Who has the better chance of beating Biden? Or someone else?

Ham Sammich... 😟

I don't like the attacks. Run a clean primary and whoever wins it, SUPPORT THAT GUY.

Someone else please.

It will be someone else in all likelihood. Early front runners seldom to ever win unless they are seated presidents.

Trump as always is acting like he's playing a part in one of those fake reality outrage shows.
He spends more time attacking DeSantis than saying anything of substance.

I wish DeSantis would stay in Florida so he can continue to irritate Robert.

Whoever it is they will be called a fascist.

(Anyone to the right of Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney is a fascist by today’s standards.)

I heard something the other day, “Trump is the clown nose on a clown country”.

Lefties will say the cult of personality is the defining characteristic of fascism and the MAGA crowd represents that with Trump who is something like Hitler who proclaimed. “One people, one realm, one leader”.

That's pretty funny coming from those who worshipped that empty suit Obama in such a cultlike manner. In our lifetime has there ever been a bigger personality cult as that?

Looking at Biden's popularity within his own party, that old dude ain't got no cult-like status, although, in his own mind, he's a legend. He has acted in the manner of a fascist dicktator as is clearly represented by the policies of his administration. It's also amusing that those are the policies the LEFTIES love the most and they are the only reason they are clinging to him as their presumptive leader although he has no personality.

And "Witch Hunts" - don't' forget witch hunts!

That might be humorous if we didn’t have pop-cult, media and government bureaucrats lying and taking actions to steer elections.

Then we get certain people whining about Russia meddling when they could never have the impact internal criminals did.

Honest people wouldn’t care about this stuff even if they don’t like Cheeto.

^
THIS!

^
Also This.

OH NO! The pop-cult, media and government bureaucrats have indicted Trump with 7 more felonies - Federal crimes this time!

Oh the Humanity!

Trump with either Vivek or RFK as VP

I heard that the LEFTY talking heads have been saying DeSantis is a bigger threat to duhmacracy than Trump. 🤣

Vivek says a lot of good things.
This is very interesting, Vivek talks with Tom Woods

Ep. 2360 Vivek on Assange, Ukraine and Supreme Court

Entrepreneur and GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy discusses the Supreme Court's smackdown of our alma mater, along with his views of the Espionage Act, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Ross Ulbricht, and other issues.

Donald Trump’s 2024 Panderama

On ethanol in Iowa and Yucca Mountain in Nevada, he tells voters whatever he thinks they want to hear, unlike Ron DeSantis.


WSJ
“I fought for Iowa ethanol like no President in history and ethanol, period, like no President,” Mr. Trump said in Council Bluffs. “Every Iowan also needs to know that Ron DeSantis totally despises Iowa ethanol and ethanol generally.” In Congress, Mr. DeSantis supported ending the Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS. Mr. Trump called this “his vicious plan to annihilate the Iowa farming industry,” while saying that Mr. DeSantis wants to “outsource every American farming job to a foreign country.”

On Saturday the panderama was in Las Vegas. “DeSanctimonious voted to fund Yucca Mountain as a dumping ground for nuclear waste,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s not just a little area. That stuff, it’s all over the place. What a mess.” As if that were too subtle, Mr. Trump added: “If you don’t mind nuclear waste dumped in your backyard, I suggest you vote for Ron DeSanctimonious.”

Mr. Trump isn’t the first politician who would chug a gallon of ethanol to win the Iowa caucus. Yet Sen. Ted Cruz won in 2016 after supporting a phase out of the RFS. His plan, as he wrote in the Des Moines Register, involved “getting Washington out of the way, and allowing Iowa farmers to sell their product on a fair and level playing field.”

That’s the right conservative policy. The RFS is a distortionary law that dictates how much ethanol and other biofuels must be blended into America’s fuel supply. Refiners who don’t hit the targets must buy credits invented by the government, a cost that can reach hundreds of millions of dollars a year. In what other industry would Republican politicians line up to applaud such a cockamamie scheme?

As for Yucca Mountain, does Mr. Trump believe in nuclear energy or not? If he claims the answer is yes, does this noted real-estate man have an alternative site he would like to propose to store radioactive waste? Or has he not given it a moment’s thought, beyond whether it can hurt Mr. DeSantis?

