Campaign Report
|
Campaign Report
|
|
|
Trump ramps up attacks on DeSantis
|
Former President Donald Trump is making it increasingly clear that he won’t go easy on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He’s stepped up his criticism of his would-be primary rival in recent days, even using his first campaign stop in Iowa on Monday to telegraph his strategy for weakening the rising Republican star.
|
© Greg Nash/Associated Press-Phelan M. Ebenhack
|
Speaking to reporters on his plan en route to Iowa, Trump once again took credit for DeSantis’s victory in the 2018 Florida GOP gubernatorial primary, saying that DeSantis “was dead as a dog,” before Trump stepped in and endorsed him in the nominating contest. Asked whether he regretted backing DeSantis in the primary, Trump responded: “Yeah, maybe.”
It was only one of several potshots that Trump took on Monday. During an evening speech in Davenport that was initially billed as an address on education policy, the former president went out of his way to hit DeSantis on several fronts. He accused the Florida governor of being “very, very bad on ethanol” production – a major industry in Iowa – and claimed that DeSantis would “decimate” Social Security.
At another point in his speech, he called DeSantis a “disciple” of former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), one of Trump’s GOP critics, and compared him to Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the party’s 2012 presidential nominee who lost to former President Barack Obama.
It’s not out of character for Trump to go after a political rival, either real or perceived. But his comments offer a clear hint at whom Trump sees as his biggest threat in 2024. DeSantis hasn’t announced a bid for the White House yet, but is actively preparing for a likely campaign and is expected to make a final decision after Florida’s annual legislative session ends in May.
And while he’s the ostensible frontrunner for now, there are some warning signs for Trump. A Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll released on Friday showed that only 47 percent of Iowa Republicans would definitely vote for Trump if he were the GOP’s 2024 nominee. That’s down from 69 percent in June 2021.
Trump’s remarks were also notable because they came just three days after DeSantis made his Iowa debut with stops in Des Moines and Davenport. But DeSantis has yet to actually engage with Trump despite the criticism. During an appearance on Fox News on Monday, he laughed off a question about the attacks.
|
Welcome to The Hill’s Campaign Report, we’re Max Greenwood and Caroline Vakil. Each week we track the key stories you need to know to stay ahead of the 2024 election and who will set the agenda in Washington.
|
|
|
Key election stories and other recent campaign coverage:
|
|
|
Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) slammed Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) on Monday over her support for a 2018 law that rolled back Dodd-Frank banking regulations created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. “What’s the difference between Senator Sinema and me?” Gallego, who is running to replace Sinema in 2024, said in a news release. “When bank lobbyists asked me to weaken bank regulations, I said no. When they asked Senator …
|
|
|
|
Former President Trump leads Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) by 4 percentage points for a hypothetical 2024 GOP presidential nomination among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in a new poll. The CNN survey found 40 percent of the Republican respondents said they’d most likely support Trump, who launched his campaign for another White House term back in November. DeSantis, who hasn’t officially said he’ll run but …
|
|
|
|
Former President Trump journeyed to Iowa Monday, delivering fiery remarks in the state that leads off the Republican primary process. Trump’s trip came just three days after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) held two events in the Hawkeye State. DeSantis looks set to launch his own presidential bid, though he has not publicly said so, and his Iowa appearances were purported to be publicity stops on a book tour. Still, the juxtaposition …
|
|
|
|
Upcoming news themes and events we’re watching:
|
- 21 days until Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election and Chicago’s runoffs
-
214 days until Louisiana’s gubernatorial primary
- 238 days until Kentucky’s and Mississippi’s gubernatorial generals
- 602 days until the 2024 general election
|
|
|
2024 Republicans weigh in on Silicon Valley Bank collapse
|
Declared and potential Republican presidential candidates are weighing in on the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank and the Biden administration’s moves to backstop all of its customers’ deposits, with some accusing President Biden and his administration for “bailing out” the bank.
Let’s hit rewind: Last Friday, the U.S. saw its largest bank failure since more than a decade ago when Silicon Valley Bank, whose clients have included ZipRecruiter and Shopify, was taken over by regulators. The move was spurred as the bank was grappling with the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes.
What the Biden admin is saying: The Biden administration has said that all deposits from Silicon Valley Bank customers will be backstopped and that taxpayers will not be shouldering the cost, but that the deposits will be covered by a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) fund, which received fees from the bank. President Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have underscored that they’re not bailing out Silicon Valley Bank.
