterm elections last year.“We had unexpected results last November because we put people over politics and explained time and time again exactly what we were doing,” said Congressman Jim Clyburn, the assistant House minority leader. “We are going to further that.”Although Democrats praised the steps they have taken to help American families, Republicans continued to attack the president’s party over high inflation and immigration policy.“House Democrats rubberstamped Biden’s failed agenda every step of the way, yet they refuse to take responsibility for the pain and suffering they’ve brought to American families,” Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, said in a statement.With the victory of Jennifer McClellan in Virginia’s special congressional election last week, Democrats now hold 213 House seats. The party will need to flip five seats next year to regain their majority and make Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the new House Democratic leader, the next speaker of the chamber.“Democrats are united in standing up for the American people,” said Suzan DelBene, the new chair of the House Democrats’ campaign arm. “We know, to make sure that we can continue to not just talk about the future of our country but actually implement the policies that make a difference, that we need to take back that gavel.”The Democratic leaders’ tone marked quite a shift from last year’s conference, which was marked by disappointment and frustration among party members after the demise of Biden’s build back better act. The bill stalled in the Senate due to opposition from Joe Manchin, the centrist Democratic senator from West Virginia, sparking fierce criticism from his progressive colleagues.Downplaying any divisions within the party, the House Democratic caucus chair, Pete Aguilar, said on Wednesday: “We believe that our common values are more important than any disagreements we might have.”Democrats instead focused on contrasting themselves with the “extreme” Republicans who have embraced Trump’s “make America great again” (Maga) agenda. Jeffries specifically criticised those Republicans for refusing to support an increase of the US debt ceiling, raising the risk of a default that could have catastrophic consequences on the US economy. Attacking speaker Kevin McCarthy for refusing to break with the “extreme” members of his conference, Jeffries said Republicans were “willing to put a gun to the head of the American people”.“The extreme Maga Republicans are in control right now of the United States House of Representatives, and that’s a bad thing for the American people,” Jeffries said.As Biden rallied with Democrats in Baltimore, many Republicans gathered about 50 miles away for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Trump is scheduled to address the conference on Saturday, although several of his likely Republican primary opponents, including the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, plan to skip the event.With Trump still leading in Republican primary polling and Biden taking steps to announce his re-election campaign, the week may offer a preview of the 2024 general election.TopicsJoe BidenUS elections 2024US politicsDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Marianne Williamson to run for president again to ‘help repair America’

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      Marianne Williamson to run for president again to ‘help repair America’Self-help author who brought quirky spiritualism to the 2020 presidential race becomes first Democrat to challenge BidenBestselling self-help author Marianne Williamson, who brought quirky spiritualism to the 2020 presidential race, has announced she’s running for the White House again, becoming the first major Democrat to challenge Joe Biden for his party’s nomination in 2024.Williamson, 70, pulled out of the 2020 presidential election in early January of that year, after failing to gain much traction with primary voters. She then endorsed Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination and he ended up coming in second to Biden, who had been trailing him badly but surged ahead after a crucial win in South Carolina.But she has now signaled she will soon head to key early primary voting states New Hampshire and South Carolina and will visit the site of the recent toxic chemical train spill that has caused an environmental crisis in East Palestine, Ohio.Williamson is formally kicking off her campaign with an event in Washington DC, on Saturday. Without mentioning former US president Donald Trump, she noted in a weekend Facebook post that his unconventional White House win in 2016 makes it “odd for anyone to think they can know who can win the presidency”.“I’m not putting myself through this again just to add to the conversation,” Williamson wrote. “I’m running for president to help bring an aberrational chapter of our history to a close, and to help bring forth a new beginning.”Williamson running against a sitting president from her own party would be the longest of long shots in any circumstances.But that’s especially true this cycle, as the Democratic establishment – and even potential presidential hopefuls who could have competed with Biden from the left or middle – has closed ranks with remarkable uniformity behind the president.Williamson declared: “I feel my 40 years being up close and personal with the trauma of so many thousands of individuals gives me a unique perspective on what is needed to help repair America. We need a politics that treats not just symptoms, but cause. That does not base itself on the crass imperatives of endless corporate profit, but on the eternal imperatives of our principles and values.”She is a spiritual adviser to Oprah Winfrey.One of her signature proposals was a plan to create a US Department of Peace. She also advocated that the federal government pay massive financial reparations to Black Americans as atonement for centuries of slavery and discrimination.TopicsUS elections 2024Marianne WilliamsonUS politicsJoe BidenDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      RNC chair: candidates must sign loyalty pledge if they want to join 2024 debates

