Trump allies sour on the group that pushed his SCOTUS takeover because their lawyers aren’t radical enough: report
Brent D. Griffiths – November 1, 2023
Trump’s allies have soured on a legal group that is behind his biggest legacy.
According to The New York Times, Trump allies are distancing themselves from The Federalist Society.
The conservative legal group helped Trump takeover of the Supreme Court.
Former President Donald Trump’s allies are reportedly souring on the conservative legal group that helped him cement a takeover of the US Supreme Court and reshape lower courts for years to come.
According to The New York Times, Trump allies that have begun the planning for his potential second term have begun to distance themselves from the Federalist Society, one of the key outside groups that vetted and assembled Trump’s list of then-potential Supreme Court nominees in 2016. After his surprise election, Trump’s White House worked virtually hand in glove with the organization and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to confirm over 200 federal judges.
“The Federalist Society doesn’t know what time it is,” Russell T. Vought, a former senior Trump administration official told The Times.
But Trump allies now view Federalist Society lawyers as “squishes,” according to The Times. One of the major points of contention is that the former president does not think the society did enough to help him after the 2020 presidential election. Leonard Leo, who is co-chairman of The Federalist Society, ignored Trump’s calls after the election as the president frantically sought to find lawyers who would back his challenges, according to The Times. Trump is also incensed that the Supreme Court, including his three nominees, did not intervene in his favor to overturn the election.
The current turn illustrates how if Trump is able to return to the White House, he may rely on increasingly fringe figures and legal views to push a second administration into even more provocative actions.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who was previously a keynote speaker for the society, has warned that Trump will focus on retribution and chaos if he returns to the White House. Barr and Trump’s relationship cratered after the election when Barr made it clear he would not support Trump’s claims of widespread election fraud that would have flipped the election.
Representatives for Trump and the Federalist Society did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
Trump’s Demands for Extreme Loyalty Are Starting to Backfire
Adam Rawnsley and Asawin Suebsaeng – October 31, 2023
Throughout the criminal investigations of Donald Trump, the former president has expected his co-defendants, alleged co-conspirators, and potential witnesses for the prosecution to stay fiercely loyal to him. This has included — according to people who’ve discussed the matter with him — his belief that some of his former lieutenants should risk jail time rather than turn on him.
As he’s faced an array of criminal charges, Trump’s demands for aides and lawyers to martyr themselves for him hasn’t saved him. If anything, it’s done the opposite, driving several possible key witnesses to consider throwing Trump under the bus before he gets the chance to do it to them.
That’s because, as is often the case with the former president, the notion of extreme loyalty only goes one way. Rolling Stone spoke to seven potential witnesses, former Trump confidants ensnared in the Fulton County, Georgia, and federal criminal probes, their legal advisers, and other sources familiar with the situation. All of them say that Trump’s willingness to hang them out to dry has fueled legal strategies focused on self-preservation.
Three of these sources say that Team Trump’s comically unsubtle search for patsies and fall guys — MAGA die-hards who would take the blame and possible prison sentences in lieu of Trump — drove a larger wedge between the ex-president and many of his former fellow travelers.
“If I went to jail for Donald Trump, if I did that, what would that do for me and my family?” says a former Trump administration official who has been interviewed by special counsel Jack Smith’s office. “I don’t think he would even give us lifetime Mar-a-Lago memberships if I did that for him.”
Lawyer Sidney Powell, for example, put her adulation of Trump to work in the aftermath of the election by filing bogus lawsuits and making bizarre false claims against voting-machine company Dominion Voting Systems. The moves got her sanctioned by a Michigan court, sued for a billion dollars by Dominion, and charged alongside Trump in Fulton County.
But her legal ordeal has brought her no meaningful help from the former president. Trump has gone out of his way to claim publicly that Powell was never his attorney while other Trump allies have worked to try to pin the blame for any criminal wrongdoing after the election on her. She has since also taken a plea deal this month, a move that shocked a number of top Trump lawyers and loyalists. Trump’s communications aide Liz Harrington has recently claimed the former president was “confused” by his allies’ plea deals because, in his apparent belief, “there’s no crimes here.” Powell, for her part, is still trying to have it both ways, portraying herself as a victim of a zealous prosecution and as a stalwart defender of Trump’s election lies.
But as some contemplate potentially cooperating with authorities, others have already publicly flipped, a decision that Trump now associates with “weaklings” who betray him.
