The “Who is running in 2024?” tea leaves thread

[NewYorkExpress]

Trump has $102 million Cash on hand, $82 million of which was raised in the last six months.

Donald Trump has not yet said whether he'll run for president in 2024, but he's already raising a huge war chest in case he does.

New disclosure reports filed Saturday night show that his affiliated political committees have a total of $102 million in cash on hand going into July. Trump's team claims to have raised $82 million of that in the last six months.



However, their Federal Election Commission filings show a significant amount of that came from a transfer that took place from the former president's fundraising accounts from last year.

It's unclear exactly how much of the $82 million sum announced by Trump's team was from donations from last year, but at least $18 million in transferred contributions to Trump's old presidential committee and his newly formed PAC, Save America, were dated last year, according to ABC News' analysis of the filings.

Not including transfers, Trump's fundraising vehicles together reported raising just over $50 million in contributions from Jan. 1 through June 30, the filings show.

[NewYorkExpress]

Meghan McCain's of the opinion that Ron Desantis would "put Kamala Harris in the ground" if both were their respective parties's nominees.

Meghan McCain on Monday predicted that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) would put Vice President Kamala Harris "in the ground" if they were to face off against each other in a presidential election.

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"I think she stumbled when she was running for president. She dropped out before Iowa, she was a very early dropout. She wasn't resonating with voters way before President Biden was elected," McCain said, acknowledging that she could not be unbiased due to being a Republican.



McCain criticized Harris's approach to the immigration crisis, which she has been tasked with handling, pointing to how she laughed off questions about visiting the border.

"Her laugh has become a way for people to take hits at her because it's uncomfortable to watch, it's uncomfortable to answer and she — I always thought she needed more media training than she had," McCain said.

"The problem for Democrats going into 2024 is if President Biden chooses not to run for reelection, she's just not going to be a strong enough candidate to run for president," McCain continued. "Ron DeSantis would would put her in the ground. I mean, it would be an election for Republicans. Republicans would love nothing more than to run against Vice President Harris."

[NewYorkExpress]

GOP Megadonors are lining up behind Tim Scott

Republican Sen. Tim Scott boarded a plane to Hawaii earlier this year to meet with one of the richest people in the world: Tech titan Larry Ellison.

Ellison’s remote Lanai Island home was well out of the South Carolina senator’s way. But for Scott, who like the 76-year-old Ellison is an outspoken advocate for school choice, cultivating the mogul has paid dividends — and could even help propel a 2024 presidential bid. Since last October, Ellison has contributed $10 million to an outside group aligned with the senator — a huge sum even in the super PAC era and the business owner’s biggest known contribution in three decades as a political donor.


Scott’s behind-the-scenes courtship of Ellison illustrates how the senator has quietly become a powerhouse fundraiser and a major force within the Republican Party. Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, has seen his profile rise since delivering the party’s response to President Joe Biden’s joint address to Congress in April and is developing a vast network of small- and large-dollar donors that spans his party’s ideological spectrum, helping him far outraise Senate colleagues this year.


The pro-Scott super PAC, Opportunity Matters Fund, has drawn support from conservative donors like Richard Gaby, who has bankrolled the likes of former President Donald Trump and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. But Scott has also received backing from the party’s mainstream givers, like New York hedge fund manager Dan Loeb, a financier of gay rights initiatives who is slated to host a fundraiser bolstering Scott later this year.

[NewYorkExpress]

Scott, if there is even a primary field, will be the obligatory "black friend" that always shows up in GOP primaries and never manages to crack even 1% in Iowa.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure Ben Carson got more than 1% in Iowa, let alone nationally.

In fact, Ben Carson got 9.3% of the vote in the Iowa Caucuses in 2016, so I think Scott would do just fine in Iowa if Trump for some reason wasn't running.

[NewYorkExpress]

Kamala Harris expanding her political network.

Kamala Harris took out her notebook and pen, put her elbows on the long shiny table and looked at the women surrounding her.

“Tell me what you got,” she said, according to one of the meeting’s attendees. It was a group of women labor leaders and women entrepreneurs there to discuss the pandemic recovery and getting women back to work.


The vice president was in her ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. A bust of Frederick Douglass, on loan from her alma mater Howard University, always sits over her shoulder. She will often call attention to it as a reminder to attendees of the stakes and importance of their work.


Since 1980, vice presidents have used this space as a secondary office (the one in the West Wing is closer to the president and serves as the primary work space). Harris has used it to swear in Cabinet members, do interviews and to give remarks alongside the South Korean president.

