Originally posted by tbm3fan
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I believe that is correct. The operative word being VP-elect. They have been duly elected and thus, regardless of taking the oath of office, become vice-president, and thus president, on January 20th at noon -
Question where I am looking for a clear answer. Given age of certain people and wondering, if I were lucky, if something happened to trump before January 2025.
I'm trying to discern the 25th Amendment in regards to succession if a President-elect dies, not incapable but dead, before he takes the oath of office which means he isn't President yet. Does this actually then fall to the VP-elect?Leave a comment:
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They're Trying to Topple Trump. But They Barely Utter His Name.
Nikki Haley’s leap into the 2024 presidential campaign this week included a nod to the historic nature of her candidacy, as a woman of color and the child of immigrants making a White House run as a Republican.
But beyond biography, the former South Carolina governor’s entry to the race Tuesday underscored how difficult it will be for many Republican candidates to persuade the party’s base that they should bear the standard for the GOP, not former President Donald Trump, who maintains the loyalties of so many voters.
Haley’s announcement, which she will repeat Wednesday at an event in Charleston, South Carolina, seemed like a calculated appeal to Republican voters who are ready to turn the page from the Trump era without burning the book of Trump’s presidency. She reminded voters that the Republican Party had lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections and said it was “time for a new generation of leadership,” both signs that she will call for a fresh start in the 2024 Republican primaries.
But she never mentioned Trump by name, much less leveled any direct criticism at the only other major candidate in the presidential race.
Haley’s conundrum about how to approach Trump will surely apply to other potential competitors. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who shares Trump’s pugnacious instincts and is the only Republican within striking distance in early polls of the field, has nevertheless been reluctant to trade insult for insult with the former president. Like Haley, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Vice President Mike Pence served in the Trump administration. Overt critics of Trump, like Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas and Larry Hogan of Maryland, both former governors, risk not being taken seriously by Republican voters.
Haley has time to devise a strategy for challenging Trump, but moving on from the last Republican presidency will be tricky, said Chip Felkel, a longtime Republican consultant in South Carolina and a critic of Trump. Since leaving his administration in 2018 and making halting efforts to criticize him after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, Haley has tacked back into his orbit.
“She’s got a pretty bad tightrope to walk,” Felkel said.
In fact, her arrival in the Republican primary — and the expected entry of another South Carolinian, Sen. Tim Scott, as well as of Hutchinson, who is leaning hard on his degree from the state’s evangelical conservative Bob Jones University — could make it easier for Trump to win the state, by dividing Republican voters who want to move past him.
“They are fighting over non-Trump conservatives who’d like to see the party win elections and who are tired of the chaos,” Felkel said. “I’m not sure in South Carolina that’s a majority.”
Difficulties lie ahead for candidates who choose not to take on Trump directly — particularly those, like Haley, who appear inclined to avoid saying his name — in hopes that they can create distance from him without going too far in the eyes of Republican voters. And if DeSantis can consolidate a bloc of voters, it remains to be seen whether the other rivals can make an affirmative case for their own candidacies beyond hoping DeSantis struggles.
Even Haley’s resume seemed like a credential to tread on lightly. In her announcement Tuesday, she pointed to her experiences in the governor’s mansion in Columbia, South Carolina, and to her time as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. But she was light on listing accomplishments to burnish a claim to the highest elective office in the land.
Her most notable achievement as governor, the delicate compromise that removed the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina State House, went unmentioned altogether, though the tragedy that instigated it — a massacre of Black parishioners at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church by a white supremacist — was invoked as a call to return the nation to religion.
“We turned away from fear toward God and the values that still make our country the freest and greatest in the world,” she said. “We must turn in that direction again.”
Still, Haley’s biggest advantage will be her deep connections in the state, the third to vote in the primary season next year. Retail politics and local organization matter in South Carolina, and regardless of the results in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, its results have a track record. Victory in the state propelled Joe Biden to the Democratic nomination in 2020 and vaulted George W. Bush ahead of John McCain in the 2000 election.
Chad Connelly, a former chair of the South Carolina Republican Party, said that Haley remained “wildly popular” in the state, but that so did Trump, Scott and DeSantis — an unpredictable situation that he said he had not seen in his 25 years in South Carolina Republican politics. But Trump has never paid attention to organization, and DeSantis has little connection to the state.
