What's new
By:

The Biden Administration and All Things Politics


Donald Trump Jr., the former president's eldest son, Tucker Carlson, the influential right-wing commentator who spoke at Trump's convention, and Omeed Malik, a business executive and donor who has contributed to both Trump and Kennedy’s campaigns this election cycle, have been working behind the scenes to convince the independent candidate to end his bid for the White House and endorse Trump.

Now, Kennedy is planning to suspend his campaign on Friday and to throw his support to Trump, two sources familiar with his plans told NBC News, though they noted that talks are ongoing.

Trump Jr., Carlson and Malik each held a series of meetings and calls with each candidate to negotiate an exit and endorsement by Kennedy.

A pact between Trump and Kennedy is an outcome Democrats — including some other Kennedys — have been predicting for some time. Jack Schlossberg, John F. Kennedy’s grandson, told NBC News on Wednesday that he “wouldn’t be surprised if he was working for President Trump at some point or in the past.”

RFK selling out to trump. Doubt it ends well for him. Joining trump rarely does.
 

Few people have invested more personal time and energy in anything than Donald Trump has invested in convincing the world, and perhaps himself, that he is more popular than the publicly available evidence would suggest. (what a great and true sentence)

Trump has been the Republican nominee twice before, earning about 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton in 2016 and about 7 million fewer votes than Joe Biden four years later. His response each time was to insist that the numbers were wrong or insignificant or both, claiming after 2016 that there was some undetected fraud that led to his losing California and New Hampshire (among other places) and claiming after 2020 that there was undetected fraud, well, everywhere.

But there are also many other facets of his efforts to prove that his popularity extends beyond the visible world. How else can we explain his obsession with the size of rally crowds or with television ratings or with the number of people who engage with him on social media?

As we saw in the aftermath of the 2020 election, the point of intersection between Trump’s interest in proving his popularity and actual electoral outcomes is a dangerous place to be. Trump spent much of his last year in office insisting that his reelection was all-but-certain unless Democrats cheated — which, he said repeatedly (without evidence but with bad argumentation), they were planning to do. Then he lost, and there was chaos.

He is at it again. At a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump insisted that the only way he could lose in November would be if his opponents were to cheat.

“Our primary focus is not to get out the vote,” he said. “It’s to make sure they don’t cheat, because we have all the votes you need. You can see at every house along the way, has signs: Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump-Vance, Trump-Vance.”

People familiar with political campaigns can’t read this sentence because they just smacked their foreheads in disbelief. Disbelief first of all at the contrast Trump draws between not needing to turn out votes and there are lots of votes out there. Which is why you want to have a good turnout/get-out-the-vote operation, to ensure those ballots are cast.

That assumes that the votes are actually out there, of course, of which — the other reason all those foreheads that got smacked — lawn signs are not a strong indicator. Candidates like lawn signs because they feel like a measure of support. But they are not. They aren’t according to research, they aren’t as his allies have seen, and they aren’t as he should have seen. They are no more an indication of robust political support than, say, a nonscientific poll conducted by a partisan on social media.

Harris became the Democratic nominee, and perceptions of who will win have drawn even. That’s in part because Democratic confidence in their candidate has risen. It’s in part, too, because Republicans are less confident than they were. And that’s not a measure of some new cheating scheme that accompanied Harris; it’s clearly mostly a recognition that she is polling better.

But this perception hasn’t made its way up to the guy at the top of the Republican ticket. Instead of saying — as candidates often do and as Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, did on Wednesday — that the race is close and that he, therefore, needs his base to commit to voting, Trump says it all comes down to imaginary cheating.

Trump can lose in November, and, if history is any guide, he may well get fewer votes than Harris. But he can’t or won’t acknowledge this, and his team and supporters can’t or won’t act as if it’s a possibility as a result.
 
fishonjazz said:

Few people have invested more personal time and energy in anything than Donald Trump has invested in convincing the world, and perhaps himself, that he is more popular than the publicly available evidence would suggest. (what a great and true sentence)

Trump has been the Republican nominee twice before, earning about 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton in 2016 and about 7 million fewer votes than Joe Biden four years later. His response each time was to insist that the numbers were wrong or insignificant or both, claiming after 2016 that there was some undetected fraud that led to his losing California and New Hampshire (among other places) and claiming after 2020 that there was undetected fraud, well, everywhere.