But for the seven months since she was sworn in herself, Harris has mostly used the office to build a network of allies and associates that can serve two purposes: strengthen the administration’s connections with key power players and groups while building an unofficial political operation in waiting — one she could activate for a future presidential bid.

The two-for-one approach gives Harris a chance to raise her profile both within the administration and for whatever comes after, as she seeks to find her footing as vice president, in a Beltway environment she is still learning to navigate. Adding to her challenges is a policy portfolio laden with politically combustible issues like immigration and voting rights, which has made her a favorite target for conservatives. Some longtime supporters told POLITICO in June they were concerned Harris had stepped too far back from politics. Now even some of her closest allies have recognized she needs help fending off the incoming fire.

Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville said building a national network is a smart move for Harris — or anyone with presidential ambitions. “Any prospective candidate would be doing the same. [Whoever’s] idea it was: Her, somebody on the staff or a consultant, I think it's a good idea,” Carville added. “If I was one of her advisers, I’d vote for it.”

[NewYorkExpress]

Mike Pompeo under attack from John Bolton for his role in brokering a deal with the Taliban.

While the chaotic drawdown of the war in Afghanistan has taken a toll on President Joe Biden's standing back home, it's also complicated political matters for one prominent Republican with eyes seemingly on the White House.

Few GOP officials have been more intimately involved with U.S.-Afghan relations than Mike Pompeo, who as Secretary of State helped lead negotiations with the Taliban to lead to an end of the 20-year-old war.


With that ending now mired in chaos, Pompeo has rushed to the airwaves to defend his work and differentiate it from the job that the Biden team is doing. Republican strategists say it's no coincidence. Pompeo, they posit, recognizes that his own electoral fate could be directly impacted by how the public perceives the current situation in Kabul.


“Trying to extricate yourself from this withdrawal is I think difficult if not impossible to do, especially to rewrite history about what actually happened,” said former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, a prominent critic of his former boss’ Afghanistan policy. “I think that’s a prescription for Democratic attack ads that would be fatal to someone’s credibility.”

Pompeo has been coy about his own ambitions for 2024, but the former congressman from Kansas, CIA Director, and Secretary of State has been popping up at high profile fundraisers for midterm candidates and rubbing elbows with influential conservatives in critical early-voting states like Iowa. His appeal to voters is due, in part, to the feet he has had in its two most prominent, recent movements: the Tea Party and Trumpism.

[NewYorkExpress]

Wealthy GOP donors starting to surround Ron DeSantis.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has cemented himself as the face of GOP opposition to anti-Covid-19 mandates — a position that is winning over not only rank-and-file voters ahead of the 2024 presidential primaries but also some of the Republican Party's wealthiest donors.

How the race shapes up will first and foremost be determined by whether former President Donald Trump decides to run. But many donors are investing early in potential candidates like DeSantis, whom polling shows to be the leading Trump alternative in the prospective presidential field.

Campaign finance records covering the first seven months of this year showed that prominent contributors, including many beyond Florida, are investing in his 2022 re-election campaign — which could further solidify his prospects.

Writing a check now is a low-risk way to get into DeSantis' circle early, an investment if he runs for president and wins the nomination. Unlike the potential presidential candidates who serve in Congress and can accept only relatively small donations, DeSantis is allowed to get unlimited checks from donors under Florida law.

Ken Griffin, the GOP megadonor and billionaire founder of the hedge fund Citadel, donated $5 million to DeSantis' campaign in April — the largest donation he has received this year. DeSantis also raked in $500,000 in May from WeatherTech founder David MacNeil, $250,000 in March from Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus and $250,000 in February from former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, who moved to Florida after he lost re-election. New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, an ambassador in the Trump administration, also donated.

Other Trump administration officials got in on the action, too: Former ambassadors Jamie McCourt and Kelly Craft and ex-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross donated $10,000 to $50,000.

Nick Iarossi, a Tallahassee lobbyist and DeSantis fundraiser, said DeSantis is also raising plenty of small-dollar donations from across the country.

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Among DeSantis' other top donors are St. Louis Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt Jr., Los Angeles Chargers owner Dean Spanos, Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Nolan Ryan, UFC President Dana White, Jimmy John's founder Jimmy John Liautaud, Jack Link's CEO Troy Link and disgraced Papa John's founder John Schnatter. Each has donated $5,000 to $100,000 this year.

[NewYorkExpress]

Pat Toomey says Trump should not be the Republican nominee in 2024.

Sen. Pat Toomey has urged his party not to nominate former President Donald Trump as its presidential candidate in 2024, calling his conduct in the aftermath of the 2020 election “completely unacceptable.”