“People expect retail politics here,” Connelly said. “People expect you to meet them at Bill and Fran’s in Newberry for waffles.”
For now, Trump has refrained from taunting, mocking or attacking Haley. Republican officials in South Carolina said that could be a sign that he is listening to consultants who are pleading with him not to assail a Republican woman of color, or that he is simply not viewing her as a serious threat.
It could also mean that both candidates are sizing each other up as running mates, Felkel said. In 2016, Pence, then Indiana’s governor, helped shore up Trump’s appeal with conservative evangelical Christians, who had been leery of him. In 2024, with many of those voters still loyal to Trump, Haley might help Trump with perhaps his biggest weakness, suburban Republican women.
Haley’s announcement video leaned heavily into her roots as the child of Indian immigrants, “not Black, not white, but different.” But she also emphasized that she had been taught to accentuate what Americans have in common, not what separates them, a reassuring message for the white voters who dominate the Republican Party.
And she took pointed swipes at movements that emphasize the country’s racist past, including The New York Times’ 1619 Project, which traced Black American history to the first year enslaved Africans reached North American shores.
In doing so, she signaled that her family’s immigrant roots would not impede her entry to the social policy and culture wars that have been central to the appeal of Trump and DeSantis.
But vying for vice president would be difficult for Haley, South Carolina Republicans said, because the state’s primary comes so early. She will have to signal that she is in it to win it, Felkel said, and that might mean she will eventually have to go on the attack against her former boss.
An adviser to Scott, who insisted on anonymity to discuss preliminary campaign preparations, said that because Haley worked for Trump, she would have a harder time separating herself from him. While Scott can fly above the fray, the adviser said, Haley will be under more pressure to confront the former president head-on.
“It’s going to be one of the most fascinating things to watch that I’ve ever seen in politics,” Connelly said.
Like Scott, Haley is projecting a more optimistic message than Trump’s often apocalyptic description of the United States. But whether that will be enough remains to be seen.
“The challenge for this field is to tell the truth,” said Chris Christie, a Republican former governor of New Jersey and a potential candidate for president who has been vocally critical of Trump since breaking with him at the end of his presidency. “And it’s to tell the truth about everything — to tell the truth about your plans for the country, and to tell the truth about what has happened over the last number of years with Donald Trump and Joe Biden.”
If people are “unwilling to tell all of it,” he said, “it’s unlikely you’ll have credibility on any of it.”
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Nikki Haley announces run for president, challenging Trump
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, announced her candidacy for president on Tuesday, becoming the first major challenger to former President Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination.
The announcement, delivered in a tweeted video, marks an about-face for the ex-Trump Cabinet official, who said two years ago that she wouldn’t challenge her former boss for the White House in 2024. But she changed her mind in recent months, citing, among other things, the country’s economic troubles and the need for “generational change,” a nod to the 76-year-old Trump’s age.
“You should know this about me. I don’t put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels,” Haley said. “I’m Nikki Haley, and I’m running for president.”
Haley, 51, is the first in a long line of Republicans who are expected to launch 2024 campaigns in the coming months. Among them are Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.
President Joe Biden has said he intends to seek reelection in 2024, stalling any jostling for the Democratic nomination.
Haley has regularly boasted about her track record of defying political expectations, saying, “I’ve never lost an election, and I’m not going to start now.”
If elected, Haley would be the nation’s first female president and the first U.S. president of Indian descent.
The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley grew up enduring racist taunts in a small South Carolina town and has long referenced that impact on her personal and political arc.
In the three-and-a-half minute video, Haley referenced that past, saying she grew up “not Black, not white — I was different.”
Despite that, Haley insisted that America is not a racist country: “Nothing could be further from the truth.” Playing in the background of her video were images of media reports related to The New York Times Magazine’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “1619 Project” — which centered the country’s history around slavery.
Haley never mentions Trump by name in the video, instead saying “the Washington establishment has failed us over and over and over again.” Haley leans into a call for “a new generation of leadership,” which has become the refrain of her messaging leading up to the launch.
According to a person familiar with the plans but not authorized to speak about them, the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley is planning to launch her presidential campaign at an event in Charleston on the Wednesday, February 15th. (Feb. 13)
There appears to be openness among Republicans to new leadership, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. In an open-ended question asking Republicans to choose who they want to lead their party, a majority of Republicans didn’t choose either Trump or DeSantis, considered the former president’s top rival. But they also didn’t have a clear alternative in mind.
