White House gas export review to freeze new projects for more than a year

The Biden administration's review of new natural gas export terminals is expected to last up to 15 months, according to two people familiar with the planning, a move that could tamp the brakes on the fast-growing business and clash with some of the president's foreign policy priorities.

The administration's review of the Energy Department's process for assessing whether new liquefied natural gas meet the public interest, first reported by POLITICO last week, will look into how the fast growing industry impacts climate change, as well as the environmental effects on the communities where the plants that chill the gas into liquid and are loaded onto tankers.

The White House is expected to make the announcement Friday, though that could slip to early next week depending on last-minute planning, according the two people, who were granted anonymity to discuss policies that have not yet been publicly released.

The review freezes the development of CP2, a mammoth export project that Venture Global LNG has been planning for coastal Louisiana. Environmental groups have called on the Biden administration to quash the project, which the say will lock in shipments of the fossil fuel for years and worsen climate change.

The United States is the world's largest producer of natural gas, and its exports of the fuel have skyrocketed since the new wave of export terminals started coming online eight years ago. Now as the leading supplier of LNG, U.S. shipments helped Europe reduce its dependence on Russian supplies in the wake of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

The administration is of the mind that “we have to take a breath,” said one of the people. “We’re already the world’s largest exporter and we’re going to double that. Let’s clear the decks a little bit.”

The decision to push approvals for any new LNG export permits past the November election may assuage environmental groups that have made U.S. exports of natural gas a new litmus test for Biden going into his reelection campaign. And despite the oil and gas industry's heavy lobbying against any review, White House officials were confident that the moratorium on new export permits would not choke off U.S. natural gas shipments into the global market that is currently well supplied, and given that there are several U.S. projects already holding permits that are already under construction, the two people said.

The review would not interrupt the eight LNG export plants currently operating, the people said. Those plants ship 12 billion cubic feet of gas a day, about 10 percent of the country’s total gas production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Nor would the review impede the 10 projects that already hold DOE export permits and currently are currently under construction. Those new projects, once built, would double the amount of U.S. LNG going to market by 2028, EIA data shows.

Instead, the review would put a hold any new permits for an additional 10 projects that have applied for DOE permits but have not received them and whose backers have not made final investment decisions whether even to build the projects.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, White House clean energy advisor John Podesta, climate advisor Ali Zaidi and White House energy security advisor Amos Hochstein have helped craft the review's language, the sources said. The review will look to update how DOE weighs climate change, environmental justice and domestic economic impacts when considering new applications to export LNG to countries with which the United States does not have a free trade agreement.

A spokesperson for Venture Global blasted the idea that the administration might put a moratorium on new permits.

“Such an action would shock the global energy market, having the impact of an economic sanction, and send a devastating signal to our allies that they can no longer rely on the United States,” VG spokesperson Shaylyn Hynes said in a statement.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment.

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/Hr9bDAP
via IFTTT

Read More

US pledges support for UK after egghead suggests putting salt in tea

American professor’s extraordinary claim riles Brits.

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/xrXRCMn
via IFTTT

Read More

Appeals court shoots down Trump’s bid to sideline his DC gag order

A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. has rejected former President Donald Trump’s bid to lift a gag order that sharply restricts his ability to criticize witnesses in his criminal case for attempting to subvert the 2020 election.

In a terse ruling on Tuesday, the full 11-member bench of the appeals court — which includes three of Trump’s own appointees — opted against reconsidering a three-judge panel’s Dec. 8 decision upholding the gag order. The order was initially imposed by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, after prosecutors requested the limitation, citing threats to witnesses, attorneys and court personnel driven by Trump’s vitriol.

Trump’s last shot to lift the gag order now lies with the Supreme Court, if he chooses to appeal further. A spokesman for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Notably, none of the judges of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals even asked for a vote on Trump’s request for the court to rehear the issue — a sign that no judge was pushing hard for further review. That stands in contrast to a decision earlier this month in which the court’s four conservatives went out of their way to raise concerns about a ruling that upheld special counsel Jack Smith’s effort to obtain Trump’s Twitter data.

The three-judge panel that backed Trump’s gag order largely agreed that Chutkan had a responsibility to restrict Trump’s speech, given the threat it posed to Trump’s prospective trial.

“The court had a duty to act proactively to prevent the creation of an atmosphere of fear or intimidation aimed at preventing trial participants and staff from performing their functions within the trial process,” Judge Patricia Millett wrote for the unanimous panel of three judges, all of whom were Democratic appointees.

Trump has assailed the gag order as an infringement of his First Amendment rights, particularly amid his resurgent bid for the presidency. But the courts have emphasized that, if Trump is not restricted in what he’s allowed to say, his continued attacks on witnesses and prosecutors will pose grave threats to the security of those individuals and the integrity of the trial itself.

Under the gag order, Trump is barred from attacking key witnesses against him. He is also barred from making statements that attack prosecutors — other than Smith himself — and courthouse staff if the statements are deemed to interfere with the proceedings.

The gag order ruling was not the most anticipated action by the D.C. Circuit this month. Trump is also awaiting a ruling about whether he will be deemed “immune” from the charges that Smith brought against him. A three-judge panel appeared skeptical of that claim earlier this month, but it’s unclear when the panel will issue an opinion. An adverse ruling for Trump would likely result in yet another appeal to the Supreme Court.

The litigation over the immunity question has paused proceedings in his Washington, D.C. case, which actually prolongs the amount of time Trump is likely to be subject to the gag order. He is also subject to a limited gag order in New York — imposed in a civil case accusing him of business fraud — that restricts his ability to comment about court personnel.

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/fIgoUzC
via IFTTT

Read More

Faculty strike aims to shut down 23-campus California State University

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A strike by the faculty union at California State University disrupted classes Monday at the largest system of higher education in the U.S., the latest effort by academic workers to leverage the power of organized labor to push for higher wages and benefits.

The five-day walkout started as a majority of students at CSU's 23 campuses returned for the first day of the semester. Professors, who are seeking a 12 percent raise, canceled classes in droves and marched picket lines, some in heavy rain.

“We’re hoping that this is a moment of visibility, of showing how committed we are, how much we need that 12 percent raise,” Emily Bukowski, a CSU Sacramento geography lecturer and union leader, told POLITICO.

The union represents about 29,000 professors, librarians and other staff, making its strike the largest by faculty in U.S. history. A December 2022 walkout at the University of California, a sister system of higher education, included student workers and researchers and was nearly twice the size.