He said, she said: But some 2024 GOP presidential contenders aren’t buying what the Biden administration is promising.
Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley argued, “Joe Biden is pretending this isn’t a bailout. It is. Now depositors at healthy banks are forced to subsidize Silicon Valley Bank’s mismanagement. When the Deposit Insurance Fund runs dry, all bank customers are on the hook. That’s a public bailout.”
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy argued in an op-ed for The New York Post published Monday that “everyday customers will have to shoulder the burden of this bailout through higher charges as they top up FDIC.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), widely speculated to be gearing up for a 2024 White House bid, suggested in an interview with Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and politics were to blame for the bank’s collapse but also took a shot at the government, too.
“I also look at it and say, we have such a morass of federal regulations. We have a massive federal bureaucracy,” he said. “And yet they never seem to be able to be there when we need them to be able to prevent something like this.”
|
|
|
Ohio Democrats torn over Biden’s lack of travel to East Palestine
|
© Michael Swensen/Getty Images
|
Democrats in Ohio are torn about the fact that President Biden hasn’t yet visited East Palestine, a community of close to 5,000 in eastern Ohio close to the Pennsylvania border, after a train derailment spilled toxic chemicals into the area.
Biden said he would visit East Palestine “at some point” while Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has already traveled to the area despite Republican criticism over his response to the incident. While the president has many in his party in Ohio and Pennsylvania defending him for not immediately heading to the community, others have voiced frustration over the lack of travel, as The Hill’s Caroline Vakil reports.
“I think a lot of people are waiting,” former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) told Caroline. “A community of people, not just in East Palestine, but around the state, who, in so many ways feel like the federal government has forgotten them, forgotten their plight, forgotten what’s happened to them over the last 30 or 40 years, and then they want the president to show up.”
Meanwhile, other Democrats, like Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), suggest disaster relief is the more pressing issue than a presidential visit.
“I don’t care if he visits or not. What I care about is that the EPA’s there, that the Department of Transportation’s there, that the NTSB [National Transportation Safety Board] is there. And we’re all there pushing for this legislation and pushing Norfolk Southern,” Brown told Caroline.
|
|
|
Branch out with a different read from The Hill:
|
|
|
Former President Trump on Monday unloaded on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), his potential presidential primary opponent, telling reporters he “probably” regrets endorsing the former congressman in a gubernatorial primary in 2018. “He was dead as a dog; he was a dead politician. He would have been working perhaps for a law firm or doing something else,” Trump told a group of reporters traveling with him to Iowa aboard his personal …
|
Former President Trump on Monday claimed former Vice President Mike Pence was responsible for the violence on Jan. 6, 2021, two days after Pence took aim at his old boss for his conduct around the riots at the Capitol that day. Trump, speaking to a group of reporters aboard his personal plane en route to a campaign event in Iowa, responded to comments Pence made at the annual Gridiron Dinner in Washington, D.C., in which the …
|
|
|
Local and state headlines regarding campaigns and elections:
|
-
Texas Senate gives first OK to make illegal voting a felony again (Texas Tribune)
-
Labor unions are split on Chicago mayor candidates as powerful IUOE Local 150 backs Paul Vallas (Chicago Tribune)
-
Judge clears way for trial in Georgia case against voter challenges (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
|
|
|
Election news we’ve flagged from other outlets:
|
-
MIA in 2024: The Republicans Trump vanquished in 2016 (The New York Times)
-
Battleground looks evenly split in first House ratings for 2024 (Roll Call)
-
House Dems launch N.Y. “war room” for 2024 (Axios)
|
|
|
Key stories on The Hill right now:
|
|
|
A Russian fighter jet intercepted a U.S. Air Force drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday, U.S. officials confirmed, bringing down the U.S. aircraft in what Pentagon officials warned could lead to an unintended escalation. President Biden was briefed Tuesday morning on the incident, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told … Read more
|
|
Moody’s Investors Service is weighing a credit downgrade for six U.S. banks following the second- and third-largest bank failures in the nation’s history. The credit rating firm said Monday that the regional banks are “exposed to the risk of uninsured deposit outflows” in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank collapse, which prompted fears that … Read more
|
|
|
Opinions related to campaigns and elections submitted to The Hill:
|
|
|
|
You’re all caught up. See you next time!
|
| | |