By the way, someone should probably tell Mr. Trump and voters: “The Trump Administration included funds to restart Yucca Mountain licensing in its FY2018, FY2019, and FY2020 budget submissions to Congress,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

Mr. Trump’s fans say he’s willing to fight for what’s right, no matter how unpopular it might be. The reality is that Mr. Trump is more a prisoner of the polling than most of his rivals, because he has so few core beliefs.

It's true enough, Trumps blustering pandering skills have reduced him to just another archetype of your typical politician.

DeSantis Sheds Staff Amid Heavy Spending

The dismissals come as his campaign for the Republican nomination for president struggles to gain traction against former President Donald J. Trump, who is leading in polls.


NYT
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has started cutting campaign staff just months into his presidential bid, as he has struggled to gain traction in the Republican primary and lost ground in some public polls to former President Donald J. Trump.

The exact number of people let go by the DeSantis team was unclear, but one campaign aide said it was fewer than 10. The development was earlier reported by Politico.

The dismissals are an ominous sign for the campaign and also underscore the challenges that Mr. DeSantis faces with both his fund-raising and his spending, at a time when a number of major donors who had expressed interest in him have grown concerned about his performance.

An aide, Andrew Romeo, described the campaign’s circumstances in an upbeat tone.

“Americans are rallying behind Ron DeSantis and his plan to reverse Joe Biden’s failures and restore sanity to our nation, and his momentum will only continue as voters see more of him in person, especially in Iowa,” he said in a statement. “Defeating Joe Biden and the $72 million behind him will require a nimble and candidate-driven campaign, and we are building a movement to go the distance.”

The race is still in its early days, and past campaigns have reshuffled in the months before voting begins. Former Senator John McCain blew up his campaign in the summer of 2007 before winning the Republican nomination. Mr. Trump’s went through three iterations in his successful bid, although none came during the primary races.

Donald Trump. The former president is running to retake the office he lost in 2020. Though somewhat diminished in influence within the Republican Party — and facing several legal investigations — he retains a large and committed base of supporters, and he could be aided in the primary by multiple challengers splitting a limited anti-Trump vote.

Ron DeSantis. The combative governor of Florida, whose official entry into the 2024 race was spoiled by a glitch-filled livestream over Twitter, has championed conservative causes and thrown a flurry of punches at America’s left. He provides Trump the most formidable Republican rival he has faced since the former president’s ascent in 2016.

Chris Christie. The former governor of New Jersey, who was eclipsed by Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, is making a second run for the White House, setting up a rematch with the former president. Christie has positioned himself as the G.O.P. hopeful who is most willing to attack Trump.

Mike Pence. The former vice president, who was once a stalwart supporter of Trump but split with him after the Jan. 6 attack, launched his campaign with a strong rebuke of his former boss. An evangelical Christian whose faith drives much of his politics, Pence has been notably outspoken about his support for a national abortion ban.

Tim Scott. The South Carolina senator, who is the first Black Republican from the South elected to the Senate since Reconstruction, has been one of his party’s most prominent voices on matters of race. He is campaigning on a message of positivity steeped in religiosity.

Nikki Haley. The former governor of South Carolina, who was a U.N. ambassador under Trump, has presented herself as a member of “a new generation of leadership” and emphasized her life experience as a daughter of Indian immigrants. She was long seen as a rising G.O.P. star, but her allure in the party has declined amid her on-again, off-again embrace of Trump.

Vivek Ramaswamy. The multimillionaire entrepreneur describes himself as “anti-woke” and has made a name for himself in right-wing circles by opposing corporate efforts to advance political, social and environmental causes. He has promised to go farther down the road of ruling by fiat than Trump would or could.

More G.O.P. candidates. The former Texas congressman Will Hurd, Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and the conservative talk radio host Larry Elder have also launched long-shot bids for the Republican presidential nomination. Read more about the 2024 candidates.

Several top DeSantis fund-raisers have said the Florida governor is in it for the long haul, with a focus on the upcoming debates and contests that begin in January.

But Mr. DeSantis’s moves are coming unusually early. And the fund-raising numbers — filed Saturday — show a campaign that will need to make several adjustments, including to travel schedule and to staff size, if it plans to make up lost momentum that began to fade months before Mr. DeSantis formally entered the race.

The DeSantis campaign is also expected to make further changes, according to aides. Policy speeches are planned, along with interviews with the kind of news outlets he has broadly derided, as soon as this week, according to two people familiar with the strategy.