This is also the first time the California Faculty Association has staged a systemwide strike since its founding in 1983. It follows rolling strikes at four campuses last month amid stalled negotiations with CSU.

The university has already provided a pay increase of 5 percent in a contract that ends this year. In addition to the 12 percent raise, the union wants increased parental leave and more gender-neutral bathrooms and lactation rooms. The two sides haven't had a bargaining session since Jan. 9, and no further negotiations are scheduled.

“CSU management wants to maintain the status quo, which is not working for the vast majority of our faculty, students, and staff,” CFA Vice President of Racial and Social Justice Chris Cox said in a statement. “In order for us to have a properly functioning system in years to come, we need to improve the working conditions for faculty and learning conditions for students.”

The work stoppage builds onto an organizing drive by CSU student assistants and a national wave of graduate student unionization that recently spread to the University of Southern California.

University administrators contend many of the union’s non-economic demands shouldn’t be subject to bargaining, and that the system can’t afford the salary request.

“As a new chancellor four months into the job, I have no interest in a strike,” CSU Chancellor Mildred García told reporters Friday. “But we must work within our financial realities.”

The CSU avoided an even larger disruption by reaching a tentative deal on Friday with 1,100 Teamsters who had also planned to join the strike.

University officials were working Monday to keep campuses open, with cafeterias, counseling offices and other services still running.

It’s unclear how many professors canceled classes. The union previously said 95 percent of its members voted to authorize a strike, but it has declined to say how many people participated in the vote. University leaders have attempted to track cancellations by having students report them online, though at least a few sympathetic students have flooded the forms with gag responses in an attempt to foil the efforts.

“I support them 100 percent," said CSU Sacramento senior Shaun Harris, who drove 45 minutes to campus to find picketers outside the campus. "They deserve the same rights that every other working professional has and if they feel they are being paid unfairly, they should not give their labor,”

CSU previously offered 15 percent salary increases to the faculty over three years, though future year raises would have been contingent on funding increases from the state — which are now in jeopardy amid a $38 billion budget deficit. The faculty rejected that offer.

The CFA’s contract runs only through the end of this academic year. The university plans to begin negotiating the faculty’s next contract later this semester.

Ariel Gans contributed to this report.

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/y9PMLlj
via IFTTT

Read More

After dropping presidential bid, Burgum says he won't seek third term as governor

A month after dropping out of the presidential race, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has announced he won’t seek a third term as governor.

“Serving as governor and first lady of North Dakota has been one of the most incredible and rewarding experiences of our lives,” Burgum said in a statement Monday. “We are eternally grateful to the citizens for giving us this opportunity.”

Burgum, who repeatedly polled in the single digits while in the race for president, recently endorsed Donald Trump. Burgum plans to join the former president onstage at a rally Monday in New Hampshire alongside two other former GOP presidential candidates who recently endorsed Trump, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Vivek Ramaswamy.

The two-term North Dakota governor dropped out of the race last month after operating on a mostly self-funded campaign, thanks to his prior career as a software entrepreneur. Burgum’s company, Great Plains Software, sold in 2001 to Microsoft for $1.1 billion.

Burgum made it to the debate stage twice, gaining some name recognition when he became the first candidate to offer $20 gift cards to those who contributed $1 to his campaign in an effort to hit the RNC’s qualifying rules.

Burgum, 67, first ran for governor in 2016 and won in a major upset when he defeated North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem by more than 20 points. Prior to being governor, Burgum had never held a public office.

While in office, Burgum has cut taxes, rolled back transgender rights and signed a law banning almost all abortions in the state. As a presidential candidate, Burgum said he would not sign a nationwide ban on abortion.

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/UrBNgWX
via IFTTT

Read More

The single biggest issue dividing California's Senate race

No other issue has divided the top three Democratic candidates in the California Senate race as much as the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Rep. Adam Schiff and Rep. Barbara Lee represent opposite ends of their party on the war, with Schiff largely supporting Israel’s response while Lee has called for an immediate cease-fire since the day after the Oct. 7 attack.

Rep. Katie Porter has sought a middle-of-the-road approach, calling for a “bilateral cease-fire,” in effect demanding an end to the violence with conditions attached.

Divisions between the three representatives — one of whom is expected to win the Senate seat in deep-blue California — mirror intraparty rifts among Democrats nationwide over the Biden administration’s response to the war.

A recent poll from the Public Policy Institute of California found more than 90 percent of Californians have heard at least some news about the conflict, and protests have disrupted major political events around the state. Mark Baldassare, a veteran pollster at PPIC, said voters are showing unusually high interest in the candidates’ stances on the international issue.

“It’s a foreign policy issue that’s front and center in terms of the job description,” he said.

Former Los Angeles Dodgers star Steve Garvey, a Republican, is polling in the top three. After a Thursday meeting with Bay Area Jewish leaders, he said he stood with Israel, and does not support a cease-fire.

Garvey, Schiff, Porter and Lee will defend their positions during their first California Senate debate from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. PST Monday in Los Angeles. It will be livestreamed on POLITICO.

How did the war become such a central issue in the race?

Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has sharply divided Democratic primary voters as the death toll — now estimated at more than 24,000 — rises. (About 1,200 people were killed in the October attacks against Israel). The tensions have spilled over into protests at the party’s fall convention in Sacramento and within the halls of the state Capitol.

The cease-fire issue has become a litmus test for the party’s far left flank, with many citing Lee’s stance as the reason for supporting her campaign.

Where does Lee stand?

Lee has stressed her call for an immediate cease-fire “since the beginning,” on the trail. She argues that an armistice with conditions is “not a ceasefire at all” — an apparent dig at Porter.

She has also used the issue to point to her opposition to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which made her an progressive icon in Congress.

Lee has sought to use the contrast to galvanize primary voters on the left. At the California Democratic Party’s fall convention in Sacramento, protesters gave her a standing ovation while heckling Schiff and Porter.

Lee has repeatedly campaigned on her cease-fire stance during town halls hosted by groups like Our Revolution, one of the largest progressive organizations in the country and an offshoot of Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign.

Her reach is limited, though, without the money to buy many TV ads or communicate statewide beyond the most highly engaged groups.

How has Porter shifted?

Porter and Schiff were initially in lockstep on the issue, with both refusing to back calls for a cease-fire and showing strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself in the wake of the attacks.