Eleven other politicians, including Haley, are named by just 1% of Republicans as their preferred leader.
In a statement, Taylor Budowich, spokesman for Trump’s super PAC, said Haley was “just another career politician.”
“She started out as a Never Trumper before resigning to serve in the Trump admin,” he said. “She then resigned early to go rake in money on corporate boards. Now, she’s telling us she represents a ‘new generation.’ Sure just looks like more of the same, a career politician whose only fulfilled commitment is to herself.”
Before entering politics, Haley was an accountant. She defeated the longest-serving member of the South Carolina House in 2004 in her first bid for public office. Three terms later and with little statewide recognition, Haley mounted a long-shot campaign for governor against a large field of experienced politicians.
She racked up a number of high-profile endorsements, including from the sitting South Carolina governor, Mark Sanford, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a tea party darling.
With her 2010 victory, Haley became South Carolina’s first female and minority governor — and the nation’s youngest at 38. She earned a speaking slot at the 2012 Republican National Convention and gave the GOP response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union in 2016.
The defining moment of Haley’s time as governor came after the 2015 murders of nine Black parishioners in a Charleston church by a self-avowed white supremacist who had been pictured holding Confederate flags.
For years, Haley had resisted calls to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds, even casting a rival’s push for its removal as a desperate stunt. But after the massacre and with the support of other leading Republicans, Haley advocated for legislation to remove the flag. It came down less than a month after the murders.
In the 2016 presidential primary, Haley was an early supporter of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, later shifting to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. She ultimately said she would back the party’s nominee.
Shortly after Trump’s victory, he tapped Haley to be his U.N. ambassador, a move that rewarded Henry McMaster, the lieutenant governor who was the nation’s first statewide elected official to back Trump’s 2016 campaign. Haley’s departure cleared the way for McMaster to ascend to the governorship he had sought, since losing a bruising primary to none other than Haley seven years earlier.
With her Senate confirmation, Haley became the first Indian American in a presidential Cabinet.
During her nearly two-year tenure, Haley feuded at times with other administration officials while bolstering her own public persona.
One of her most memorable moments as U.N. ambassador came in 2018 after National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow suggested Haley had suffered “momentary confusion” when she said Russian sanctions were imminent.
“With all due respect, I don’t get confused,” she responded. The first half of the quote became the title of her 2019 memoir.
Her departure from the job later that year fueled speculation that she would challenge Trump in 2020 or replace Pence on the ticket. She did neither.
Instead, Haley returned to South Carolina, where she bought a home on the wealthy enclave Kiawah Island, joined the board of aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co., launched herself on the speaking circuit and wrote two books, including the memoir.
After the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, Haley initially cast doubts on Trump’s political future but said she wouldn’t challenge him in 2024. She later shifted course, citing inflation, crime, drugs and a “foreign policy in disarray” among her reasons for considering a White House campaign.
During his South Carolina stop last month, Trump told WIS-TV that Haley had called to seek his opinion on running for president. Trump pointed out her earlier pledge not to run against him but said he made no attempt to stop her.
“She said she would never run against me because I was the greatest president, but people change their opinions, and they change what’s in their hearts,” Trump said. “So I said, ‘If your heart wants to do it, you have to go do it.’”
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Mitt Romney Issues Urgent Warning About Trump's Path To 2024 GOP Nomination
A large field of presidential contenders in 2024 could lead to a redo of the 2016 presidential race and help make Donald Trump the Republican presidential nominee once again, according to Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).
“The only way that [scenario] could be prevented is if it narrowed down to a two-person race eventually. That means donors and influencers say to their candidate ― if they’re weakening: ‘Hey, time to get out,’” Romney told HuffPost in an interview on Tuesday.
“Last time that was done was in 1968, so it’s been a while,” Romney added, referring to the 1968 presidential election in which his father George Romney took part.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Tuesday became the first Republican to declare a candidacy for the White House after Trump, who launched his 2024 campaign in November. Haley, who also served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. during Trump’s administration, called for “a new generation of leadership” in a video announcing her candidacy.