But there are also many other facets of his efforts to prove that his popularity extends beyond the visible world. How else can we explain his obsession with the size of rally crowds or with television ratings or with the number of people who engage with him on social media?

As we saw in the aftermath of the 2020 election, the point of intersection between Trump’s interest in proving his popularity and actual electoral outcomes is a dangerous place to be. Trump spent much of his last year in office insisting that his reelection was all-but-certain unless Democrats cheated — which, he said repeatedly (without evidence but with bad argumentation), they were planning to do. Then he lost, and there was chaos.

He is at it again. At a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump insisted that the only way he could lose in November would be if his opponents were to cheat.

“Our primary focus is not to get out the vote,” he said. “It’s to make sure they don’t cheat, because we have all the votes you need. You can see at every house along the way, has signs: Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump-Vance, Trump-Vance.”

People familiar with political campaigns can’t read this sentence because they just smacked their foreheads in disbelief. Disbelief first of all at the contrast Trump draws between not needing to turn out votes and there are lots of votes out there. Which is why you want to have a good turnout/get-out-the-vote operation, to ensure those ballots are cast.

That assumes that the votes are actually out there, of course, of which — the other reason all those foreheads that got smacked — lawn signs are not a strong indicator. Candidates like lawn signs because they feel like a measure of support. But they are not. They aren’t according to research, they aren’t as his allies have seen, and they aren’t as he should have seen. They are no more an indication of robust political support than, say, a nonscientific poll conducted by a partisan on social media.

Harris became the Democratic nominee, and perceptions of who will win have drawn even. That’s in part because Democratic confidence in their candidate has risen. It’s in part, too, because Republicans are less confident than they were. And that’s not a measure of some new cheating scheme that accompanied Harris; it’s clearly mostly a recognition that she is polling better.

But this perception hasn’t made its way up to the guy at the top of the Republican ticket. Instead of saying — as candidates often do and as Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, did on Wednesday — that the race is close and that he, therefore, needs his base to commit to voting, Trump says it all comes down to imaginary cheating.

Trump can lose in November, and, if history is any guide, he may well get fewer votes than Harris. But he can’t or won’t acknowledge this, and his team and supporters can’t or won’t act as if it’s a possibility as a result.
Click to expand...

The FBI should arrest The Rapist for fomenting an insurrection if he promotes violence again.
 
Younger woman of color vs. older white man. Middle class vs. silver spoon. Immigrant family vs. family separation. Future vs. past. Service vs. self. Care vs. cruelty. Prosecutor vs. criminal.
 
Proving that most religious people, along with most mormons, who overwhelmingly vote for The Rapist, are farcical idiots who have no morals whatsoever and are living the biggest lie.



Christians x 2024 election(Aug 9-13, WaPo ABC Ipsos poll)

White evangelicals: Harris 15% Trump 78%

White mainline Protestants: Harris 41%. Trump 54%

White Catholics: Harris 37%. Trump 56%

Black Protestants: Harris 89%. Trump 9%

Hispanic Catholic: Harris 50%. Trump 47%
 
As expected:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign said in a Pennsylvania court filing Friday that he is endorsing Donald Trump for president.

The campaign also requested that he be removed from the Pennsylvania ballot, though it was not immediately clear that he was officially dropping out of the race (lol). It came a day after he sought to be removed from Arizona’s ballot. He is running as an independent.
 
fishonjazz said:
As expected:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign said in a Pennsylvania court filing Friday that he is endorsing Donald Trump for president.

The campaign also requested that he be removed from the Pennsylvania ballot, though it was not immediately clear that he was officially dropping out of the race (lol). It came a day after he sought to be removed from Arizona’s ballot. He is running as an independent.
Click to expand...

That's too bad. Instant kook hall-of-fame.
 
trump is a man of the people. As long as those people have lots and lots of money to give to him.
finance.yahoo.com

Trump’s businesses are raking in millions of dollars from Republican political campaigns – including his own

Republican candidates and political groups are on track to spend more on Trump’s businesses this year than any year since 2016, federal campaign finance data shows.
finance.yahoo.com finance.yahoo.com

Late last year, former President Donald Trump announced his endorsement of car dealership owner Bernie Moreno for Ohio’s Senate seat – elevating an untested candidate who’d never held public office over several other more prominent Republicans.
Two days later, Moreno’s campaign spent about $17,000 at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, and then followed up by spending an additional $79,000 the next month – making him one of the Florida club’s top political spenders.