In a statement to Rolling Stone, Trump’s lead counsel in the Fulton County Steven Sadow wrote that “[Fulton County District Attorney] Fani Willis and her prosecution team have dismissed charges in return for probation. What that shows is this so-called RICO case is nothing more than a bargaining chip for Willis. Truthful testimony will always exonerate President Trump.”
Jenna Ellis, an attorney for the Trump campaign charged in the Fulton County election-subversion case, has been vocal about her disappointment in the former president’s abandonment of his co-defendants. Ellis wrote on X (formerly Twitter) in August that she had been “reliably informed Trump isn’t funding any of us who are indicted,” and wondered “why isn’t [the pro-Trump Super Pac] MAGA, Inc. funding everyone’s defense?”
After an attempt at crowdfunding her legal fees, Ellis accepted a plea deal from prosecutors last week. “If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges,” a tearful Ellis said in a courtroom speech accepting responsibility for making false statements about the election that President Joe Biden clearly won.
For much of this year, Trump attorneys had been concerned that Kenneth Chesebro, one of the legal theorists behind the fake-electors scheme, would end up cooperating with prosecutors. The attorney accepted a plea deal in Fulton County and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to file false documents, but his attorney, Scott Grubman, denied any suggestion that his client was turning against Trump. “I don’t think he implicated anyone but himself,” Grubman told CNN earlier this month. Still, Chesebro and his legal team have been dropping hints for months that the blame and criminal exposure lay elsewhere in Trumpland, not with him.
“Whether the campaign relied upon that advice as Mr. Chesebro intended,” Grubman told Rolling Stone in August, “will have to remain a question to be resolved in court.” He continued: “We hope that the Fulton DA and the special counsel fully recognize these issues before deciding who, if anyone, to charge.”
These public statements came months after some of Trump’s closest allies and legal counselors began amassing informal lists of the best possible fall guys in the Jan. 6 riot-related probes and the Mar-a-Lago documents case. John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Powell, and Chesebro were indeed among the names. The lawyers, such as Chesebro, were easy scapegoats for Team Trump, who have openly signaled that the former president’s courtroom strategy will lean on an “advice of counsel” defense.
Asked if Chesebro could tell how much of Trumpland wanted him to take the fall to help insulate Trump, a lawyer who’s known Chesebro for years, and has spoken to him about this matter, simply tells Rolling Stone, “Of course.”
In private, Trump reserves some of his harshest words for one-time loyalists who are willing to cut deals with prosecutors, securing light sentences in exchange for likely testifying against Trump and others. However, the 2024 Republican presidential front-runner’s fury often extends to his lieutenants who don’t have formal cooperation agreements — but are simply willing, or legally bound, to answer prosecutors’ questions.
According to people close to Trump, the mere act of talking to federal investigators can sometimes be enough to get you branded a traitor or a snitch in the former president’s mind. This is because, his longtime associates say, Trump often doesn’t see a meaningful difference between witnesses who have formal cooperation agreements (to flip, in other words) and those who happen to tell investigators useful information during interviews.
Further, Trump and several of his closest advisers have been trying for months to find out how generous his former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has been with prosecutors lately. In June, The New York Times revealed that Meadows had testified before grand juries in both the special counsel’s Mar-a-Lago classified-documents case and its investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. This has fueled suspicions among Trump’s inner orbit this year, with some advisers now simply referring to Meadows in private communications by using the rat emoji.
Last week, ABC News reported that Meadows was “granted immunity” by the special counsel in order to spill potentially damaging details about Trump and the aftermath of the 2020 election. Meadows’ lawyer has since disputed much of the report as “inaccurate,” though he refused to say what in the story supposedly wasn’t correct.
In the days since that news broke, a few of Trump’s political and legal advisers have tried to assure him that the ABC story doesn’t mean that Meadows has “flipped,” and that he is just doing what he is legally compelled to do in these conversations with federal investigators.
And yet, Trump isn’t entirely buying it. In the past week, the ex-president has asked confidants, with clear annoyance in his voice, why his former chief of staff would be telling prosecutors anything about Trump’s activities “at all,” two people familiar with the situation tell Rolling Stone. The former president’s position is that Meadows should invoke claims of executive privilege in these cases — the doctrine that some communications with a president should be shielded from outside scrutiny in certain circumstances.