The Pennsylvania Republican voted to convict Trump in the impeachment trial over his role in stoking the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by his supporters, fueled by the former president’s misinformation about the election being “stolen” due to widespread voter fraud.

Speaking to CNBC at the Ambrosetti Forum in Italy on Friday, Toomey, who is not seeking reelection in 2022, suggested his party consider other presidential nominees in 2024.

“I think that the future of our party is to be a party of ideas, and not to be a party about any one individual, and I think we will learn a lot from the next set of primaries,” he said.

“I think after what happened post-2020 election, I think the president’s behavior was completely unacceptable, so I don’t think he should be the nominee to lead the party in 2024.”

[NewYorkExpress]

Vanity Fair article on the 2020 Republican field. The juicy part of the article is about DeSantis's relationship with Trump.

DeSantis’s biggest challenge, though, will be navigating his fraught relationship with Trump. “Trump ing hates DeSantis. He just resents his popularity,” a second Trump confidant told me. (“Ron is a good guy,” Trump said.) According to a source, advisers for Pompeo have been promoting DeSantis in hopes of stoking Trump’s jealousy. “Pompeo’s people are building up DeSantis as the leader of the Republican Party to piss Trump off,” the source said.

Part of Trump’s irritation with DeSantis is that Trump feels that DeSantis doesn’t give Trump enough credit for his rise. “Trump tells people, ‘I made Ron.’ Trump says that about a lot of people. But in this case, it’s actually true,” a prominent Republican said. (“He gives me good credit,” Trump told me.)

According to sources, then Congressman DeSantis cultivated Trump’s support during the 2018 gubernatorial election by hanging out at Trump’s Washington, D.C., hotel. “He asked me if I’d endorse him,” Trump recalled. For much of the primary, DeSantis trailed Florida agriculture commissioner Adam Putnam. But after Trump backed DeSantis in June, DeSantis zoomed 12 points ahead and went on to win by nearly 20 points. “The second I endorsed Ron, he blew through everybody,” Trump said.

[NewYorkExpress]

Not sure if it actually counts as a tea leaf, but Trump is close to deal to sell his hotel in Washington D.C.

Donald Trump is reportedly close to selling rights to his hotel near the White House in Washington, a move the website Axios said “would carry a symbolism savoured by opponents”, given it would mean “the removal of Trump’s brash, golden branding from Pennsylvania Avenue”.


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Axios reported the news about the Trump Hotel on Saturday, saying the Trump Organization was in “advanced talks” to sell rights to the business in the old Post Office building, which Trump leased from the US government in 2013, two years before he announced his first run for president. Trump did not comment.

The hotel opened in September 2016, two months before Trump beat Hillary Clinton for the White House. When Trump was in power, the hotel became a hub for government business and lobbying, and thus a magnet for controversy.

[NewYorkExpress]

Melania Trump telling friends she's not interested in being First Lady again.

Former First Lady Melania Trump is not interested in taking back the title, sources told CNN, despite her husband dangling the possibility of another Trump campaign over his supporters.

"Not unlike 2016, Melania Trump has no intention really of joining the campaign," CNN's Kate Bennett said on Sunday. "I've spoken to people who said that she's not even really interested in being in the White House again, going through being first lady again."

Several of Melania Trump's friends told the outlet she has no interest in returning the White House, let alone helping if her husband decides to run.

Former President Donald Trump has not yet said if he plans to run in 2024, though he has teased the possibility multiple times, saying his supporters will be "very happy" with his decision.

I see a divorce in the future.

[NewYorkExpress]

Warren was asked if she’d run for president in 2024, and she said she “expects to support” Biden for ’24.  But then when asked what she’ll do if he doesn’t run, she interestingly dodged the question, by just saying “Joe Biden is running”:

https://www.metrowestdailynews.com/story/news/2021/09/05/liz-warren-holds-firm-2024-saying-she-only-eyeing-senate/5673317001/

when asked by the Daily News before Monday's event in Franklin whether she intended to make another attempt for the presidency, Warren simply responded: "Joe Biden is running for president and I expect to support him."

And when queried about what would happen if Biden chose not to seek a second term, Warren replied, “Joe Biden is running.”  

I've been of the belief that if Biden isn't going to run, Harris is going to have a harder road to the primary than she thinks, and that's if she runs. Harris will probably be begged to come back to California and primary Feinstein/run in an open seat Senate race, especially if 2024 looks like a lost cause atop the ballot.

Whether that impacts any decision by Warren, I have no idea.