But Porter carved out a separate lane in December as the death toll mounted and President Joe Biden, a steadfast supporter of Israel, expressed growing frustration with the Israeli government over its “indiscriminate bombing.”

Porter said the U.S.’s role should be “to identify and push for conditions where a lasting bilateral ceasefire is possible.” She attached conditions including the release of all hostages seized in the attacks, the end of Hamas control of Gaza and security for Israel.

While rival campaigns accused Porter of shifting with public sentiment, her campaign said her new position reflected changing realities in a volatile war.

Has Schiff changed his position at all?

Schiff has resisted pressure to back some form of a cease-fire. He has been most in line with the Biden administration’s stance of supporting Israel’s right to respond to Hamas while calling on its government to minimize civilian casualties and support humanitarian pauses for aid.

Schiff has said he cannot support a cease-fire while Hamas continues to hold Israeli citizens hostage and while Hamas remains in power in Gaza.

“No state could allow that kind of terrorist threat to exist on its border,” Schiff recently told the editorial boards of McClatchy’s California newspapers.

Late last year, Schiff sharply condemned the Oakland City Council for passing a cease-fire resolution while refusing to denounce Hamas. He’s also raised concerns about antisemitic actions on college campuses and rising Islamophobia.

Schiff, at the same time, has been critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On Friday, he and other Jewish members of Congress denounced Netanyahu for rejecting calls to create a Palestinian state in a post-war scenario.

How is it resonating in polling?

A recent poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found registered voters in California divided over the cease-fire question: 41 percent supported Israel agreeing to a cease-fire even if Hamas remains a force in Gaza; 36 percent supported Israel continuing military operations until Hamas is removed; and 23 percent had no opinion.

The poll found young voters and people of color were less supportive of Israel’s actions than older and white voters.

The word “cease-fire” has become especially loaded in the conflict, with Palestinians and many progressive activists using the word to call for an immediate halt to Israel’s military campaign. Many Democrats have also sought to broaden the definition with a “bilateral cease-fire” that includes conditions.

Tyler Gregory, CEO of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council, said he views both Schiff and Porter’s stances as comparably supportive of Israel, saying, “the difference is largely semantics.”

“We take issue with the term ‘cease-fire,’” Gregory added. “It’s become so politicized, it means different things to different people. The question is, ‘What do you believe is going to achieve peace and security?’”

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/EFTvy3x
via IFTTT

Read More

How DeSantis collapsed in the glare of a presidential campaign

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — It was never supposed to be this way.

A year ago, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' operation had grand visions for his campaign. He was going to burst out of Iowa triumphantly and sail through New Hampshire on his way to capturing the GOP nomination as the new face of the party.

But reality set in after his recent distant second place showing in Iowa and grim polls showing him in single digits in New Hampshire. DeSantis on Sunday afternoon exited the presidential race and endorsed former President Donald Trump, saying: "I can't ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don't have a clear path to victory.”

It’s a bruising end for a candidate looking to take his winning streak in Florida national and demonstrate to Republicans that he could continue the MAGA-favored policies of isolationism and cultural conservatism without the signature Trump chaos.

It turns out chaos wasn’t the liability he had hoped.

“At the end of the day, there was a lot of political malpractice,” said Dennis Lennox, a Republican operative who helped organize a letter on behalf of Michigan state GOP lawmakers to get DeSantis to run for president. Lennox cited DeSantis’ struggles to shake perceptions about him — including that he couldn’t connect with voters on a personal level. He also concluded that DeSantis failed to surround himself with experienced advisers.

“Simply too many within his inner circle were either Tallahassee operatives with little national experience at the presidential level or they were part of the New Right Twitter chattering class and had little to no grounding outside their very insular and detached reality,” he said.

A little more than a year ago, coming off a resounding reelection victory in his home state, DeSantis was seen as a rising conservative star whose record and massive fundraising would help him become the next big thing for Republicans eager to move away from Trump.

But along the way, he was doomed by missteps and a resurgence for the former president.

Political observers and people within DeSantis’ orbit saw signs of a poor campaign for months as DeSantis dropped in the polls and fought off negative headlines about his awkward persona, funding mismanagement, failure to hang onto major donors and political allies, as well as struggles over how to effectively contrast himself with Trump.

Whit Ayres, who was a pollster for DeSantis in his 2018 gubernatorial campaign, described similar findings in his research. “They’re not going to settle for a second-best Trump if they can get Trump himself,” Ayres said. “The market was for the ‘Maybe Trump’ voters. … That is the market that Nikki Haley has tapped that Ron DeSantis has failed to tap.”

Few anticipated the degree to which Trump’s criminal indictments would seal his support among Republican voters. But before DeSantis even jumped into the race in late May, he was speaking on Trump’s behalf — slamming a “manufactured circus by some Soros DA” in reference to the pending Manhattan district attorney’s indictment of the former president.

Ninety-one criminal charges spanning four cases later, it has become clear Trump was stronger than ever. He broke fundraising records off of his Georgia mugshot, sailed in poll after poll and campaigned on an adopted martyr persona. DeSantis was left to all but defend Trump, while attempting to persuade Republicans he had become a more viable option in a general election.

The Florida governor, known nationally as a bulwark against federal Covid policies, also found himself defined by the former president. Trump’s campaign and political action committee went after DeSantis in a highly organized, effective — and expensive — way, months before the Florida governor even got into the race and at a time when he was legally barred from responding to criticisms under federal elections laws.

Then DeSantis, 45, botched his May 2023 entrance into the presidential campaign by launching in a glitch-saddled appearance on X rather than showcasing his young, telegenic family at an in-person event.

DeSantis lost traction in the months ahead. By July, his campaign had to announce rounds of layoffs, leadership shake ups and what they described as a “reload.” November carried leaks about the internal drama that surrounded Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting his candidacy. Several news outlets closed out the year with DeSantis’ political obituary.

“There's a lot of false narratives that are out there,” Scott Wagner, chair and CEO of Never Back Down, told POLITICO during an interview when asked about campaign missteps after the Iowa caucuses were called for Trump. “And there's a lot of false narratives that are pushed by people who have different agendas. I don't think the governor's campaign has been a bad campaign. I think it's been a good campaign. He's done things the right way.”

