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As Trump Announces, GOP Rivals Are Packing Into The Clown Car Again

As Trump Announces, GOP Rivals Are Packing Into The Clown Car Again

The campaign is underway. I’m going to be covering it right down to the wire in November of 2024. This column is free to all subscribers, but many will be available only to paid subscribers. If you want to receive all of my columns, free and paid, you can become a paid subscriber right here.

Donald Trump’s in the pool – in fact, he’s in the deep end, over his head with all the investigations and possible indictments he faces – and the question now is, who else is going to jump in?

Mike Pence? He’s on a book tour, polishing his Jayzus bona fides, perhaps responding to the fact that several evangelical leaders have expressed doubts about the former president, at least giving the former vice president some hope. Robert Jeffress, a pastor at the First Baptist Dallas church in Texas and previously a close ally and spiritual adviser to Trump (yes, there were such things afoot in the land in past years), told Newsweek last week that he isn’t prepared to support Trump just yet. Although he called the Bellowing One “a great president” and said he would support him in 2024 if he becomes the nominee, for now, Jeffress is sitting on his Bible: “The Republican Party is headed toward a civil war that I have no desire or need to be part of,” Jeffress told Newsweek.

Another evangelical leader spoke out frankly about the Eminently Indictable One at a meeting last week of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL) in Irving, Texas. James Robison, the president of the Christian group Life Outreach International, told the group that Trump acted “like a little elementary schoolchild…if Mr. Trump can’t stop his little petty issues, how does he expect people to stop major issues?” Christian lawmakers in the room did not respond positively, The Washington Post reported: “The crowd remained still. Some lawmakers in the ballroom exchanged glances, appearing unsure of how to respond. A few people chuckled awkwardly.”

Mike Evans, Texas author and Christian Zionist who raises money for outreach and support in Israel and was on Trump’s loosely-formed “evangelical advisory board,” wrote in an op-ed in the Post earlier this month that he once left a rally held by the Fake Christian One “in tears because I saw Bible believers glorifying Donald Trump like he was an idol. Donald Trump can’t save America. He can’t even save himself. He used us to win the White House. We had to close our mouths and eyes when he said things that horrified us,” Evans wrote in the Post. “I cannot do that anymore.”

Ron DeSantis? The Harvard and Yale Educated One is said to be meeting with major Republican donors and biding his time. Dan Eberhart, a big-time Republican fund-raiser who has backed the Palm Beach Secret Hoarder in the past, told NBC he’s all-in for DeSantis this year. “If Trump is going to be in, I would like for him not to be the only national Republican candidate out there. But DeSantis isn’t going to get in until after the Florida legislative session ends, at least. Anyone that gets in now runs the risk of peaking too early.”

What about the rest of them? Well, the Clown Car is still out there. You remember Nikki Haley, don’t you? Former South Carolina Governor and Trump’s ambassador to the U.N., Haley told the Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas over the weekend that she is considering getting into the race “in a serious way.” She told the crowd that it’s time for “a younger generation to lead across the board.” Hinting strongly at who she was really talking about, Haley said she wasn’t ready to blame “one person” for the disastrous Republican showing in the midterms, but “we don’t need more politicians who just want to go on TV and talk about our problems.” Then she pointedly reminded the crowd that “I have never lost an election and I’m not going to start now.”

Mike Pompeo? He was at the Republican Jewish Coalition conference, too, declaring that although he had been “loyal” in the past, his loyalty had never been “to a person, or a party or a faction.” By omitting the name of the guy who appointed him to be secretary of state, Pompeo left no doubt who he was talking about. If Republicans want to win elections, Pompeo thundered, they can’t just “go on Fox News or send tweets. Personality and celebrity just aren’t going to get it done. We can see that. The American people did not want to look back, they wanted to move forward. They care about what happens tomorrow, not what happened yesterday.”

In fact, there was a whole thing about it’s not a time to “look back,” and we’re finished with “talking about the past” at the meeting in Las Vegas. Republican Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, who was term-limited and did not run for reelection this year, told the crowd that his reading of the Republican losses in the midterms showed that voters had “sent a clear message that they want to turn the page.” Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told the crowd that Republicans lost the midterms because “Donald Trump has put himself before everybody else.”

The ex-Trump confidant Christie, however, was the only speaker at the conference to utter the name of the FBI Searched One out loud.

