Trump campaign

Candace Owens out at the Daily Wire

From our US edition

Candace Owens’s watch at the Daily Wire has ended. The news came in the form of an X post from Wire CEO and Lady Ballers star Jeremy Boreing this morning: “Daily Wire and Candace Owens have ended their relationship.”  “The rumors are true — I am finally free,” Owens tweeted shortly after, along with a plug for her Locals page, a link to a site where you can donate her money and a pledge of more to come.  The separation comes shortly after Owens said she’d “stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man,” making her exit a big win for trans rights. As they say en France, quand on vient pour la reine, il ne faut pas la manquer.

candace owens

Money, money, money, money: the GOP’s big 2024 problem

From our US edition

Welcome to Thunderdome. The Republican Party has new leadership, with North Carolina GOP chairman Michael Whatley and daughter-in-law of the former president Lara Trump taking over an organization that will, in reality, be run by Chris LaCivita. They’ve already made one controversial but wise decision in demurring on the hiring of Scott Presler, a ballot harvester popular with the MAGA crowd. But they now confront the harsh reality of the RNC’s fundraising woes: they’re well behind the Joe Biden campaign and the DNC. The Democratic president’s campaign account officially reported taking in $21 million in February, according to its report filed with the Federal Election Commission late Wednesday, ending the month with $71 million cash on hand.

lara trump

Has the Trump transition fight already begun?

From our US edition

With less than a year until the 2024 election, the Republican universe is coming together to seamlessly advise the White House transition of the GOP nominee — or is it? While publicly, groups such as the America First Policy Institute, the Heritage Foundation and Turning Point USA present a kumbaya vision, multiple Republicans working on transition projects tell Cockburn that rough seas are ahead, particularly as competition heats up for credit, attention and donors.Tensions between these groups boiled over in recent weeks. James Bacon, a former low-level Trump bureaucrat-turned senior advisor at Heritage, wrote — perhaps accidentally — to his AFPI counterparts, skewering them as a “Trojan horse by which the establishment can retake control of personnel.

donald trump transition

Former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis pleads guilty in Georgia election case

From our US edition

Attorney Jenna Ellis, a former legal advisor to Donald Trump’s 2020 election campaign, pled guilty to one count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings on Tuesday morning.    Ellis, who was charged alongside Trump and seventeen others with violating Georgia's anti-racketeering laws, has become the latest co-defendant to enter a plea deal in the case to overturn Georgia’s election results from the 2020 presidential election. Ellis’s guilty plea also implicates claims of voter fraud made by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and other Trump lawyers during a December 2020 Georgia Senate committee hearing.   Ellis distanced herself from the former president in a tearful statement before the court.

jenna ellius

Stuck watching the Trump show

From our US edition

There is one thing about which both Donald Trump and his most vociferous critics are happy: the 2024 election is gearing up to be all about him. The former president is hamming up his victim status on a score-settling vengeance tour that he hopes will propel him back to the White House. His huge poll lead suggests it is a winning strategy — at least in the Republican primary. On the other side of the aisle, Democrats are vain enough to have persuaded themselves that their legal and electoral crusade against the former president amounts to the most important fight in the history of the Republic.

donald trump show
populism

The rise of the popcons

From our US edition

The Republican Party has to come to grips with populism. Donald Trump’s commanding lead in the race for the 2024 presidential nomination makes that clear, as does the fact that the next-most popular candidate, Ron DeSantis, also has a populist streak. In fact, the GOP’s base has subscribed to one flavor of populism or another since at least as far back as the start of the Cold War. In the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s red-hunting had a pronounced class dimension — elite officials in “striped pants” were a frequent target. By the end of the 1960s, Richard Nixon was appealing to the “silent majority” against a radical campus counterculture. The Moral Majority and other religious right groups of the 1980s and 1990s exhibited a form of Christian populism.