Romney said he viewed Haley as an “underdog” in the race. Trump, the senator added, is “by far the most likely” to become the GOP presidential nominee given his popularity and name recognition with a devoted slice of the GOP electorate. (Romney is decidedly not a fan: He voted to convict Trump in two successive Senate impeachment trials).
Trump is expected to face a crowded field of contenders for the GOP presidential nomination as he did during the 2016 election. In that race, a large roster of candidates split support among GOP voters and donors alike, leading to Trump clinching the nomination.
Much has been written about Trump’s “diminished” influence within the GOP, especially after his party’s weak performance in the 2022 midterm election. Polls show he’s still way on top when it comes to the race for the 2024 presidential nomination, but potential candidates like Florida GOP Gov. Ron Desantis are nipping at his heels.
Although GOP leaders aren’t in a hurry to embrace a Trump 2024 run, he still has plenty of support on Capitol Hill, including from several newly-elected lawmakers. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) last week became the fifth GOP senator to back Trump’s campaign, calling the man who sought to overturn democracy in the days leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol “exactly the president we need to lead this country through the tough road ahead.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said he believed the 2024 race will be “wide open” despite the fact that he’s backing Trump’s campaign.
“President Trump is going to have a base of 25-30%. He’s got a lot of work to grow on that. DeSantis has built a name on conservative menus,” he said, adding that it’s “good for our party” if many candidates jump run and there is healthy competition for the presidential nomination.
Trump has ramped up attacks against DeSantis, sharing wild accusations about the conservative heartthrob on his social media platform TruthSocial that suggested DeSantis was “grooming high school girls with alcohol” when he was a teacher. The former president has also been testing nicknames for DeSantis, including “Ron DeSantimonious” and “Ron Meatball.” DeSantis has chosen to ignore the attacks, saying he isn’t focused on “smearing” fellow Republicans.
“That’s how he does things,” Tuberville told HuffPost when asked about Trump’s TruthSocial posts. “He tries to get a doll out of people. That’s probably what he did as a contractor in New York. You get into arguments, you complain, you fight with each other, and then you go to dinner at night. We’re all on the same team.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who voted to convict Trump over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, suggested that a large field of presidential candidates would narrow relatively quickly due to a lack of resources.
“Although there might be a number of people who announce, how many people will have money? If you don’t have money, you can’t buy name recognition. If you can’t buy the name recognition, you falter early,” Cassidy said.
Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), who supported Trump in the past but who has held off on making another endorsement as he runs for governor in Indiana, predicted an eventual showdown between Trump and DeSantis. The Florida governor hasn’t yet announced whether he will launch a bid for the White House.
“No one else is registering above one [percent]” in early polls of the race, Braun said.
Democrats, meanwhile, are treating the odds of another showdown between Trump and President Joe Biden in the 2024 general election as quite serious, even though they believe it would ultimately benefit their party if last year’s midterm election results are any sign of Trump’s unpopularity with swing voters.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee, said all signs were pointing again to the same dynamics that initially propelled Trump to the GOP presidential nomination.
“A name ID edge in a multi-candidate field is even more powerful than a name ID edge in a two-candidate field,” Kaine said. “[Trump] was able to be in a lane of his own and then everybody else was competing in a non-Trump lane. I think that same dynamic could well hold in 2024.”
“Each new entrant is going to make him happier and happier,” Kaine added of Trump and the 2024 GOP race.
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Isn't that rich when Trump allies cast an opponent as a traitor. They obviously do not have mirrors in which to look at themselves to be reminded every day what they are...Originally posted by TopHatter View Post"There is often little room to question or debate Mr. Trump without being cast by him and his allies as a political adversary, or even a traitor to the country"
Hooooley shit ain't that the truth
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The Democrats do have some good up and comers...who are about a decade away from being big presidential contenders.
I am with all there may have to be a short term ceding the White House and work on Congress. The demographics long term favor the Democrats...short term for the GOP.
I'm just glad I can be on the sidelines in about 13 months.Leave a comment:
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DeSantis’s Challenge: When, and How, to Counterattack Trump
As the former president lobs insults and calls him “Ron DeSanctimonious,” Gov. Ron DeSantis is carefully avoiding conflict. But if he runs for president as expected, a clash is inevitable.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida prizes preparation and the way it allows him to control his political narrative. But suddenly, he was on the verge of going off message.