The Associated Press reported that while “No fewer than 10 White House prospects stepped onto the stage in Las Vegas…perhaps no one was cheering louder than Trump himself from his Florida estate.” Why would that be, you ask? Well, with so many challengers making noises about getting into the race, Putin’s Favorite Candidate is in the same position he was in back in 2016, when he trashed the occupants of the Clown Car one by one and split the vote in the primaries until he arrived at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July as the Anointed One.

What do we hear from the Lily-Livered Caucus in the Senate? Well, The Hill reported today that only one Republican senator, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, has come out and said he will support Trump for the presidency. What about the Senator from Obsequious, Lindsey Graham (R-SC)? Not on board yet, but he has allowed as how Trump will be “hard to beat.” Senator Kevin Cramer from North Dakota – I know, I’ve never heard of him either – bravely says “it’s too early.” Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming – another Republican stand-out from a state with a population smaller than Brooklyn – “made a splash last week when she identified DeSantis, not Trump, as the de facto leader of the Republican Party,” according to The Hill. But perhaps Utah's Mitt Romney, the Senator From The 47 Per Cent, described the reaction of the Lily-Livered Caucus best: “One senator in a meeting we had this week said, ‘How many in this room want to see President Trump announce he’s running for president today?’ Not one hand up.”

With all this bravery in the Senate, how, exactly, does a prospective candidate begin inching away from The Frightening One? For an answer to this imponderable, let’s go back to West Point graduate Mike Pompeo. He should know something about Courage In The Face of Imminent Danger, shouldn’t he? Well, this is what he told Semafor when he was asked how and when he was going to begin to move away from Le Gros Terrible de Mar a Lago: “I haven’t shifted. Tell me what the shift is? I’m contemplating presenting myself as the potential president of the United States to the citizens of America. There’s no shift. The things that worked, we should continue to go do.” Wow, you’ll be on the list for the Silver Star for that one, Mike.

Back at the Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas, Eric Levine, a Republican donor from New York, told the AP that it was past time for some of the clowns to get off the stage so the party could settle on two or three candidates and avoid the mistakes they made in 2016. “I don’t think we have the luxury of waiting,” Levine said. “If he [Trump] becomes the Republican brand, the party is going to be destroyed.”

But try to tell that to the base, even the relatively wealthy base that was at the Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas over the weekend. Politico reported that when Trump addressed the crowd by video from Mar a Lago on Saturday, he was “met by rapturous applause.”

I can think of a few folks who hope the crowds stay just as rapturous about The Excessively Made-Up One as the campaign gets underway. Let’s see…the entire Democratic Party, maybe?

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

Please consider subscribing to Lucian Truscott Newsletter, from which this column is reprinted with permission.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

Top Trump Fundraiser Blasts Greene Over Holocaust Rants

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

He retweets Donald Trump, Jr. He just posted an article from the right wing National Review titled, "The GOP Future is Bright." And he raised over a million dollars for Donald Trump's re-election.

Jeff Miller is a former Rick Perry staffer turned energy lobbyist turned corporate lobbyist with clients including Apple, Amazon, Dow Chemical, PhRMA, and the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation.

He's also a board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition and a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council.

And he's furious with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Greene has been equating mask mandates and now "vaccine passports" with aspects of the Holocaust. Last week Greene said Speaker Pelosi's mask mandate was "exactly" like what happened in Nazi Germany, including putting Jews on trains and sending them to the gas chambers.

Tuesday morning she wrote: "Vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo just like the Nazi's forced Jewish people to wear a gold star," and added, "Vaccine passports & mask mandates create discrimination against unvaxxed people who trust their immune systems to a virus that is 99% survivable."

Her anti-semitic remarks and her coronavirus disinformation were too much for many, some of whom are blaming House GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for not seeking to expel her from Congress.

But Miller focused on Greene, slamming her in a tweet:

Here's how some are responding:

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Major Jewish Groups ‘Offended And Appalled’ By Rep. Greene’s Anti-Semitism

The leaders of an influential group of Jewish nonprofits called on Friday for Congress to take action against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), after an old Facebook post Greene posted surfaced in which she pushed a false and offensive conspiracy theory that a wealthy Jewish family was responsible for a deadly wildfire in California in 2018.

The heads of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, whose members include leaders of both liberal and conservative Jewish organizations, said in a statement, "There must be a swift and commensurate response from Congressional leadership making clear that this conduct cannot and will not be allowed to debase our politics."

"We are outraged by the statements, past and present, of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene," the three leaders of the Jewish nonprofit said. "She routinely traffics in unfounded conspiracy theories that are often antisemitic in nature. As an avid supporter of QAnon, Representative Greene espouses antisemitic canards, such as placing blame on 'the Rothschilds' for recent wildfires in California and declaring that 'Zionist supremacists' are behind supposed nefarious plots."