The DeSantis campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

DeSantis’ biggest miscalculation may date back to 2019, when he fired his political operative, Susie Wiles, during his first term under accusations that she leaked a fundraising document, which she denied. Trump later hired Wiles, a seasoned operative deeply connected in Florida, to run his presidential campaign alongside Chris LaCivita. Together, they wielded a disciplined, orderly and decidedly un-Trumpian campaign.

They also had the advantage of bringing in seasoned experts DeSantis had dumped, including former aide Justin Caporale, former deputy chief of staff James Blair and Florida director Brian Hughes. In an early sign of how they planned to embarrass the governor on his home turf, the Trump campaign collected endorsements from Florida’s congressional delegation right as DeSantis was set to visit DC and before he had the power to court endorsements because he hadn’t formally entered the race. After that, they began aggressively wooing Florida’s grassroots Republicans.

While the endorsements may not have had any effect on the average Republican caucus goer in Iowa, they showed an intimate knowledge of what made DeSantis tick and gave the impression that he was unprepared and disconnected from his home state.

“He ousted people who knew where the skeletons were and knew all his baggage,” said one Florida party member who had firsthand knowledge of the history between DeSantis and Wiles and was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject. The member was granted anonymity to freely discuss the issue. “Those were the people who orchestrated his takedown.”

Even the strongest DeSantis supporters said the biggest hurdle that he could not overcome was Trump.

“The problem we have is Trump and DeSantis have the same base and Trump created that base....I don't think any of the campaign mishaps were fatal flaws. The problem is running against Donald Trump. If Trump is not running, Ron DeSantis is the nominee,” said a fundraiser for DeSantis who was granted anonymity to speak openly.

Indeed DeSantis’ campaign announcement on Twitter was beset by technical glitches. Nearly eight months later, on a sub-zero night in Iowa, that campaign all but ended in frozen despair.

How DeSantis should have criticized Trump is a matter of debate, even among those who wanted to see the governor do well. Some were concerned DeSantis focused too hard on Trump’s base by trying to run to the right of the former president.

“DeSantis tried to wrestle Trump for the ‘Always Trumpers,’ which is basically like a death cult,” said pollster Sarah Longwell, who founded the anti-Trump Republican Accountability Project. “That was a strategic error. He wasn’t going to get those people.”

In doing so, Longwell said DeSantis alienated voters she classified as “Move on from Trumpers” — voters who registered their positions as “super DeSantis curious” throughout her focus groups, before souring on him.

Others thought DeSantis should be more critical of Trump. Among them was New Hampshire Majority Leader Jason Osborne, who said he had numerous conversations with DeSantis encouraging him to attack Trump’s White House record early on and was glad when he finally did.

“I was hoping what I was signing onto was a campaign of really prosecuting Trump’s record … There is just so much to talk about,” Osborne said. “Every hiring decision was wrong. Every interaction with Congress was wrong, how he let himself get steamrolled by everyone who wanted to spend trillions of dollars.”

DeSantis eventually stacked up a list of Trump failures at campaign stops: the Covid shut down, rising debt, failure to complete a Southern border wall and his inability to purge bureaucrats from the federal government.

He seemed to think the path to victory was out-flanking Trump on the right: Signing into law a six-week abortion ban, vowing to shoot suspected drug cartel members “stone cold dead” and railing against the “woke mind virus.” He also adopted MAGA-style isolationism, calling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “territorial dispute.”

The positions appealed to many evangelical Christians who play an influential role in the Iowa caucus, helping DeSantis win the coveted endorsement of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds. But they turned off some wealthy donors, who had initially been eying his candidacy.

But a national political operative who supports DeSantis and reviewed polling on Trump said it was difficult to find an argument that resonated with the former president’s base.

“Their connection isn’t to principles or to the America First agenda — it’s emotional to Trump,” said the person, granted anonymity to share insights about the primary. “There’s no logic that’s going to convince them.”

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/bronweX
via IFTTT

Read More

DeSantis exits presidential race

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Gov. Ron DeSantis ended his turbulent campaign Sunday after he was unable to convince Republicans to set aside their allegiance to the man who helped his own political career.

DeSantis’ run came to a halt following a dispiriting second-place finish in Iowa, a state where he and allies poured millions into an aggressive get-out-the-vote effort that featured the governor visiting all 99 counties. He spent week after week in the state instead of establishing a presence in other early voting states like New Hampshire and South Carolina.

DeSantis had initially been considered a formidable challenger to former President Donald Trump. But DeSantis was unable to gain traction in the primary, with Trump instead steadily consolidating support and rising in the polls before a dominant win in Iowa.

On Sunday, DeSantis also endorsed the former president for president.

"[Trump] has my endorsement because we cannot go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents," he said.

DeSantis picked up the endorsement of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and other key evangelical leaders in Iowa, but he couldn’t win over the bulk of voters who remained loyal to Trump despite his 91 criminal charges.

DeSantis initially tried to avoid criticizing the former president — whose backing helped him win the 2018 primary for governor — but in recent months argued that Trump had lost “his fastball” and failed to live up to his previous promises such as building a border wall.

The decision by DeSantis to formally end his campaign will immediately lead to speculation about his future. DeSantis, 45, has repeatedly ruled out serving as a running mate for either Trump or former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and has said he would rather return to Florida and finish his term as governor for the remaining two years. DeSantis is in his second stint and will be term-limited from running again in 2026.

“I don’t think it’s a position that offers much,” DeSantis said earlier this month about the vice president spot.

DeSantis has previously said he would endorse the eventual GOP nominee, but the question is whether his decision to challenge Trump will hover over any future political moves including a possible run in 2028.

Trump has repeatedly gone after DeSantis for being “disloyal” and said DeSantis would have left politics completely if not for Trump’s help. DeSantis and Haley also repeatedly clashed ahead of the Iowa caucuses as her allies called DeSantis “weak.” Their animosity spilled over during a recent debate in Iowa, where Haley called DeSantis desperate and the governor said she’s “mealy mouthed.”

After winning the governor’s race in 2018, DeSantis rose to national prominence amid his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, where he pushed back against mask and vaccine mandates as well as lockdowns. He followed that up with high-profile battles over race and gender identity and a clash with Disney, one of the state’s biggest employers, after the entertainment giant criticized legislation that banned teaching about sexual orientation in lower grades that critics called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

He crushed Democrat Charlie Crist in his 2022 reelection battle by nearly 20 points and was seen by some Republicans and high-profile donors as the successor to the chaos of the Trump years. Another significant advantage was that DeSantis was able to raise tens of millions of dollars for his reelection effort that eventually wound its way to a super PAC that was set up to aid his presidential campaign.