He had traveled to a Central Florida warehouse this past week to promote a $2 billion tax cut proposal when he was confronted with the inevitable: an especially ugly attack from former President Donald J. Trump that seemed to warrant a strong response.
Mr. Trump had insinuated on social media that Mr. DeSantis behaved inappropriately with high school girls while he was a teacher in his early 20s. As a reporter asked for his reaction, the Florida governor — standing amid kitchen stoves and boxes of baby diapers — inhaled sharply. He straightened the papers in front of him and raised his open palms to interrupt the question.
But instead of slamming the former president, Mr. DeSantis demurred.
“I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden,” he said. “That’s how I spend my time. I don’t spend my time trying to smear other Republicans.”
For months, Mr. DeSantis has pursued a strategy of conflict avoidance with his top rival in the shadow 2024 Republican presidential primary, delaying what is likely to be a hostile and divisive clash that forces the party’s voters to pick sides.
But now he faces the pressing question of how long this approach can work. Mr. Trump, who has spent weeks trying to goad Mr. DeSantis into a fight with rude nicknames like “Ron DeSanctimonious,” is stepping up his social media-fueled assault, even as polls and interviews show that Mr. DeSantis has become the leading alternative to the former president for many voters and donors.
Mr. DeSantis must also decide just how forcefully to counterattack once he engages with Mr. Trump, and whether he has left himself enough room to effectively parry the former president’s taunts and smears without offending his loyal supporters.
Seventeen months before the Republican nominating convention, the future of Mr. Trump’s political movement seems likely to be decided by a battle between the 76-year-old former president, who has redefined the party in his image as centered primarily on grievances, and the 44-year-old governor, who has presented himself as a new and improved heir — younger, smarter and more strategic, policy-focused and disciplined.
Many conservatives who dislike Mr. Trump’s constant dramas, the myriad criminal investigations he is facing and the stain of his efforts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election have put their hopes in a DeSantis candidacy, in a way their predecessors never did with any of Mr. Trump’s challengers in 2016.
Mr. DeSantis has captured the attention of Republican voters and the party’s activist base by leaning into polarizing social issues from his perch as governor of a key battleground state, while so far refraining from attacking Mr. Trump and other potential 2024 rivals. He has instead insisted that he is focused on governing Florida, where the legislative session is scheduled to run from March to May.
But Mr. DeSantis’s above-the-fray posture carries risk. One of the central tenets of the modern Republican Party under Mr. Trump has been the willingness to fight, ruthlessly and tirelessly.
While the Florida governor has successfully portrayed himself to conservatives as a cultural warrior, his actual experience mixing it up with powerful opponents is thinner. He was barely tested last year during his re-election bid, his first since emerging as a national political figure.
In a memorable debate moment, Mr. DeSantis stood by, stiffly staring ahead, as his Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, demanded that the governor say whether he would serve all four years of a second term. When called upon next, Mr. DeSantis shot off a sharp canned retort, but the exchange left Mr. Crist looking like the more nimble combatant.
Some deep-pocketed Republican donors have privately expressed concern about how Mr. DeSantis will perform when forced to directly engage with an opponent as combative and unbothered by traditional rules of decorum as Mr. Trump.
“No Republican has ever emerged from an exchange with Donald Trump looking stronger, so the natural tendency is to deflect his attacks and avoid confrontation,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist.
“That’s easy to do, and maybe even wise when his barbs are confined to Truth Social,” Mr. Donovan added, referring to Mr. Trump’s social media site, where he has fired off many of his attacks. “The question is what happens when DeSantis finds himself on a debate stage opposite Trump, and G.O.P. voters want to see whether they are getting what they were promised.”
Mr. Trump’s efforts to undermine Mr. DeSantis began with the “DeSanctimonious” nickname as the governor concluded his successful re-election campaign. Many conservatives — who had cheered Mr. Trump’s behavior when it was directed at Democrats — reacted angrily and were protective of Mr. DeSantis.