Mr. DeSantis’s struggles appear to be not just about the numbers, but also with the campaign’s message. Late last week, two top DeSantis advisers, Dave Abrams and Tucker Obenshain, were announced to be leaving to join an outside group supporting Mr. DeSantis.

Mr. DeSantis’s campaign finance disclosure with the Federal Election Commission shows he raised roughly $20 million but spent almost $8 million, a so-called burn rate that leaves him with just $12 million in cash on hand. Only about $9 million of that cash can be spent in the primary, with the rest counting toward the general election if he is the nominee.

The filing indicated a surprisingly large staff for a campaign so early in a candidacy, particularly for one with a super PAC that has made a show of how much of the load it is prepared to handle. More than $1 million in expenditures were listed as “payroll” and payroll processing.

Mr. DeSantis’s top expenditures included $1.3 million earmarked for travel, including private jet rental services. The campaign also spent more than $800,000 apiece on digital fund-raising consulting, media placement and postage. The campaign also paid nearly $1 million to WinRed, the online donation-processing company.

Recent Republican primary races have been littered with examples of candidates with early sizzle followed by significant struggles. Scott Walker, who was the governor of Wisconsin, quit the presidential race in September 2015 as he was amassing debt. Jeb Bush, one of Mr. DeSantis’s predecessors as Florida governor and perhaps the biggest donor draw in the 2016 campaign, began shedding payroll amid struggles as well, though much later in the race.

Still, Mr. DeSantis’s allies note that he is further ahead in polls in Iowa than Mr. Bush was in the fall of 2015 and that he has a more natural constituency in Iowa than other challengers. The caucuses will be held on Jan. 15, 2024, and it’s the state where candidates seeking to blunt Mr. Trump must fare well.


I still have not seen a single Desantis for President Bumper sticker or sign in Central Florida.

In Florida, Trump Says DeSantis Has No Path to Victory

Former President Donald J. Trump taunted Gov. Ron DeSantis, his chief Republican rival, for his absence from the conservative Turning Point Action Conference.


NYT
On the home turf of his chief Republican rival and in his adopted state, former President Donald J. Trump told a sprawling conservative gathering in Florida on Saturday night that it was futile for Gov. Ron DeSantis to keep battling him for the party’s presidential nomination.

In a prime-time speech at the Turning Point Action Conference in West Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Trump claimed that his polling lead over Mr. DeSantis and every other G.O.P. candidate was insurmountable, and suggested that the Florida governor should stand down for the good of the party.

Mr. Trump, who leads Mr. DeSantis by roughly 30 percentage points in national polls, dismissed Mr. DeSantis’s early momentum before he officially entered the race in May as a mirage.

“He was never that close, by the way,” Mr. Trump told about 6,000 grass-roots activists at the Palm Beach County Convention Center. Turning Point Action is a political arm of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump grass-roots group focusing on millennial conservatives that was founded by Charlie Kirk.

Mr. Trump seized on his rival’s absence from the two-day event, which drew about a third of the Republican presidential field as speakers.

“I don’t know why he’s not here,” he said. “He should be here representing himself.”

In a statement on Saturday, Bryan Griffin, the campaign press secretary for Mr. DeSantis, shrugged off Mr. Trump’s criticism.

Donald Trump. The former president is running to retake the office he lost in 2020. Though somewhat diminished in influence within the Republican Party — and facing several legal investigations — he retains a large and committed base of supporters, and he could be aided in the primary by multiple challengers splitting a limited anti-Trump vote.

Ron DeSantis. The combative governor of Florida, whose official entry into the 2024 race was spoiled by a glitch-filled livestream over Twitter, has championed conservative causes and thrown a flurry of punches at America’s left. He provides Trump the most formidable Republican rival he has faced since the former president’s ascent in 2016.

Chris Christie. The former governor of New Jersey, who was eclipsed by Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, is making a second run for the White House, setting up a rematch with the former president. Christie has positioned himself as the G.O.P. hopeful who is most willing to attack Trump.

Mike Pence. The former vice president, who was once a stalwart supporter of Trump but split with him after the Jan. 6 attack, launched his campaign with a strong rebuke of his former boss. An evangelical Christian whose faith drives much of his politics, Pence has been notably outspoken about his support for a national abortion ban.

Tim Scott. The South Carolina senator, who is the first Black Republican from the South elected to the Senate since Reconstruction, has been one of his party’s most prominent voices on matters of race. He is campaigning on a message of positivity steeped in religiosity.