But the campaign fell into disarray amid a series of missteps, including a decision to delay his entrance into the race so he could get the Florida Legislature to pass a series of contentious GOP red-meat pieces of legislation that DeSantis could use on the campaign trail. His initial campaign announcement held on Twitter, now called X, was a glitch-filled exercise. Then it turned out his campaign was spending too much money too quickly, which led to layoffs and a reshuffling of top staff.

DeSantis’ main reason for losing, however, was his inability to persuade a majority of Republican voters to abandon Trump, even as he tried to sell himself as a more competent conservative whose record in Florida proved he could “beat the left” as he constantly repeated on the campaign trail.

The criminal indictments against Trump — along with the poor numbers for President Joe Biden — led to a consolidation of support for the former president. He broke fundraising records off of his indictment and swept poll after poll. DeSantis was left to all but defend Trump, while attempting to persuade Republicans he had become a more viable option in a general election.

Ahead of the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, DeSantis argued that the media and Democrats wanted Trump to be the nominee because then the 2024 election would focus on Trump’s criminal charges, his unproven allegations of voter fraud in the last presidential election, and the January 6th riots.

“Let’s focus on your issues, let’s focus on Biden’s failures,” he said during a January campaign stop in Iowa.

Yet he also veered away from more direct criticism of Trump, telling a voter during an early January stop that he didn’t want to “smear” the former president even though the media wanted him to do that.

“I’ve never understood Ron’s approach,” said former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who waged his own long-shot campaign to bring down Trump and said that DeSantis did not give voters a real reason to pick him over the former president. “If you present yourself as New Coke, and Coke’s still on the shelves, they are going to buy Coke not New Coke.”

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/E74QGZi
via IFTTT

Read More

A patchwork anti-Trump crew is rallying around Nikki Haley

When former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson threw his support behind Nikki Haley in the GOP presidential race, his message was as much an indictment of the former president as it was an endorsement of Haley ahead of New Hampshire’s Tuesday primary.

“Anyone who believes Donald Trump will unite this country has been asleep over the last 8 years. Trump intentionally tries to divide America and will continue to do so. Go @NikkiHaley in New Hampshire,” Hutchinson wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday afternoon.

Haley’s well-timed bump in the polls in the Granite State — bolstered by a timely endorsement from the state’s popular GOP governor, Chris Sununu — has elevated the first-in-the-nation primary as the event to watch this election season. It’s also drawn Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and former Trump administration official, the backing of several of the loudest anti-Trump voices still left in the Republican Party.

Around the same time Hutchinson called on New Hampshire voters to support Haley, GOP Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont did the same: “After years of controversy, violent rhetoric and growing polarization, the very last thing we need is four more years of Donald Trump,” Scott said in a statement, calling Haley “our only chance to ensure America has the choice it deserves in November.”

Just over a week earlier, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who’s been eyed as a possible third-party candidate, backed Haley ahead of Iowa’s caucuses, calling her “the strongest chance” for Republicans to put forward the best possible candidate in the general election.

And the most-prominent New Hampshire newspaper, the Union Leader, joined the chorus this weekend, endorsing Haley, touting both her character and her experience. Despite its conservative bent, the paper backed Joe Biden in the 2020 general election, defying its long history of supporting conservatives in the general election.

“If you can select a Republican ballot on Tuesday,” the editorial said, “we urge you to select Nikki Haley as your next president. New Hampshire is ready for a change. America is ready for a change. The world is ready for a change. We want a better option than we have had for the past eight years, and Nikki Haley is that option.”

The slate of late-breaking endorsements would normally be a boon for a candidate hoping to sway voters in the waning days of a campaign. But for Haley, it also brings risk.

The former U.N. ambassador has, like most of the GOP candidates, painstakingly avoided going after Trump head on. Only recently did she ramp up her criticism of the former president, and rule out the possibility that she would accept a job as Trump’s vice president.

While anti-Trump messaging may charm New Hampshire’s more moderate electorate — which includes a significant number of independent voters — it’s unlikely to appeal to the conservatives in other early voting states. And in recent campaign stops in New Hampshire, Trump has attempted to play up Haley’s independent support, claiming that liberals are attempting to "infiltrate the Republican primary,” in New Hampshire.

Haley is also still missing the support of two of the most nationally recognizable Trump detractors: former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Christie’s exit from the race earlier this month was poised to be a win for Haley, as polls indicated that likely Christie voters eyed Haley as a possible second choice in the race. But Christie, whose campaign hinged on taking on Trump, slammed Haley on his way out the door.

“She’s gonna get smoked,” Christie was caught saying of Haley — although he did not reference her by name. “And you and I both know it. She’s not up to this.”

Haley is still trailing Trump by double digits in recent polls of Granite State voters, her surge appearing to slow. Even Sununu, her top surrogate in the state, has tempered expectations for her on Tuesday.

"She doesn't have to win. I mean, look, nobody goes from single digits in December to 'you absolutely have to win' in January," he said Sunday during an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Trump, meanwhile, has scooped up the support of three of the other also-rans: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Vivek Ramaswamy and most recently (and most stingingly) Sen. Tim Scott, Haley’s fellow South Carolinian, as well as two of his 2016 primary foes, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

“It comes right down to, what does America need for the next president?” Scott said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“The only conclusion,” he added later, “is Donald Trump.”

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/KXCo2TV
via IFTTT

Read More

EU, US near deal on police access to online data

The European Union justice chief is "confident" of an agreement, despite "some major differences" in how to protect civil rights.

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/hLbwASi
via IFTTT

Read More

Populism Keeps Rattling the Globe. Elites Have No Idea What to Do.

DAVOS, Switzerland — For more than a decade, forces on the ideological extremes have torn at the global political fabric. And for just as long, the luminaries at the World Economic Forum have fretted about how dangerous that phenomenon is — for the businesses they lead and the countries they govern.

But years into the transnational struggle with resurgent populism, the corporate leaders in Davos appear to have no serious solutions.

In conversation after conversation here, I detected resignation and helplessness among business executives when it came to their counterparts in government. There’s a desperate desire to see the world’s political leaders appeal more to moderates instead of capitalizing on extremes, but there’s also recognition that the political market doesn’t easily reward the people in the middle.