It was a signal that Republicans might rally behind a single primary opponent to Mr. Trump in a way they did not in 2015 and 2016, when Mr. Trump called Ben Carson “pathological,” comparing him to a child molester, and insinuated that Senator Ted Cruz’s father had been linked to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Since November, despite the criticism he faced at the time, Mr. Trump has periodically hit out at his potential rival, albeit to a relatively small audience. He posted his most recent innuendo about the governor on Truth Social, where he has just under five million followers. And he has insulted Mr. DeSantis in casual conversations, describing him as “Meatball Ron,” an apparent dig at his appearance, or “Shutdown Ron,” a reference to restrictions the governor put in place at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr. Trump’s team has been amassing data about Mr. DeSantis’s actions in response to the pandemic, in part to try to depict him as a phony.
So far, Mr. DeSantis has countered Mr. Trump’s attacks with occasional needling aimed at the former president’s anxiety about being labeled a loser. While Republicans have suffered through three disappointing election cycles with Mr. Trump as the face of the party, Mr. DeSantis won re-election resoundingly in November.
“Go check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night,” Mr. DeSantis told reporters days after the midterm elections, when he was asked about Mr. Trump’s criticism.
A spokesman for Mr. DeSantis declined to comment. But a person familiar with the governor’s thinking said he was likely to stick with a measured approach. That means that Republicans hoping for a more aggressive stance by Mr. DeSantis, who is said to be keenly aware of how many of his supporters also like Mr. Trump, are almost certain to be disappointed.
“DeSantis has been getting the benefit of an announced presidential candidate — and all the media attention that comes with that — without having to get involved in every dogfight, because he is operating under the auspices of a governor who is doing his job,” said Josh Holmes, a Republican strategist and top adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader.
Taking on Mr. Trump is complicated. Republican rivals have been unable for seven years to thwart his personal attacks or to dissuade an abiding loyalty to the former president among about one-third of the party’s voters.
There is often little room to question or debate Mr. Trump without being cast by him and his allies as a political adversary, or even a traitor to the country. Such slash-and-burn tactics are a staple not just of his political life, but also of his decades-long career in business before his White House tenure.
“I don’t think people fully understand how ruthless he is,” said Jack O’Donnell, a former casino executive who published a book in 1991 about working with Mr. Trump, and who said he faced vicious threats when he did. “He has no boundaries. And when you’re on the receiving end of that, you wonder what’s next.”
It’s unclear how long Mr. DeSantis can steer clear of the former president while both are anchored to Florida, their home state.
On Feb. 21, the super PAC supporting Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign will hold its first fund-raiser of the 2024 election at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla.
But just days later, Mr. DeSantis will visit the same 16-mile-long barrier island, where he will host a dayslong “issues forum,” a private event for Republican donors and policy experts to meet with the governor and discuss issues that are likely to be central in a presidential campaign, according to two people who insisted on anonymity to discuss plans for an event that has not yet been announced.
That Mr. DeSantis sees no currency in directly taking on Mr. Trump was underscored by the target the Florida governor preferred to aim at this past week.
At a different event, Mr. DeSantis held court for about an hour behind what looked like a replica of a cable news set, sitting in the center like an anchor, with a busy digital background behind him that read “TRUTH” — an echo of the name of Mr. Trump’s website. He excoriated a favored enemy, the mainstream news media, and called for rolling back the free press’s legal protections against defamation suits.
“It’s a really tough situation for DeSantis,” said Tommy Vietor, a Democratic strategist who worked for Senator Barack Obama in his brutal primary race against Hillary Clinton in 2008. “If he starts punching at Trump, he’s going to anger a lot of the people he needs to vote for him.”
But, Mr. Vietor noted, “if you are viewed as weak and cower in response to attacks from Trump, that will be seen as a proxy for how you will be seen as a Republican nominee and how you’ll be as president.”
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"There is often little room to question or debate Mr. Trump without being cast by him and his allies as a political adversary, or even a traitor to the country"
Hooooley shit ain't that the truth
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I'm basing my observations on the elements of the base I encounter. I might not have a representitive sample or might be reading them wrong, but I think there are enough who want to win that they will go for DeSantis. They will defend Trump to the death from 'outside' attacks, but many of them understand that he isn't going to give them the opportunity to appoint more judges.Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
As I said, we will find out in about 18 months. I really hope I'm wrong, because Trump will lose if he gets the nom. If DeSantis gets it many of the bad things Trump would like to have done but was too incompetent will get done. If Trump can dig up some big enough dirt that might change, but it would need to be something more than the standard GOP corruption or sexual predator stuff.Leave a comment:
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