He wasn’t alone. With glitzy Mar-a-Lago fundraisers, stays at Trump’s hotels, and flights on the former president’s private jet, Republican candidates and political groups are on track to spend more on Trump’s businesses this year than any year since 2016.

Trump himself has been the biggest spender, both this year and over the last decade. Between his three presidential campaigns, Trump and associated political groups have funneled more than $28 million in campaign donations to his businesses – helping convert the enthusiasm of his political supporters into personal profit.

Other Republicans have followed suit, spending millions at Trump’s properties in an apparent attempt to curry favor with the former president and signal their allegiance to him to GOP voters.

Some of the candidates who’ve spent the most money on Trump businesses in recent years have been new politicians who won the former president’s endorsement despite a lack of past electoral experience or success, including Moreno, former Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker and Arizona Senate hopeful Kari Lake.

“He’s clearly now in complete control of the Republican Party,” said Daniel Weiner, director of the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government Program. “Patronizing his businesses has become one of the accepted ways that candidates and public officials express their loyalty to the party’s leader.”

Some of the biggest spenders are politicians who have never held elected office but received key early endorsements from the former president that helped their campaigns win or avoid competitive primaries.
 
Some comments about RFK decision:

"Kennedy said that he’s suspending his campaign but remaining on the ballot in several states. He also said he was offered a role in a potential second Trump administration." He's backing Trump, and then trying to split the Democratic vote. If that's the case the Democratic base doesn't need him.

The GOP has been funding him from the start...
His SuperPAC was literally 90 percent funded by donors who also gave huge amounts to Trump this election cycle.
Citizens united needs to be reversed.

05/20/2024 06:39 PM EDT

The super PAC backing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got another cash infusion from GOP megadonor Tim Mellon in April, according to the latest campaign finance report.

Mellon is the largest GOP donor this campaign cycle to date, and has now given the American Values 2024 super PAC backing Kennedy’s long-shot independent presidential bid $25 million.

His $5 million donation also made up the vast majority of the super PAC’s haul last month, which totaled $6.1 million.
Click to expand...


So let me get this straight. He was was willing to endorse either candidate, as long as they offered him a position in their administration. How honorable.

Yep
Even his own family has said that his decision today is a betrayal of the values that our father and family hold dear. They said it is a sad ending to a sad story.
They also endorsed Harris/Walz

Let's all remember that earlier this week, he offered to endorse Harris as long as she promised him a Cabinet seat. She said, "No thank you".

Well RFK Jr basically sold his campaign to the highest bidder. I applaud Dems for not playing this game and think this simply shows Republicans lack the moral character to be leaders. It's all transactional with them.


He doesn't care who he endorses as long as he gets a job.

The Kennedy family released a statement disavowing his endorsement of Trump.

Not shocked, just more weirdness. And remember, this guy will get an important job under a Trump admin.

Doesnt matter, all 3097 people who supported him wont make a difference.

So, a rich guy from a billionaire family throwing his support behind another privileged billionaire - hmm, maybe the 30,000 page tax code needs some more loopholes for billionaires, eh? We need reform, and we need to take power back from the ultra rich political donor class so that the people in public office are working for the needs of hard working Americans making the median wage of $22 per hour. I say no to kleptocrats!

Unfortunately, RFKJr was offerings his endorsement to whoever would guarantee him a position in their administration. Dems turned him down and trump is stringing him along with empty promises and will drop him when he is no longer useful like he does everyone else. When your endorsement is sold to the highest bidder, it has no real value.

Too bad we won't know what Trump bribed him with unless Trump wins. Harris, to her credit, refused to pay to play with this peanut. This shows Trump's desperation.

He called Trump “ barely human “ and yet he endorses him. This says a lot about his character and his willingness to put country over self ambition. Good riddance!

To perfectly counteract his effect, I too will immediately suspend my campaign and endorse Harris/Walz, and hope my 2 voters do likewise.

Harris didn't give him a seat at her table so he endorsed Trump. His word and endorsement means nothing. It's empty.

RFK JR approached both candidates willing to sell his endorsement. Only one has low enough morals to take him up on that offer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page
Back
Top