C-suite types fear the polarization will only deepen as half of the global population, in more than 60 countries, votes in 2024 — everywhere from South Africa to the United States. For them, financial consequences can be stark, especially if the results of an election threaten shipping lanes or when campaign rhetoric leads to violence in a place they’ve invested.

“The biggest concern is instability,” the CEO of a private equity fund told me.

These 12 months may well be the biggest election year in history. Many of the campaigns are unfolding in hotbeds of populist and nationalist sentiment, including major democracies such as India.

Far from seeing this as a moment to turn back the tide of insularism, executives are girding for endless backlash. Some say they are worried about speaking up about politics because the far right and the ultra left see them as an enemy. They also have financial responsibilities to shareholders of all political stripes and so must be careful about taking certain stances.

The CEO of one consumer goods company expressed dismay at the bleak campaign messaging across the globe.

“What I worry about is that all the narratives are negative,” this person said.

The WEF’s Global Risks Report 2024 made it clear that social fractures are a widespread worry. Respondents listed “societal and/or political polarization” in the top three concerns, behind No. 2 artificial intelligence-generated misinformation and disinformation and No. 1 extreme weather.

But even as they long for moderate forces to rise above the extremes, there appears to be little sense of how the business community can help make that happen. I kept asking for specific solutions that companies could offer to reduce societal polarization, but I received no concrete responses.

A health care company CEO — who, like others, was granted anonymity because the issue is sensitive in his circles — mused that by having workforces that are spread out and diverse, and by encouraging teamwork, maybe firms can counter destructive political forces.

“As much as politics fails in bringing people together, companies need to step up in bringing people together,” he said. “Many challenges from climate change to how to get equitable access to health care — opportunities and challenges — need debate and need teamwork, and not polarization and not simplification.”

It was a nice sentiment, but it didn’t inspire much more than vague hope.

Like many of the other political observations here, it could have been shared at any time in the past decade. If lessons have been learned from the world’s most acute populist convulsions — the first Trump administration, the Bolsonaro experience in Brazil, the implementation of Brexit and others — they were not in evidence.

Part of the problem for this crowd may be the incredible scale of the election year at hand.

Even some government leaders say the sheer number of elections makes for an uncertain business and regulatory landscape as politicians on the campaign trail put off difficult decisions until after the voting is over.

“I’m very nervous,” said Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, Norway’s minister of international development. “While all these countries are going into campaign mode, things are not getting done.”

Next month’s presidential election in Indonesia — a Muslim-majority country with a population above 270 million — is a case in point. Some corporate leaders are expected to delay their initial public offerings until after they have a sense of how pro-business the new leadership will be.

But by far the No. 1 election of concern here is the one in the United States, which could see Donald Trump return to the White House.

Corporate leaders are reading closely about the Republican frontrunner’s views on tariffs and other economic practices, which are far more isolationist than even the relatively cautious Joe Biden. Whichever way the United States is heading will affect the policies of other governments, leading business executives to ask some very basic questions.

“It’s something as simple as this: Many businesses we have operate across borders. Is a country for or against free trade?” the private equity fund CEO said.

Among those warning Trump against putting up trade barriers is Jeremy Hunt, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer.

“It would be a profound mistake to move back to protectionism,” he said in Davos when asked about a possible Trump return.

One top question is the fate of the massive Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, which is spurring investment in green energy in the United States.

Trump’s team has indicated he plans to gut the law. So business leaders wonder whether now’s the time to put their money in the United States or other places indirectly affected by that legislation or whether their long-term contracts could wind up meaning nothing in a year.

In fairness, talk of pure business far outstripped talk of politics as the snow fell in this ski town.

This is, after all, the World Economic Forum, and the sessions are more likely to be about sustainability metrics or taxes than the political scene.

Attendees hobnob over wine and endless cheese in storefronts taken over by Arab Gulf states or companies that go by inscrutable acronyms. Stand outside the bathrooms and ask passersby if they are CEOs and a shocking number will say yes. (“One day!” a woman responded with a smile.)

The coats are oversized, and so are the egos.

And so, in some cases, is the sense of self-pity. In this rarefied environment, I was told that it doesn’t help to be a billionaire, millionaire or merely very rich when it comes to the political environment these days.

After all, actors on both the far left and far right of the political spectrum have anger toward the rich gathered here in Davos, often blaming them for the world’s ills.

“The right says everyone is under threat. The left says the capitalist system is exploitative,” the consumer goods company CEO said.

Some in the Davos crowd preferred to focus on the positive, trusting the logic of the markets to overcome populist currents.

Several pointed to renewable energy as an area in which economic forces appeared to be overcoming partisan resistance because of the falling costs of turning to wind, solar and other sources of power. Even politically conservative places, such as the state of Texas, are taking advantage of non-fossil fuel energies, despite such resources being viewed as leftist.

“If you’re driving down a highway in Texas, and there’s lots of really long straight highways in Texas, you’re going to have oil rigs, as far as the eye can see on this side — you’ve got wind farms, as far as the eye can see on this [other] side,” Suni Harford, president of UBS Asset Management, said during a panel when I asked about electoral calendar concerns.

The Biden administration sent a notable delegation to the forum. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan delivered remarks and answered questions on the main stage, but they stuck to well-worn talking points.

Even if the U.S. officials had unveiled some grand new ideas, most people here would not have taken them too seriously — certainly not to the point of investing money. Attendees watch the polls, and they know that it’s possible the Biden administration could be gone in 2025.

It does not help matters that the U.S. election comes so late in the year, carrying the potential to upend the global order just two months before the Davos crowd gathers here again.

That intense uncertainty could be why, according to the private equity fund CEO, at this point “very few people have priced in the risk of Trump coming back” in their market analyses.

“In a sense, most people are looking at this as business as usual and not thinking about how disruptive the Trump administration is going to be on geopolitics,” he said.

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/slS9Nop
via IFTTT

Read More

She Took a Big Risk Backing Someone Other Than Trump. Then Her Candidate Lost.

DES MOINES, Iowa — She made her last stand in a public school library.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds had taken a huge political gamble in backing her friend and fellow Gov. Ron DeSantis for the Republican nomination, bucking both Iowa governors’ traditional caucus neutrality and her erstwhile ally Donald Trump. The former president had ever since been foretelling the end of her political career and trashing her from campaign stops in her own state, sometimes getting boos at the mention of her name. These were ominous signals for a rising Republican star in a party beholden to Trump.