It’s a similar move to what former Trump administration official Peter Navarro attempted in defying a congressional subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee, landing him a conviction for contempt of Congress.
If Meadows and other witnesses indulged Trump’s demands for a blanket defiance of prosecutors, Trump’s ex-chief could also risk jail time. Trump’s attorneys had attempted to block Meadows from testifying before a federal grand jury investigating the effort to overturn the election, citing executive-privilege claims. But in March, Judge Beryl Howell rejected the argument.
Navarro, a former top trade aide in the Trump White House, stonewalled a subpoena from the congressional Jan. 6 inquiry demanding he appear before the panel and turn over documents related to its investigation of the 2021 insurrection. Navarro’s defiance earned him a criminal referral and a conviction on contempt of Congress charges in September. Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House chief strategist and campaign aide, also defied a subpoena from the Jan. 6 House committee and earned a conviction for contempt of Congress. Both men have appealed their convictions.
Trump’s lack of loyalty to allies facing legal jeopardy for allegedly assisting him in various crimes has landed him in difficult spots in a number of cases.
“Trump’s view of loyalty is one way, and that one way benefits only him. Donald has a history of using and abusing his associates, and he has shown no hesitation in throwing them under the bus when it suits his needs,” Michael Cohen, a former Trump fixer and attorney who experienced that lack of reciprocal loyalty firsthand, said. “This is not the kind of person that people are willing to or should sacrifice their freedom for.”
“It’s done, he’s going to be convicted”: Christie says Mark Meadows poses “deadly” threat to Trump
Tatyana Tandanpolie – October 31, 2023
Mark Meadows Alex Wong/Getty Images
“It’s over” for Donald Trump, who knows “he’s going to be convicted” in his criminal cases, fellow 2024 Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie declared Tuesday on MSNBC, blaming the former president’s recent flubs on the campaign trail — struggling to remember Joe Biden’s name and forgetting which city he’s stopping in — on the stress of his intensifying legal battles. The former New Jersey Governor and ex-U.S. attorney appeared on the Tuesday edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to talk Trump’s legal woes, telling the hosts that former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows likely adds to the former president’s worries after securing an immunity deal with federal prosecutors.
“I think it’s the stress of what he knows is coming in his criminal problems, and I think this week, because a lot of that was from the last week. That’s all post-Mark Meadows,” Christie said. “Everyone watching needs to understand, from somebody who did this work for seven years, you don’t give Mark Meadows immunity unless the evidence he has is unimpeachable.” He then described what Trump will likely face when Meadows takes the stand in the federal election subversion case’s March 2024 trial. “He’s going to be sitting in a courtroom in Washington, D.C., with Mark Meadows 20 feet away from him, saying, ‘He committed crimes in front of me, on my watch,'” Christie predicted. “Look, this is a guy who was velcroed to Trump’s hip for the entire 2020 campaign and all the post-campaign nonsense, so this is deadly. It’s done, he’s going to be convicted – it’s over,” Christie added later, noting that he doesn’t believe Trump will be able to delay the trial based on his impression of the presiding district court judge, who reinstated a gag order against Trump on Sunday, and the lack of co-defendants in the case.
You’ll Love What Chris Christie Had to Say This Morning about Mark Meadows
Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling – October 31, 2023
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has a message for Republican voters holding out for Donald Trump: It’s time to stop.
Christie’s warning comes days after news that Mark Meadows, Trump’s last chief of staff and so-called “special friend,” flipped against his former boss, dishing dirty details on election fraud claims in exchange for immunity. It’ll be Meadows’s testimony, according to Christie, that seals Trump’s fate.
“This is deadly. It’s done. He’s going to be convicted. It’s over,” Christie told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on Tuesday, describing Meadows as someone “velcroed to Trump’s hip” through the entire 2020 campaign and beyond.
In several alleged meetings with special counsel Jack Smith’s team this year, Meadows told federal investigators that Trump knew he was lying when he claimed he won, mere hours after the polls closed on election night. To this day, Meadows said he has yet to see any evidence of election fraud.
“I think everybody watching needs to understand from somebody who did this work for seven years, you don’t give Mark Meadows immunity unless the evidence he has is unimpeachable,” Christie noted.