2024’s biggest winners will be the candidates who control the news cycle

From our US edition

This week a new Morning Consult poll — a qualifier for the first Republican primary debate — shed new light on the effectiveness of the various campaign strategies employed by the 2024 primary candidates. Former president Donald Trump, unsurprisingly, leads the field significantly; 55 percent of expected GOP voters say they would vote for Trump if the primary or caucus were held in their state today. Florida governor Ron DeSantis is in second place, trailing Trump by a whopping thirty-five points. How did Trump manage so quickly to neuter his strongest challenger, who was adored by conservatives for his common-sense Covid policies and “war on woke” in Florida?

vivek ramaswamy cycle

Trump versus the party

From our US edition

When The Simpsons’s evil billionaire C. Montgomery Burns heads for a checkup, the doctor informs him he has virtually every disease known to man, including some just discovered for the first time. The odd thing is that all these diseases are in “perfect balance,” which the doctor illustrates by trying to shove a bunch of fuzzy novelty germs through a tiny door all at once. When they’re all jammed together, none can actually make it through — an example of “Three Stooges syndrome.” Despite the doctor’s warning that even a slight breeze could upset this balance, Burns happily concludes that he is “indestructible.” The Republican Party had a serious bout of Three Stooges syndrome in 2016.

genghis donald trump boomer republicanism establishment
genghis donald trump boomer republicanism establishment

Trump versus the party

When The Simpsons’s evil billionaire C. Montgomery Burns heads for a checkup, the doctor informs him he has virtually every disease known to man, including some just discovered for the first time. The odd thing is that all these diseases are in “perfect balance,” which the doctor illustrates by trying to shove a bunch of fuzzy novelty germs through a tiny door all at once. When they’re all jammed together, none can actually make it through — an example of “Three Stooges syndrome.” Despite the doctor’s warning that even a slight breeze could upset this balance, Burns happily concludes that he is “indestructible.” The Republican Party had a serious bout of Three Stooges syndrome in 2016.

gavin wax babylon bee

Scoop: Gavin Wax lawyers up after Babylon Bee dismissal

From our US edition

Gavin Wax, the New York Young Republicans chairman who was publicly fired from the Babylon Bee last week for directing a curse word at a DeSantis campaign operative, is pursuing legal action against his former employer. A letter from Wax's lawyers to Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon reveals that they are currently investigating potential employment law violations in preparation for a lawsuit, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Spectator. "It is clear from what is known at this point that Mr. Wax has multiple statutory and common-law employment and tort claims against you and your company," the letter says.

donald trump town hall

Trump’s Hannity ‘town hall’ was a love fest from start to finish

From our US edition

There were no surprises in Donald Trump's pre-taped town hall-style Fox News interview with Sean Hannity outside Des Moines, Iowa last night. The former president was relaxed and confident, Hannity was deferential, the audience was eager and enthusiastic. In sum, the hour-long interview was a love fest from start to finish. There was no drama, only vote-for-me boiler-plate from Trump and adulation from the audience. I suspect, however, that certain segments of the population were riveted by the performance. Anyone working for Trump's rivals had to be dispirited by the interview. Fox is officially off Trump, but here their most popular TV personality (now that Tucker Carlson is gone) was troweling on the love while the audience clapped and and cheered. USA, USA, USA...

Trump is the last of the Cuomosexuals

From our US edition

Last summer, it seemed clear to me, at least, that should Florida governor Ron DeSantis enter the 2024 primary, a major point of contention with former president Donald Trump would be the contrast in their responses to Covid.  Where Trump gave decision-making power over to the cabal of Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx and the burgeoning public health bureaucracy, DeSantis defied their silly authoritarian approaches in his state to open beaches and businesses. The comparison is obvious and for DeSantis quite beneficial. The open question was how Trump would respond.  Well, a week into the DeSantis campaign, now we know: Trump thinks DeSantis sucked on Covid, and so did Florida!

donald trump

The Durham report unmasks the Deep State

From our US edition

This week’s Durham report is as close as we’ll get in our lifetimes to proof that the Deep State, working in concert with the mainstream media, exists.  The final 306-page report was written by former US attorney John Durham, who was chosen in the aftermath of the Mueller report to examine the FBI probe known as “Operation Crossfire Hurricane.” Durham in this final report provides the only comprehensive review of what came to be called “Russiagate” and shows how close our democracy came to failing at the hands of the Deep State.  We now know the FBI took disinformation produced by the Russians and used that to justify spying on the Trump campaign.