But in the days before the caucus, through a blizzard and plunging temperatures, through stubbornly consistent polls showing Trump lapping the field, Reynolds was out on the trail with DeSantis, chuckling gamely at his usually-people-don’t-leave-Florida-for-the-Midwest-in-January schtick, urging Iowans to defy the pollsters, to “layer up” against the cold and “show up” at the caucuses. The polls weren’t showing what she was seeing, she said. He was going to win this thing.

So on Monday night, she stepped to the front of a room of about 100 of her Madison County neighbors and made her pitch, once again, for a candidate polls said would be lucky to take second place. She thanked the caucusgoers, said what an honor it was to be their governor and took only a veiled swipe at the man expected to win by double-digits: “We need somebody that’s focused on the future, not the past. … Somebody that will fulfill the promises that they made to the people when they signed up to run for this position.” Polls were one thing, but surely a popular Republican governor could at least sway a room full of her own Republican neighbors in Madison County.

When all the handwritten paper slips had been counted about a half-hour later, Trump had dominated the room, just like he would the rest of the state. At that caucus location, the former president got 79 votes to DeSantis’ 23. The library erupted in applause and cheers.

It was a deflating moment for a governor accustomed to taking risks and winning. Since ascending to the post in 2017 — becoming Iowa’s first female governor after then-President Trump appointed then-Gov. Terry Branstad ambassador to China — Reynolds has evolved into one of the most successful conservative state executives in the country, with a national profile to match. If she had wanted, she could have just taken the safe route — used the 2024 presidential race, and Iowa’s caucus, to raise her profile further and showcase her state.

Instead, she went back on her promise to stay neutral and seemed to risk it all. From the moment she endorsed DeSantis (she said she didn’t think Trump could win in a general election and DeSantis could) it was clear what she stood to lose, not least a good relationship with the vengeful man who could be the next Republican president. Even before the endorsement happened, Trump declared that “it will be the end of her political career;” he continued to bash her right up until the night of caucus.

But on the caucus night itself, it wasn’t necessarily clear that she’d lost anything other than her bet on DeSantis, or even that she would. The chance that she might have foreclosed on a possible spot in a Trump administration — some had once thought her a likely shortlist vice presidential pick — bothered her not in the least, according to a senior adviser, who told me that, given her 11 young grandchildren in Iowa, she didn’t want to go to Washington no matter who was president. And the potential fallout from Trump supporters in her own state seeking revenge on his behalf? Well, I couldn’t find any hint of that in the caucus room. In fact, there was a surprising amount of big-tent love.

“We agree to disagree on things like this,” said Angie Daniels, a communications contractor wearing a Trump sticker. Daniels had “zero animosity whatsoever about [Reynolds] supporting DeSantis. … It’s not our dog in the race. But, you know, that’s the whole point of all this.”

Reynolds was confident enough in her outlier position (Chris Sununu in New Hampshire is the only other prominent GOP governor to have endorsed against Trump this cycle) that she only doubled down after the results were in. Later on caucus night, at a West Des Moines Sheraton, she somewhat implausibly introduced DeSantis to a crowd of still-fired-up supporters as the next president of the United States. (Trump, at his victory rally, meanwhile, embraced Attorney General Brenna Bird, who had endorsed him, and told the crowd: “She stepped up. She’s going to be your governor someday, I predict.”) Reynolds is no “Never Trumper” — she has made clear she’d support Trump if he gets the Republican nomination. She’s just not ready to do that yet — unlike a parade of other prominent GOP figures (Sens. Marco Rubio and Mike Lee, for instance) who raced to endorse Trump before the first vote was cast.

Still, the school library that night was an almost gauzy picture of what post-primary Republican unity might look like — part Norman Rockwell, part realpolitik. Trump voters I spoke to there were fully at ease simultaneously liking Reynolds’ record in the state and Trump’s in the country. They waved away Trump’s own comments about her as just Trump being Trump. “It’s all fair in love and war, when you’re doing the political crap,” said Bryan Arzani, the mayor of Truro, the town where we stood. Arzani is enough of a Trump fan to have attended the former president’s rally in Washington on Jan. 6 to protest the 2020 election results. (“[I] didn’t do anything stupid,” he said.) The DeSantis endorsement “does turn some people off who don’t understand the bigger picture,” he said, but not enough of them to really hurt her politically. A few minutes later, I watched him and Reynolds share a hug.

Travis Daniels, Angie’s husband, an Army vet in a cowboy hat, didn’t think Trump’s attacks would hurt Reynolds in the state, either. “Iowans support Iowans,” he said. “We take this very seriously. We do our research. But at the end of the day, I’ve got to go to church with half these people. I’ve got to go to the grocery store with them. I do business with them. So we don’t hold grudges like that. …We’re all on the same team.”

‘Out there on an island’

Kim Reynolds has arguably been two different governors: the Kim Reynolds before Covid and the Kim Reynolds after. The pre-Covid version had found herself suddenly elevated from a lieutenant governorship that had also come about rather early in her state Senate career, and she’d barely assumed the office before she faced a tough reelection campaign. She wasn’t taking major conservative legislative swings; her priorities included items such as mental health care and education funding. And then, a little over a year after she won a close reelection, the pandemic hit.

“I think during the pandemic is when Governor Reynolds really grew into the role and became the strong leader she is today,” said state Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver, a Polk County Republican. Indeed, talking to Reynolds fans at various pre-caucus campaign stops, I often heard people cite her pandemic performance as the reason voters liked her. She resisted shutdown orders at a time when most states had them and Trump’s pandemic team encouraged them.

As it happened, Ron DeSantis was doing something similar in Florida, which is how the two got to know one another. They were “out there on an island,” Reynolds said at quite a few DeSantis events leading up to the caucus — both heavily criticized in national media for shunning public health mandates and indeed some of the guidance coming from the Trump administration itself. The risks both of them faced — indeed every governor around the country faced — were not just political: They were deciding matters of life and death, children’s education and their citizens’ livelihoods.