The Republican Jewish Coalition — a lobbying group whose mission statement reads, "We seek to foster and enhance ties between the American Jewish community and Republican decision makers. We work to sensitize Republican leadership in government and the Party to the concerns and issues of the Jewish community" — also denounced Greene, saying it has always found Greene "deeply offensive."

"We opposed her as a candidate and we continue to oppose her now," the RJC said in a statement. "She is far outside the mainstream of the Republican Party and the RJC is working closely with the House Republican leadership regarding next steps in the matter."

The statements from the organizations came after Media Matters for America discovered a 2018 Facebook post in which Greene blamed the deadly Camp wildfire in California that year on laser beams from space somehow connected with the "Rothschild Inc, international investment banking firm."

The Rothschild family has appeared frequently in antisemitic conspiracy theories for 175 years.

Greene has since deleted the Facebook post as she continues to scrub her social media accounts of offensive posts as they are unearthed by the media.

In other examples, CNN reported that Greene had called repeatedly in 2018 and 2019 for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders to be executed. Media Matters for America found old comments from Greene in which she said school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, were "false flags" events meant to build support for gun control.

Greene can also be seen harassing and threatening David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland shooting, in a video that went viral this week.

Democratic lawmakers are seeking to have Greene expelled from Congress.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), who called for her expulsion weeks ago after Greene helped incite the deadly insurrection by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, reiterated her call on Friday. Bush said Greene threatened her in a hallway in the Capitol, and she was moving her office away from Greene's for her own and her staff's safety.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he was going to have a "conversation" with Greene, but did not comment on whether he would support any consequences for her comments and actions.

Axiosreported that Republicans had been repeatedly warned that Greene's unhinged views would cause problems for their party. Her racist, Islamophobic, and antisemitic views were already well known before she was elected.

But McCarthy ignored those warnings, embracing Greene and telling the country in November after she was elected to give her an "opportunity" to serve before drawing conclusions about her.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.


Trump Will Attend Large Public Event Despite Coronavirus Warnings

Trump Will Attend Large Public Event Despite Coronavirus Warnings

Businesses and governments across the country are heeding advice from public health experts by canceling large gatherings in order to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Yet Donald Trump is ignoring that advice as he keeps his plan to deliver remarks to the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual conference in Las Vegas over the weekend, which is being held at a casino owned by Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson.

It’s unclear how many people will be in attendance at the conference, as the coalition did not immediately respond to a question on how many guests are expected.

However, last year the conference drew almost 1,500 people to the event, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Public health experts have said that events with hundreds of people should be canceled to stop the spread of the virus, which has already reached pandemic levels and could swamp the U.S. health care system if it continues to infect more and more people.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told House lawmakers on Wednesday that the worst is yet to come with the virus.

Countries like Italy, where cases of COVID-19 disease are growing exponentially, are struggling to care for patients with their existing health care system — something that experts fear could happen in the United States if efforts to stop the spread of the virus fail.

Fauci went on to recommend that large gatherings be postponed.

“We would recommend there not be large crowds,” Fauci said. “If that means not having any people in the audience when the NBA plays, so be it.”

So far, numerous state and local governments, as well as major businesses, have canceled events thanks to that warning, including the South by Southwest festival in Austin, the Coachella music festival in California, and professional sports games in Seattle, among other events.

Former Vice President Joe Biden and independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders both canceled campaign events Tuesday night in Ohio at the behest of the state’s governor, over concerns about spreading the virus.

Meanwhile, San Francisco banned public events with more than 1,000 people, while Washington State — experiencing one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks — is restricting events to 250 people in a trio of counties.

Yet Trump and the Republican Jewish Coalition are thus far ignoring advice and pressing on. The Trump campaign also announced plans to hold a Catholics for Trump event on March 19.

While the Trump campaign ultimately decided against holding a rally in Reno, Nevada, campaign spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany said on Fox Business on Wednesday that it’s not worried about hosting rallies.

“The president is the best authority on this issue. He takes into consult the words of everyone around him, that would include [Health and Human Services Secretary] Alex Azar, that would include Dr. Fauci, that would include others. So, I’ll leave it to the president,” McEnany said. “Right now, we’re proceeding as normal.”

She went on to criticize Biden for heeding public health experts when he canceled his planned primary night speech in Ohio — leading Fox Business host Stuart Varney to criticize her.

“I mean, you are immediately going to be hit with this,” Varney said.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.