The presidential campaign begins
Donald Trump opens a salvo against Ron DeSantis and others, as he unofficially starts his campaign
In Case You Missed It …
Mike Pence wrote an account of his last days in office for the Wall Street Journal and it’s pretty fascinating.
The White House is partnering with a social media monitoring tool that will scour online sources and data mining and compile news alerts for the White House.
Rumble says it had a record number of users and live stream viewers on election day.
A Florida paper called the state a “crimson hellscape” after Tuesday’s wins. They later stealth edited the piece.
Dear Friends —
Donald Trump unofficially kicked off his 2024 presidential campaign with a heated attack against Ron DeSantis and those who might support him.
He opened it this way:
“Now that midterms are over, and a success…
NewsCorp, which is Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and the no longer great New York Post (bring back Col!), is all in for Governor Ron DeSanctimonious, an average REPUBLICAN Governor with great Public Relations, who didn’t have to close up his State, but did, unlike other Republican Governors, whose overall numbers for a Republican, were just average — middle of the pack — including COVID, and who has the advantage of SUNSHINE, where people from badly run States up North would go no matter who the Governor was, just like I did!”
In a group of posts on Truth Social, the former president continued his barrage against a host of targets.
The president was responding to Tuesday’s election returns, and a palpable shift in attitudes towards him following that. There will undoubtedly be lots and lots of polls, to the extent we trust them, as the campaign picks up in earnest, but something has clearly changed.
Conservative news outlets, from the Murdoch-owned Fox, WSJ and NY Post, and others have been more critical of Trump and certainly willing to entertain, if not promote, a DeSantis presidency.
On social media, there’s been a similar shift among Republicans, with many reacting harshly to Trump’s attacks on DeSantis, also either being open minded for change or outright declaring it.
Is that real? Permanent? Right now it’s hard to say.
What’s certain, though, is that despite no one being a declared candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, the campaign is underway.
– Ken
Finally …
I’m truly concerned about this. The Republican Party did “ok” in this election. The Red Wave never happened, not to the extent we all thought. I believe the reversal of Roe V Wade was the end all, if we are looking for reasons/excuses. Why would DeSantis want to put his beautiful YOUNG family through the hell that the Trumps went through? It’s going to be vicious no matter who runs. That’s been even more obvious during this last election with the mailers. Trumps name calling earned him a reputation, not always a good one. That’s what I hear from republican friends that YES, voted Biden. The last person he should be name calling is Ron DeSantis. Trump needs the VERY IMPORTANT state of Florida and calling DeSantis names won’t get him what he needs, the support of Floridians and their electoral votes.
DT is often his own worst enemy and this is an example - a pointless, gratuitous shot at a governor who's doing things the right way, from Covid to hurricane responses to social stuff. These unforced errors go a long ways in creating Trump fatigue.