And Christie believes Trump knows it too. The 2024 GOP presidential candidate pointed to a flurry of Trump’s recent gaffes and verbal slipups on the campaign trail as evidence of heightened stress following the news of Meadows’s deal.
“I want all Republican voters to understand this, what’s going to be happening in March,” Christie said. “He’s going to be sitting in a courtroom in Washington, D.C., with Mark Meadows 20 feet away from him, saying, he committed crimes in front of me, on my watch.”
Ex-Trump Lawyer: This Is the Factor that Will Finally Put Trump Behind Bars
Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling – October 31, 2023
A onetime Trump attorney thinks the former president’s social media addiction might be the end for him in his legal trials.
Throughout October, Trump has been slapped with multiple gag orders for threatening and insulting court staff and witnesses in his various legal cases—though that hasn’t been enough to stop him.
So far, Trump has been fined twice for violating the gag order in his $250 million New York bank fraud trial, but he also faces the real possibility of being jailed if he continues his antics, warned Judge Arthur Engoron.
Meanwhile, in his federal election subversion trial in Washington, D.C., Trump slammed Judge Tanya Chutkan and a potential witness, former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, just hours after his gag order was reinstated on Monday. In posts to Truth Social, Trump described Barr as “dumb, weak, slow-moving, lethargic, gutless, and lazy.”
That kind of behavior will probably be enough to lock him up, according to Ty Cobb, a former Trump attorney and current partner at the law firm Hogan Lovells.
In an interview with CNN, Cobb argued that the violations in the New York trial, which are a civil matter, aren’t as “consequential” as the criminal conspiracy charges he faces in D.C.
“I think she’ll come in with a much heavier penalty and, ultimately, he’ll spend a night or a weekend in jail,” Cobb said.
“I think it’ll take that to stop it,” he added.
Ty Cobb was a part of the Trump administration legal team from July 2017 until May 2018 and managed matters related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Cobb later described Mueller as an “American hero.”
Cobb has since commented several times on Trump’s ongoing legal woes—in August, the attorney told CNN that the evidence against the former president is “so overwhelming” in the classified documents case, describing it as “tight.” In September, Cobb likened Trump to a “mob boss.”
Size of Trump’s hands at center of Supreme Court trademark case: ‘Trump Too Small’
Brianna Herlihy – November 1, 2023
Size of Trump’s hands at center of Supreme Court trademark case: ‘Trump Too Small’
The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear arguments over whether the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) violated the First Amendment when it refused the registration of a political slogan on T-shirts that criticizes former President Donald Trump without his consent.
At the heart of the case is the question of when First Amendment protections end and the right to privacy begins when a trademark contains criticism of a government official or public figure.
In 2017, Steve Elster, a politically active Democrat attorney in California, wanted to get the phrase “Trump Too Small” printed on T-shirts to sell. The phrase originated from an exchange on the 2016 debate stage between Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. The Florida senator made a crude joke in reference to the size of the former president’s hands.
But when Elster sought to trademark the slogan, he was denied by the PTO, and the Trademark and Trial Appeal Board upheld the decision, because the mark identified Trump without his consent.
The decision was reversed by a federal circuit court, noting that Elster’s trademark goes to “the heart of the First Amendment,” and held that the government has no plausible “interest in restricting speech critical of government officials or public figures in the trademark context.”
Democrat activist Steve Elster wanted to trademark the slogan “Trump Too Small” to put on t-shirts, in reference to a crude joke Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., made towards Donald Trump on the 2016 debate stage.
The Justice Department arguing on behalf of Katherine Vidal, under secretary of commerce for intellectual property, eventually appealed the case up to the Supreme Court, arguing that the Lanham Act, which is a federal statute aimed at protecting intellectual property in trademark designations, gives the PTO constitutional authority to block Elster’s trademark request.
“When registration is refused because a mark ‘[c]onsists of or comprises a name…identifying a particular living individual’ without ‘his written consent,’ ‘[n]o speech is being restricted; no one is being punished,’” the DOJ’s petition to the high court says.
Fara Sunderji, partner at international law firm Dorsey & Whitney, says, “Despite outward appearances, this case is really not about Trump or the size of his policies or (body parts).”
“Will this decision restrict speech — namely political criticism in a time where the country is so divided as the 2024 candidates are starting up their engines? The trademark applicant, Mr. Elster, would have us believe that, yes, that is what is at stake,” says Sunderji.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case Vidal v. Elster on Wednesday.