[NewYorkExpress]

Surprised it hasn't been brought up here, but Donald Trump is heading to Iowa.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2021/09/07/donald-trump-iowa-rally-october-possible-2024-presidential-election-campaign/5757782001/

DeSantis called speculation about him running for president “nonsense” without explicitly denying that he’s thinking of running for president:

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2021/09/07/desantis-calls-talk-of-a-2024-presidential-bid-nonsense-1390768

“All the speculation about me is purely manufactured,” said DeSantis during a press conference he held to tout a Covid-19 treatment unit in St. Cloud, Fla. “I just do my job and we work hard… I hear all this stuff and honestly it’s nonsense.”
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In the last few months DeSantis has traveled to California, Utah, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Texas. Most of those trips have been confined to fundraising for his political committee, but he has appeared at events designed to raise his profile, including a national police convention, a national legislative conference and headlined a Pittsburgh GOP fundraising dinner.

He’s avoided stepping foot in early primary states such as Iowa and New Hampshire and scrapped a scheduled trip to Nevada last month due to a tropical storm that was threatening the state.

And could it be possible DeSantis knows Trump is running, and is stepping out of the way?

Either way DeSantis will probably run in 2028.

More likely Trump will run for a third term in 2028, whether he's legally allowed to or not.

[NewYorkExpress]

DeSantis was at the Nebraska Steak Fry today, as was Cruz and Pence and Pete Ricketts.

More than 1,000 miles from Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis was selling red meat rhetoric for a red meat audience.

At the Fifth Annual Nebraska Steak Fry on Sunday, DeSantis was in his element: serving up conservative haymakers in front of a crowd of 1,200 heartland Republicans just across the Missouri River from first-in-the-nation Iowa, the traditional kickoff state for presidential elections.

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DeSantis didn’t have the crowd on Sunday to himself, though, and was joined by two other possible 2024 presidential candidates: former Vice President Mike Pence and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Early Republican primary polling shows the three lead the potential field of candidates if Trump decides against a rematch run against Biden.


Another future presidential candidate may also have spoken Sunday: Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, who hosted the event. His second and last term ends next year and Ricketts hasn’t ruled out a future bid for president.

[NewYorkExpress]

Rick Perry headed to South Carolina next month:

https://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/politics-government/article254210153.html

Didn't we get enough of Rick "oops" Perry in 2012 and 2016?

[NewYorkExpress]

Wow, big if true:

https://twitter.com/jeffzeleny/status/1441441445097971712

I guess Cynthia Nixon was unhappy with her failure to defeat Andrew Cuomo in 2018, so she decided to Primary Biden in 2024.

[NewYorkExpress]

Lindsey Graham in Michigan, tells a crowd that he "hopes Trump runs again"

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told a crowd of Michigan Republicans on Saturday night that he hopes former President Donald Trump runs again in 2024.

The GOP senator's remark came on the second day of the Michigan Republican Party's leadership conference on Mackinac Island and three days after Trump sent out a statement criticizing Graham. His comment on Trump running again drew applause from the crowd of GOP insiders and activists.

"I don't think Trump is listening. He might be," Graham said. "I hope President Trump runs again."

I'm not sure why Graham would even bother to speak at a leadership conference in a battleground state...unless he's setting himself up as a candidate if Trump doesn't run.

[NewYorkExpress]

Liz Cheney will be headed to New Hampshire to headline an awards dinner on November 9

In a move that will spark speculation about her potential national ambitions, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming will headline an awards dinner later this autumn in New Hampshire, the state that for a century has held the first presidential primary in the race for the White House.

Cheney, one of the most well-known and vocal members of the small group of GOP lawmakers and leaders opposed to former President Trump, will be the featured speaker at the annual Nackey S. Loeb School’s First Amendment Honors program on Nov. 9. The former president and his allies have backed a primary challenger to Cheney when she’s up for reelection next year as Trump aims to oust Cheney from Congress.

https://twitter.com/UnionLeader/status/1442663143860277248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7...

[NewYorkExpress]

DeSantis goes on Hannity, says he's too busy to be focusing on a Presidential run right now.

“I notice the media, no matter how many times you’ve answered the question about are you considering the run for the presidency in 2024 and you give the same answer, that they still keep asking you,” Hannity said before asking that very same question: “What’s your answer to those people that ask again and again?”

“Yeah, I’m not considering anything beyond doing my job, we got a lot of stuff going on in Florida,” DeSantis asserted, adding that he will be running for re-election as governor next year.

As for what he feels needs his attention in Florida, DeSantis immediately leaned into the culture war issues that have energized conservatives over the past year.