john durham

Laura Loomer’s Trump campaign hopes flamed by NYT and MTG

From our US edition

Donald Trump is one boomer Laura Loomer can't rely on. The right-wing provocateur came a few thousand votes shy of winning a safe GOP House seat in Florida last year, running a campaign in a district that contains The Villages while relying on "Boomers for Loomer." But there weren’t enough boomers for Loomer last time — and President Trump is now wavering in his support for her, even though he’s both endorsed her and voted for her in one of her previous failed runs for Congress. In tried and true Trumpworld fashion, a crazy Trump idea (in this case, forcing his campaign staff to hire Loomer for an unknown role) was floated to a journalist he trusts (as always, Maggie Haberman) at an outlet he loves reading (in this instance, the New York Times).

laura loomer

Are Anna Wintour and Bill Nighy back together?

From our US edition

We need to deep-clean the halls of Congress January is a month for shedding the pounds — and the latest fitness fad for Capitol Hill reporters is chasing around disgraced congressman George Santos. In a show of collegiality, the staffers of other representatives have been alerting the press to Santos's whereabouts. Take deputy chief of staff Aaron Fritschner, whose boss Representative Don Beyer, a Democrat from Virginia, shares a hallway with Santos. "I've done it twice now," he told Politico's Huddle newsletter. "I'm gonna keep on doing it for as long as he's there. And it seems like he's not going anywhere." Cockburn is delighted that Fritschner has found a fun new hobby to plug the hole left by his last one: explaining why Don Beyer is inadvertently employing Chinese spies.

bill nighy anna wintour

Sources: Trump 2024 is staffing up — names revealed

From our US edition

Sources: Trump 2024 team forming After Axios’s report that Trump is set to announce a 2024 run on November 14 — and his own tease at yesterday’s rally — sources tell Cockburn that the campaign team is firming up. As Cockburn reported last week, Chris LaCivita is being strongly considered for campaign manager. Cockburn also hears that Michael Glassner, who was the COO of Trump 2020, will return, along with advisor Boris Epshteyn and Steve Bannon associate Alexandra Preate. Epshteyn is said to be particularly close to Trump and has advised him on major legal issues. Carl Higbie is also said to be under consideration for a high-level role. Trump is supposedly already making calls about jobs in his future administration. Time to update your résumés!

trump 2024

Donald Trump has enemies everywhere

From our US edition

I think that Michael Anton is correct that “the people who really run the United States of America have made it clear that they can’t, and won’t, if they can help it, allow Donald Trump to be president again.” “The people who really run the United States”: that would be denizens of the Swamp, the bureaucratic elite, their media and academic mouthpieces, worker bees in the ambient welfare jelly and the nomenklatura who win elections and circulate in and out of the corridors of power. It’s a powerful, nearly monolithic force, a monument to special privilege and two-tier justice — and the prospect of dismantling it is daunting to say the least.

peter navarro donald trump enemies

Dinesh D’Souza’s stupid movie

From our US edition

This article was originally published on Ann Coulter’s Substack, which you can sign up to receive here. As much as I'm enjoying the January 6 Committee's careful assembly of evidence proving former president Trump is a douchebag, I wasn't seeing much in the way of a criminal offense until this week's underreported story about how Trump used his "STOP THE STEAL" fundraising appeals to grift his supporters out of $250 million, none of which was, in fact, used to fight election fraud. It didn't even go to the poor saps who got themselves arrested at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Instead, the $250 million seems to have been funneled exclusively to Trump businesses, family and friends.

dinesh d’souza stupid movie

Did Trump just concede?

From our US edition

President Trump said Monday in a tweet that his administration is willing to start the formal transition of power to Joe Biden, even while asserting that he still intends to 'fight' and 'prevail' in his legal challenges against the results of the presidential election. 'I want to thank Emily Murphy at GSA for her steadfast dedication and loyalty to our Country. She has been harassed, threatened, and abused — and I do not want to see this happen to her, her family, or employees of GSA. Our case STRONGLY continues, we will keep up the good fight, and I believe we will prevail! Nevertheless, in the best interest of our Country, I am recommending that Emily and her team do what needs to be done with regard to initial protocols, and have told my team to do the same.

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