“So, what is the potential outcome? If the Court upholds the Federal Circuit’s opinion, will the USPTO be inundated with trademark applications for every political phrase containing a candidate’s name in the 2024 election? Probably not. Will daily life be flooded with t-shirts containing slogans with all the 2024 candidates’ names by unrelated third parties? I hope not,” concludes Sunderji.
Arguments are scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
Supreme Court sounds ready to rule a Californian can’t trademark T-shirts with Trump’s name
David G. Savage – November 1, 2023
Former President Trump during the LIV Golf Pro-Am at Trump National Golf Club in May in Sterling, Va. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
Supreme Court justices on Wednesday sounded ready to rule that a T-shirt with the phrase “Trump Too Small” cannot be trademarked by a California attorney seeking the exclusive right to sell clothing with the slogan.
Trump is not a party to the case of Vidal vs. Elster, but in the past he objected when businesses and others tried to make use of his name.
In arguments Wednesday, Biden administration attorneys urged the court to deny the trademark for the disputed shirts, but their position was not related to the message, which is critical of the former president.
Since 1946, Congress has barred the registering of a trademark that includes a name or image that identifies “a particular living individual,” administration attorneys said.
When they adopted this provision, lawmakers were particularly interested in preventing the use of a president’s or former president’s name as a means to advertise products. They cited examples such as “George Washington” coffee or “Abe Lincoln” gin.
Deputy Solicitor Gen. Malcolm Stewart described a trademark as “a condition on a federal benefit, not a restriction on the freedom of speech.”
He said California attorney and T-shirt entrepreneur Steve Elster has a right to sell his “Trump Too Small” T-shirts, but not “an exclusive right” to the phrase.
Elster said he was amused in 2016 when Republican presidential candidates exchanged comments about the size of Trump’s hands during a debate. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, whom Trump had mocked as “Little Marco,” asked Trump to hold up his hands, which he did.
After Trump won the election, Elster decided to sell T-shirts with phrase “Trump Too Small,” criticizing Trump’s accomplishments on civil rights, the environment and other issues.
He was free to do so, but the Patent and Copyright Office denied his request to trademark the phrase for his exclusive use.
When he appealed the denial, a federal appeals court ruled his trademark phrase was political commentary protected by the 1st Amendment.
Solicitor Gen. Elizabeth Prelogar appealed on behalf of the government and urged the Supreme Court to reverse that decision.
In arguments Wednesday, Justice Clarence Thomas said he did not see how the denial of a trademark restricted free speech, since Elster was free to sell his T-shirts and to use the phrase.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that upholding Elster’s trademark could restrict free speech because it would prevent others from using the disputed phrase.
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said it was reasonable for Congress to decide not to help others to profit from the use of a person’s name.
What Trump’s Reduced Us to: Supreme Court Hears Case Relating to Trump’s Anatomy
Tori Otten – November 1, 2023
The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday about whether a California man can trademark a phrase mocking Donald Trump as “too small.”
Labor lawyer Stephen Elster created a line of T-shirts that describe Trump as “too small” on a variety of social and political issues, with a healthy dose of innuendo thrown in. It refers to an exchange during a 2016 presidential debate, when Marco Rubio accused Trump of having small hands. Trump, who is notoriously thin-skinned, has been unable to escape the barb since.
Elster tried to trademark the phrase “Trump too small” in 2018, but the Patent and Trademark Office denied his request. Wednesday’s lawsuit hinges on the question of whether a trademark can refer to a person. Federal law prohibits trademarks that refer to a person without that person’s consent. But last year, The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that that law was in violation of the First Amendment, because it limits “speech critical of government officials or public figures.”
Screenshot via trumptoosmall.com
The Supreme Court has previously avoided taking up cases related to Trump, denying his request to intervene when Congress sought his tax records or when he lost the 2020 election, among other instances. But clearly, the justices can’t ignore Trump much longer.
Trump isn’t even a party in the Elster case—it just includes his name. But Trump himself is facing down a barrage of legal issues that will likely reach the level of the nation’s highest court.
Trump’s legal team may appeal the gag order recently imposed by Judge Tanya Chutkan in his trial for trying to overturn the 2020 election. Trump has also repeatedly argued that he has presidential immunity from prosecution, and the Supreme Court may need to weigh in on that matter. Two lawsuits seek to bar Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot, and both are expected to reach the Supreme Court, as well.