“We are also working on a lot of things in the state beyond the governor’s race, we got school board races,” he declared. “I want to make sure people are not supporting critical race theory!”



After saying he wants to make sure “parents have the ability to send their kids to school the way they want to,” seemingly referencing his court fights over local school mask mandates, DeSantis reiterated that he isn’t focusing his attention on 2024.

“There’s a lot of huge issues, that is way down the road, it’s not anything that I’m planning for,” he concluded.

[NewYorkExpress]

Pence was in Oregon last night, headlining the Washington County GOP Annual Reagan Day Dinner.

"Well hello, Oregon."

That was how former Vice President Mike Pence welcomed the crowd at the Washington County GOP Annual Reagan Day Dinner Saturday night. He was the keynote speaker for the event.

[NewYorkExpress]

Hedge Fund Manager Ken Griffin, who is a high profile GOP Megadonor, says he won't back a Trump run in 2024.

A top Republican donor said on Monday that he won’t back Trump in 2024 if the former president decides to mount another bid for the White House.

In a discussion at the Economic Club of Chicago, hedge fund manager Ken Griffin tore into Trump as “pointlessly divisive,” according to comments reported by Bloomberg. He said that it was time for the country to move past the former president.

“I think it’s time for America to move on,” Griffin told Bloomberg TV’s Erik Schatzker.


Griffin has a long history of funding conservative candidates and causes. He spent more than $60 million to boost Republicans in the 2020 elections, though he did not give directly to Trump.

[NewYorkExpress]

In addition to leaving the Democratic Party, Andrew Yang has started a PAC.

Former U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang announced Tuesday the launch of the Forward Party PAC, just one day after he left the Democratic Party.

In a letter shared to the PAC's website, Yang, the founder, insisted he started the Forward Party for "a few big reasons."




"The current two-party duopoly is not working," Yang wrote. "While the two major parties have different issues, we can all see that polarization is getting worse and worse, with 42% of both parties regarding the other as not just mistaken but evil. Neither side is able to meaningfully solve problems, so we all get angrier and angrier."


In the letter, Yang also pointed to data that suggested Americans favor a third political party, but concluded that "the two parties right now control the primary system, which makes it very difficult for any meaningful third party to emerge."

"Imagine a duopoly that prevents any effective competition," Yang wrote. "That’s what we presently have in the United States.

"Changing this is both extraordinarily difficult yet imperative for our future," he added. "We need to push for open primaries and ranked-choice voting in Congressional races around the country. This would both diminish polarization by making it so that our representatives answer to the broad majority rather than the partisan few, and enable new parties and perspectives to emerge. It would make our entire country more reasonable."

I smell a third party run from Yang on the 2024 docket.

[NewYorkExpress]

Nikki Haley's giving herself some more wiggle room to run if Trump does.

Nikki Haley changed her tune this week on a possible 2024 presidential bid, saying she will make a decision to run that is not dependent on whether former President Donald Trump has decided to seek another term himself.

Showing just how delicately Republican presidential hopefuls have to dance in the shadow of Trump, the former U.N. ambassador told the Wall Street Journal that the ex-president is a friend whom she’d consult before launching her own White House bid.

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In her interview with the Journal, Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, gave herself more room to launch her own bid for the presidency, regardless of what Trump does.

“In the beginning of 2023, should I decide that there’s a place for me, should I decide that there’s a reason to move, I would pick up the phone and meet with the president,” she said. “I would talk to him and see what his plans are. I would tell him about my plans. We would work on it together.”

[NewYorkExpress]

DeSantis will be in San Francisco on October 22, as part of a fundraiser hosted by former PayPal executive David Sacks.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has become a 2024 Republican Party presidential front-runner thanks to his hands-off approach to handling the COVID-19 pandemic, is set to visit San Francisco — arguably the nation's most restrictive city during the pandemic — for a fundraiser this month.


The Oct. 22 fundraiser is hosted by former PayPal executive David Sacks, who tweeted of the event, "It will be fun night." Tickets to attend the cocktail reception cost $2,500, and photo opportunities with the governor cost $7,000. Dinner with DeSantis is set to cost a whopping $25,000.

I'm not sure why DeSantis is fundraising in California for a reelection campaign, so it looks like he is seriously interested in running for President in 2024.

[NewYorkExpress]

Do rumors of disgruntled donors count?

https://twitter.com/dsamuelsohn/status/1451230847911219204
https://twitter.com/grace_panetta/status/1451209576280477706

It's kind of moot, unless Biden announces relatively soon that he isn't running for reelection.