Nikki Haley. The former governor of South Carolina, who was a U.N. ambassador under Trump, has presented herself as a member of “a new generation of leadership” and emphasized her life experience as a daughter of Indian immigrants. She was long seen as a rising G.O.P. star, but her allure in the party has declined amid her on-again, off-again embrace of Trump.

Vivek Ramaswamy. The multimillionaire entrepreneur describes himself as “anti-woke” and has made a name for himself in right-wing circles by opposing corporate efforts to advance political, social and environmental causes. He has promised to go farther down the road of ruling by fiat than Trump would or could.

More G.O.P. candidates. The former Texas congressman Will Hurd, Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and the conservative talk radio host Larry Elder have also launched long-shot bids for the Republican presidential nomination. Read more about the 2024 candidates.

“Governor DeSantis spent the day with Iowans and spoke to a packed house at the Tennessee G.O.P. Statesman Dinner later that night,” he said. “This was a day after he delivered the strongest interview at the Family Leadership Summit, which Donald Trump notably skipped. Ron DeSantis is campaigning to win.”

Mr. Trump was greeted onstage with pyrotechnics and a nearly three-minute video montage of the former president. While organizers prepared the stage for his entrance, Mr. Trump’s supporters, many in their ubiquitous red caps, watched musical performances of Elvis and Pavarotti on giant screens.

Mr. DeSantis declined an invitation to speak at the end of the conference on Sunday, according to organizers, who noted that he had worked closely with Turning Point Action during the midterm elections last year and took part in several rallies that supported Trump-endorsed candidates.

A group of women wearing colorful dresses smile as they stand and clap amid a larger crowd.
Mr. Trump spoke for nearly 100 minutes at the conference, meeting a warm reception from the conservative crowd of about 6,000.Credit...Saul Martinez for The New York Times

But on the same day that Mr. DeSantis announced his campaign in May, the conservative group announced that Mr. Trump would headline its conference in Florida, perhaps miffing the host governor.

The lineup of speakers on Saturday may have given Mr. DeSantis further pause. It included three Republican House members from Florida who have endorsed Mr. Trump’s candidacy: Representatives Byron Donalds, Anna Paulina Luna and Matt Gaetz.

In succession, each professed their loyalty to the former president, as booming subwoofers and smoke machines added to the theatrical effect.

Mr. Gaetz, the provocateur who nominated Mr. Trump for House speaker earlier this year during the G.O.P.’s protracted leadership fight, got a roar from the crowd when he said that Mr. Trump’s allies were unflinching.

“Of course, we ride or die with President Donald John Trump,” he said.

And when Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News commentator, dared to suggest at the event that the Republican nominating contest was probably a two-candidate race between Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis, several thousand activists booed.

Ms. Kelly, who famously tangled with Mr. Trump in a G.O.P. debate in 2015, relented.

“The vast majority of the Republican Party wants Trump,” she said, adding that Mr. Trump’s indictments had only burnished his stock with conservative voters. “We all know who the best middle-finger candidate is.”

In a nearly 100-minute speech, Mr. Trump noted that Mr. DeSantis had once been his ally and had sought his endorsement in his first race for governor in 2018.

“I got him elected,” he said. “He was dead. He begged me to endorse him.”

Mr. Trump said that he had been taken aback when Mr. DeSantis later declined to say whether he might challenge him for the Republican nomination, using an expletive to refer to the Florida governor.

Tucker Carlson, who was fired from Fox News in April, whipped the audience into a frenzy with an appearance immediately before the former president.

“I don’t think most unemployed people get a reception like that,” Mr. Carlson said.

Mr. Carlson doubled down on his baseless claims that voting machines had been rigged during the 2020 election and expressed sympathy for the Capitol rioters, saying that a country that squashes discussions about the electoral process was not a democracy.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the multimillionaire entrepreneur running for the Republican nomination, also spoke on Saturday. Three other long-shot candidates — Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas; Francis X. Suarez, the mayor of Miami; and Perry Johnson, a wealthy businessman from Michigan — are scheduled to speak on Sunday.

So are Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s onetime chief strategist who was found guilty of contempt of Congress; and Roger J. Stone Jr., the pro-Trump operative who was convicted of obstruction but had his sentence commuted by Mr. Trump. In the convention center’s lobby, Mr. Stone took selfies with Mr. Trump’s supporters.

“All the cool people are here,” Mr. Carlson said.