Fact Check: GOP Rep. Byron Donalds Says ‘More Black Americans’ Want Donald Trump to Be President Again. Does He Really Speak for Black Folks?
Yasmeen Freightman – November 1, 2023
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.). (Photo: Fox Business screenshot / YouTube)
U.S. House Rep. Byron Donalds says that Black people want Donald Trump back in office.
In an appearance on Fox News, anchor Maria Bartiromo asked the Florida Republican how he would assess the support by African-Americans for Trump.
“Oh, it’s growing, I can tell you that right now,” Donalds said. “Because, at the end of the day, our economy is struggling. That’s hurting every segment of America, including Black America. More and more Black Americans say we gotta have Trump back.”
Social media users hit back hard at Donalds’ comments.
“Byron doesn’t speak for black folks. He’s selling a narrative that is void of facts. I’m a black man; I wouldn’t vote for #DefendantTrump even if I were required to,” another X user wrote. “There is no lie Byron Donalds is unwilling to tell if it garners favor with the racist MAGA faithful,” another person commented.
Is Donalds right, though? Are more Black people siding with Trump for the 2024 presidential election? We checked the poll numbers.
Trump insisted that when his mug shot was released after he turned himself into Fulton County authorities in August for the criminal election interference indictment in Georgia, his support shot through the roof, especially among members of the Black community.
“The Black community is so different for me in the last – since that mug shot was taken, I don’t know if you’ve seen the polls; my polls with the Black community have gone up four and five times,” Trump told conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt.
He might just be confusing support with mockery. While Trump trended on social media sites for some days after the photo’s release, there’s nothing to suggest that the mug shot’s trending status directly correlated with more support for his presidential campaign.
Some polls show a slight uptick in Trump’s favorability among Black voters, but those results don’t at all align with the former president’s claim that support for him in the Black community has quadrupled. A Pew Research analysis revealed that Trump received 8% of the Black vote in the 2020 election.
Donalds has served as a mouthpiece for the Republican Party on some matters of race in politics to bolster the party’s favorability. And it’s no surprise that he’s also a loyal Trump ally. Along with numerous other Trump loyalists, the Florida congressman put his stamp of approval on Trump’s 2024 run for president back in April rather than endorse Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Donalds said the former president is the “one leader” who can get the U.S. “back on track.”
Donalds was also recently asked if he would accept becoming Trump’s running mate and possibly becoming the next vice president.
“With respect to being potentially on the ticket, that’s really up to the president. I have no control over that,” Donalds said. “The only thing I will say is, I just want to do whatever I can to get our country back on track. That’s what I have always been committed to.”
Donalds has tried to boost his political standing in recent weeks. He made a play for House Speaker after Kevin McCarthy’s removal from the position, but he dropped his bid after he couldn’t garner enough party support.
GOP Rep. Byron Donalds Says More Black People Want Trump Back. What Is He Talking About?
Jessica Washington – November 1, 2023
DES MOINES, IOWA – AUGUST 12: Former U.S. President Donald Trump visits the Iowa Pork Producers Tent with Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) at the Iowa State Fair on August 12, 2023 in Des Moines, Iowa. Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls are visiting the fair, a tradition in one of the first states that will test candidates with the 2024 caucuses.
DES MOINES, IOWA – August 12: Former U.S. President Donald Trump visits the Iowa Pork Producers Tent with Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) at the Iowa State Fair on August 12, 2023 in Des Moines, Iowa. Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls are visiting the fair, a tradition in one of the first states that will test candidates with the 2024 caucuses.
Apparently “more and more Black Americans” are hankering for former President Donald Trump’s presidency. At least, that’s if you believe Republican Congressman Byron Donalds.
During an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, Representative Donalds was asked about African American support for the former President. “Oh it’s growing, I can tell you that right now,” said Rep. Donalds. “Because, at the end of the day, our economy is struggling. That’s hurting every segment of America, including Black America. More and more Black Americans say we gotta have Trump back.”
Donalds, a Black Republican, pushing the idea that Black people love Trump now obviously works in his favor. Democrats certainly should be concerned about any shifts towards Trump among Black voters. Black voters not turning out for Democrats in 2024 in large numbers would be disastrous for their political ambitions. But there’s no evidence that Trump is suddenly a welcome guest at the average Black cookout.