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      RNC chair: candidates must sign loyalty pledge if they want to join 2024 debatesRonna McDaniel says loyalty pledge by primary candidates should be a ‘no-brainer’ for party’s presidential hopefulsThe Republican National Committee’s chairperson has said that all GOP primary candidates should sign a pledge promising to support the eventual party nominee if they wish to participate in the presidential debates.Ronna McDaniel, the RNC’s leader since 2017, told CNN in an interview Sunday that even though the debate criteria have not yet been released, the loyalty pledge should nevertheless be a “no-brainer” for the party’s presidential hopefuls.“If you’re going to be on the Republican National Committee debate stage asking voters to support you, you should say, ‘I’m going to support the voters and who they choose as the nominee’,” McDaniel told CNN host Dana Bash.“Anyone getting on the Republican national committee debate stage should be able to say, ‘I will support the will of the voters and the eventual nominee of our party,’” she added.Bash went on to play a recent Donald Trump interview clip in which the former president indicated to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that he was unsure whether he would support the eventual GOP nominee if it wasn’t him.“It would have to depend on who the nominee was,” said Trump, who announced himself as a 2024 candidate in the fall.Responding to that clip, McDaniel said, “I think they’re all going to sign” the loyalty pledge.She added: “I really do. I think President Trump would like to be on the debate stage.“We can’t be attacking each other so much that we lose sight of: we have to beat the Democrats. We have to beat Joe Biden in 2024. And we may have divisive primaries and differences of opinions, but in the end we have to settle those to win the big picture, which is governing our country and doing right by the American people,” she said.Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor, who is considering running for the Republican nomination for president, has criticized the loyalty pledge.Hutchinson has said Trump shouldn’t be allowed to run for president because his supporters attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 after he urged them to fight like hell.“For leaders such as myself who believe Donald Trump is not the right direction for the country … that would certainly make it a problem for me to give an across-the-board inclusion pledge,” Hutchinson told the Washington Post earlier this month.McDaniel addressed Hutchinson’s criticism by saying: “I think you support the voters.” McDaniel said she is the niece of former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, was appointed to the RNC by Trump and would support either if they clinched the 2024 nomination, even if the two men didn’t support each other.Other Republicans who have entered the presidential race include former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador Nikki Haley as well as biotech millionaire entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.Prominent Republicans who could eventually launch presidential runs include former vice-president Mike Pence, ex-secretary of state Mike Pompeo, and Florida governor Ron DeSantis.The RNC has scheduled its first presidential primary debate for August.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsUS elections 2024newsReuse this content More

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      The Courage to be Free review: Ron DeSantis bows and scrapes to Trump

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      ReviewThe Courage to be Free review: Ron DeSantis bows and scrapes to TrumpOn the page, the Florida governor doesn’t show much courage about the man he must beat to be the Republican nomineeThe latest polls place Ron DeSantis and Joe Biden in a footrace for 2024. Florida’s 44-year-old Republican governor leads the octogenarian president by a whisker. More Americans like DeSantis than otherwise. Whether he can capture the Republican nomination, however, remains an open question. He has not yet declared his candidacy and trails Donald Trump in hypothetical matchups. Then again, no one else comes close.DeSantis praises Trump for ‘enhancing my name recognition’ in new bookRead moreSaid differently, Trump and his legacy remain forces for any Republican to reckon with. Nikki Haley, an announced candidate for the GOP nomination, can barely mention his name. She wants to supplant her ex-boss by eliding him. A bold strategy.DeSantis is patient. He will probably wait to announce until late spring, when the Florida legislature adjourns. For the moment, he expects us to be content with The Courage to Be Free, a memoir-cum-288-page-exercise in sycophancy and ambition tethered to a whole lot of owning the libs.It is a mirthless read, lacking even the gleeful invective of Never Give an Inch, the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s own opening shot on the road to 2024. Predictably, DeSantis berates the left as unpatriotic and ruinous, all while prostrating himself before his former patron.