Meanwhile, it was an election year, though Reynolds herself was not on the ballot. A headline from The New York Times that fall warned that Iowans were turning “sour on the GOP” and that Reynolds’ pandemic performance could drag down other Republicans, including Trump and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst. Both in fact won the state quite comfortably in 2020, and on election night, Reynolds praised Trump’s administration as one of “action and outcomes,” and Trump himself as “a leader, a fighter, a president who puts America and Americans first.” And the following January, Reynolds signed a then-controversial law requiring schools to offer an option for in-person learning five days a week — making Iowa one of only four states to have such a requirement, along with Florida, Texas and Arkansas. Again, the critics were loud, but in the end the statistics tended to support the decision to bring students back early; a McKinsey study found that Iowa experienced some of the lowest pandemic-related learning delays in the country. Nationwide by the end of 2021, according to a POLITICO ranking, Iowa ranked just below average in health outcomes, with better-than-average economic and educational performance.

By the 2022 midterms, she’d built up some political clout, and she used it. She had made “school choice” a priority that legislative session, pushing a bill that would put state money into scholarships for private schools. Democrats accused her of trying to defund public schools, and some Republicans objected to the idea on conservative grounds — that government largesse could cost private schools their independence, or that the idea would hurt their small rural school districts. So, somewhat Trumpishly, she backed primary challengers to some of those dissenting Republicans. She caused some bitterness in the process, but she also prevailed: Four of the four incumbents she sought to oust ended up losing their primaries. Trump’s endorsement record was far longer but nowhere near as strong.

In that midterm year of 2022, Trump was blamed for dragging down other Republican candidates and thwarting an expected red wave, but in Iowa under Reynolds, the red wave actually happened. Republicans gained statewide offices, knocked off the last Democrat in the congressional delegation and expanded their legislative majority. “Kim had massive coattails,” the Republican operative David Kochel told the Des Moines Register at the time. She used that majority in turn to push through a slate of ambitious conservative proposals, including tax cuts, strict abortion restrictions and a major school choice bill.

In her inauguration speech, she discussed her pandemic response and said that trusting in God had given her “freedom to be bold and not beholden” whether “to others, to elections, or even to what’s popular.” Her school choice bill, in fact, wasn’t popular, according to an Iowa Poll that found 62 percent opposed to it after it passed. Nor did Reynolds, who openly supported a six-week ban on abortion when a majority of Iowans thought abortion should be legal in most or all cases, suffer the post-Dobbs punishment other Republicans did that year. In 2023, she got that abortion ban through the legislature, too. (The law is currently blocked and set for review in the state’s Supreme Court.)

‘She has Trump antibodies now’

“Today, Reynolds is much diminished,” David Yepsen, a former Des Moines Register chief political reporter and “Iowa Press” host, told Iowa Starting Line this week. “She upset [and] alienated a lot of Republicans with her endorsement and very active campaigning by DeSantis’ [side]. That goes against historic practices of leading Iowa politicians to sort of stay out of this thing.”

But Reynolds is not up for election until 2026 — and she hasn’t even announced she’s running. She will be in her mid-60s by then, and her husband Kevin is currently battling lung cancer. But at that point, if she even does seek a political future after having served two terms and change, her actual record likely will be more important to her fate, one way or another, than a two-year-old endorsement. Disaffected pro-Trump legislators will have a say in shaping that record over the next two years, but the effect, if any, remains to be seen.

“I think future elections, no matter who is running for what, are going to be won and lost on issues and organization,” said Rob Sand, Iowa’s auditor and the state’s only elected statewide Democrat. He is no fan of Reynolds’ policies in general, and he also points to narrow losses for statewide Democrats in 2022 as evidence that the state is not as red as it looks. In which case, to the extent the DeSantis endorsement makes any difference at all, it may be in a general election rather than a Trump-backed primary challenge. “I think a meaningful number of people who have voted for both Democrats and Republicans are frustrated with someone who basically spent six years saying one thing” — that she supported Trump — “and then turned on a dime.”

It’s not that Reynolds lacks critics. (Just before Christmas, she declined to participate in a federal food assistance program for low-income children; Democratic opponents, not surprisingly, noted the disconnect with the spirit of the season.) It’s just that the criticisms I heard in Iowa tended to be more about substance than about Trump. Polls vary depending on the survey, but one that Donald Trump cited is a Morning Consult governors’ approval ranking showing her with the highest disapproval, at 47 percent. This was an 8-point jump in disapproval from the beginning of 2023, and the result notably preceded the DeSantis endorsement but came after an active legislative session in which the governor got major conservative priorities passed, including polarizing education policies.

“To me it feels like, as a teacher, she just doesn’t ask us what we think would be helpful,” said a teacher at Perry High School, where a shooter had opened fire on Jan. 4, killing a sixth-grader and wounding five other students. The principal was shot trying to protect other students in the attack, and days later died of his wounds. Reynolds visited the school and promised support. She called the principal a hero and ordered flags flown at half-mast after he died. But this teacher, a former Republican disaffected by Trumpism, pointed to Reynolds’ ongoing push to streamline Area Education Agencies, which provide services including special education and mental health support. The teacher said those services were indispensable after the shooting. “The thing I’m really disgusted with is her saying she’s going to give us every support possible and then gutting the organization that can do that.”

In other words, it’s policy and track record that matters most, not her perceived popularity with the notoriously fickle and loyalty-obsessed Trump. That is reportedly not the vibe inside MAGA World, where the attention is very much on who did or didn’t endorse Trump — and most crucially when they finally “bent the knee” (looking at you, Ted Cruz). But there’s at least one bona fide conservative out there whose advice to Reynolds is simply not to sweat it.

“I told her she has Trump antibodies now,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who campaigned for DeSantis alongside Reynolds leading up to the caucus.

Massie knows from getting crosswise with Trump. The then-president tweeted that Massie was a “third rate Grandstander” after he voted against the CARES Act pandemic stimulus in 2020; Massie still remembers the exact date of the tweet, March 27, as a day he thought he could lose his seat in an ongoing primary. But despite Trump’s popularity in his district, which outstripped his own — despite, indeed, the popularity of the CARES Act among likely Republican voters there — Massie raised money off of Trump’s attacks and crushed his opponent with 81 percent of the vote that year. The next cycle, Trump endorsed Massie, who suggested that the endorsement should call him “a first-rate defender of the Constitution.” “So I went from a third-rate grandstander to a first-rate defender of the constitution in two years,” Massie said. (For what it’s worth, Massie said he, too, would support the eventual Republican nominee.)

“The reality is, the way bullies work is they pick on the weak,” Massie told me. “She’s not weak.”

from Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/ZIHQJ1j
via IFTTT

Read More