“I knew that a Trump endorsement would provide me with the exposure to GOP primary voters across the state of Florida,” he admits, discussing his campaign for governor in 2018. “I was confident that many would see me as a good candidate once they learned about my record.”It’s all about bowing and scraping.“Trump also brought a unique star power to the race. If someone had asked me, as a kid growing up in the 80s and 90s, to name someone who was rich, I – and probably nearly all my friends – would have responded by naming Donald Trump.”DeSantis was born in 1978. Growing up, he would have seen Trump’s fortunes plummet and his first marriage hit the skids.Apparently, 80s and 90s success stories – Steve Jobs of Apple, say, or Bill Gates of Microsoft – failed to cross DeSantis’s radar. These days, by contrast, the governor has a heap of scorn for the giants of tech. He depicts big tech as censorious, concentrated and “woke”. He reiterates his disdain for Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and George Soros, financier and liberal patron.DeSantis criticizes Zuckerberg’s Center for Technology and Civic Life for funding election operations. He contends that such private-public partnerships undermine public faith in electoral integrity and give Democrats a boost. He says nothing about Citizens United, the 2010 supreme court decision that set corporate money loose on US elections, other than to distinguish campaign donations from ballot mechanics. This weekend, at the Four Seasons hotel in Palm Beach, DeSantis will host a getaway for the deep-pocketed set.DeSantis also fails to examine the ties that bound the Mercer family – DeSantis donors and Trump stalwarts – with Facebook and Zuckerberg. In 2014, Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct company then partly owned by the Mercer family, used Facebook to illegally harvest personal data. Steve Bannon, who would become Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, was a board member and officer. He denies personal culpability.The Mercers own Breitbart News, which Bannon once led. Parler, owned by Rebekah Mercer, allegedly provided connective tissue for the January 6 insurrection. In the run-up to the riot, the network emerged as a forum for violent threats, so much so that it warned the FBI of “specific threats of violence being planned at the Capitol”.On the page, not surprisingly, DeSantis does not examine the January 6 attack. He does loudly take credit for a Florida law that would have regulated platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Here, again, he omits crucial details. Namely, federal courts found the law unconstitutional: it violated first-amendment free-speech protections.“Put simply, with minor exceptions, the government can’t tell a private person or entity what to say or how to say it,” wrote Kevin Newsom, a Trump-appointed judge on the 11th circuit. “We hold that it is substantially likely that social media companies – even the biggest ones – are private actors whose rights the first amendment protects.”Florida is urging the supreme court to review the case. Adding to the drama, Trump filed an amicus brief. The high court awaits a submission from the justice department.True to form, DeSantis brands the “national legacy press” as the “pretorian guard of the nation’s failed ruling class” and seconds Trump’s claim that the “fake news media” is the “enemy of the American People”. Yet for all of this media-bashing in the name of supposed truth, the governor omits the role of Fox News in propagating fake news about the presidential election and defamation cases brought against the news channel.How Dominion Voting Systems filing proves Fox News was ‘deliberately lying’Read moreOff the page, on that issue, DeSantis is at least mildly subversive. Recently, he featured the attorney Elizabeth “Libby” Locke at a confab dedicated to attacking the press and gutting US libel law. Significantly, Locke is representing Dominion Voting Systems in its $1.6bn defamation suit against Fox News arising from allegedly false reporting on the 2020 election. The case is set for an April trial in Delaware.“DeSantis hosting Dominion lawyer Libby Locke! He is showing his true colors!” So shrieked Mike Lindell, AKA the MyPillow guy and Trump adviser, on Twitter.DeSantis thinks he can have it both ways. Democrats would do well to take him literally and seriously. Last fall, he won re-election by a jaw-dropping 19 points, attracting more than two in five working-class minority voters and making serious inroads among African Americans.His book recounts all this. So far, the Democrats have offered little by way of response. At the polls, low taxes, plenty of sunshine and Jimmy Buffet’s greatest hits are a tough combination to beat.
      The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival is published in the US by HarperCollins
      TopicsBooksRon DeSantisDonald TrumpUS elections 2024RepublicansFloridaUS politicsreviewsReuse this content More