Trump Raises Money from Tech Bros

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses party organizations and campaign finance.

Lara Korte and Dustin Gardiner at Politico:

The former president traveled to San Francisco last night to court a small but vocal group of sympathetic tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who, following the likes of Elon Musk, are embracing Trump’s bombastic but business-friendly platforms in rebuke of President Joe Biden and Democrats’ policies.

It’s not surprising that business leaders would favor policies that benefit their bottom lines, but this new faction is brasher than the typical boardroom set. As self-styled iconoclasts, they loudly rebel against California’s liberal tradition. Backing Trump helps scratch that contrarian itch.

The $300,000-per-person fundraiser, hosted at billionaire venture capitalist David Sacks’ Pacific Heights mansion, included many of the Silicon Valley elite that have bristled at Biden’s approach to antitrust enforcement, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency. The event raised $12 million, per California RNC National Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon, who attended the fundraiser alongside what she said were many crypto leaders, including the Winklevoss twins.

Co-host Chamath Palihapitiya, an early Facebook executive turned tech investor who has long touted the digital currency sector, last week on his podcast spoke positively about the former president.

“President Trump in the last few weeks has become incredibly pro-crypto,” he said.

A key difference between this newer cohort and the ultra-wealthy Bay Area class that has traditionally tried to shape business regulation is their willingness to freelance on other issues. Sacks has continually criticized the U.S. spending on Ukraine, for example, accusing Biden of prolonging and escalating the conflict with Russia.

Border Politics

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the politics of immigration, economic policy and crime.  On these issues, Biden does not have messaging problems.  He has reality problems.

Jill Colvin et al. at AP:

President Joe Biden tried to address a major liability for his reelection campaign by taking executive action to significantly restrict asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.

But it’s unclear whether his efforts will be enough to change the minds of voters who have increasingly voiced alarm over the record influx of migrants on his watch. Polls have found immigration and border security to be a top issue this election year and one that has been seized on by former President Donald Trump and his campaign.

Biden has shifted far to the right on immigration since his winning campaign four years ago, when he criticized Trump’s immigration priorities and promised he would restore asylum protections. Many Democrats acknowledge Biden now faces a wholly different political reality, even as key parts of his base push him to repudiate border restrictions and compare his move to Trump’s policies as president.

...

According to Gallup’s monthly data, Americans named immigration as the top issue facing the country in February, March, and April, surpassing even the share who cited the economy despite persistently higher prices. Immigration came up less frequently as a top issue in Gallup’s May poll as attention turned to Trump’s criminal trial and as the number of illegal crossings ebbed. The issue was still tied with the government and the economy as what voters saw as the nation’s most important problem.

Trump and Downballot Republicans

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.  Convicted criminal Donald Trump does not care about GOP candidates in those races, except insofar as they can serve him.

Mia McCarthy at Politico:

Lara Trump, the Republican National Committee co-chair and daughter-in-law of former President Donald Trump, dodged answering whether the RNC will support Maryland Republican Larry Hogan’s run for Senate after Hogan called for Americans to respect the verdict.

“I don’t support what he just said there. I think it’s ridiculous,” Lara Trump said when asked by CNN’s Kasie Hunt if the RNC will support Hogan on “State of the Union” Sunday morning. The former Republican governor of Maryland, who is facing Democrat Angela Alsobrooks in November, is looking to flip a Senate seat in a deep blue state.

Right before the verdict was announced, Hogan tweeted that he urged Americans to accept the verdict regardless of the outcome: “At this dangerously divided moment in our history, all leaders — regardless of party — must not pour fuel on the fire with more toxic partisanship. We must reaffirm what has made this nation great: the rule of law,” Hogan said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

And moments after Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts, Hogan was quickly met with backlash — specifically from GOP political strategist Chris LaCivita who replied to his post: “You just ended your campaign.”

Alex Isenstadt at Politico:

Donald Trump’s campaign is sending a blunt message to down ballot Republicans who are looking to fundraise for themselves off of the ex-president’s conviction: Back off.

Trump’s political operation views the guilty verdict in the New York hush money trial as a small-dollar goldmine — so much so that they are warning other Republicans not to raise money off it and siphon off money that could otherwise go to the Trump campaign.

“Any Republican elected official, candidate or party committee siphoning money from President Trump’s donors are no better than Judge Merchan’s daughter,” said Trump co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita. “We’re keeping a list, we’ll be checking it twice and we aren’t in the spirit of Christmas.”

Convicted Criminal's Witness Tampering?

In Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics, we look at Trump's dishonesty and disregard for the rule of law.

 Our next book will look at the 2024 campaign and the impact of Trump's legal problems. New York courts have found that he is a rapist and a fraud. And he is now a convicted criminal.

Robert Faturechi, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski at Pro Publica:

Nine witnesses in the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump have received significant financial benefits, including large raises from his campaign, severance packages, new jobs, and a grant of shares and cash from Trump’s media company.

The benefits have flowed from Trump’s businesses and campaign committees, according to a ProPublica analysis of public disclosures, court records and securities filings. One campaign aide had his average monthly pay double, from $26,000 to $53,500. Another employee got a $2 million severance package barring him from voluntarily cooperating with law enforcement. And one of the campaign’s top officials had her daughter hired onto the campaign staff, where she is now the fourth-highest-paid employee.

Convicted Criminal Warns of "Breaking Point"

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  Trump has accused the Biden Administration of trying to kill him.

Mia McCarthy at Politico:

Former President Donald Trump said if he is put under house arrest, it would be a “breaking point” for the American public who “would not stand for it.”

“I’m not sure the public would stand for it,” Trump said during an interview with Fox News’ Will Cain, Rachel Campos-Duffy and Pete Hegseth that aired Sunday morning. “I think it’d be tough for the public to take. At a certain point, there’s a breaking point.”

The former president and presumptive GOP nominee was found guilty on 34 counts for falsifying business records last week, making him the first former president to become a convicted felon. Trump reiterated the claim that his verdict was the result of a weaponized justice system and his team plans to appeal.

The Independent:

Hardcore Donald Trump supporters are calling for riots, insurrection, and assassination after a Manhattan jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

Trump became the first US president to be criminally convicted on Thursday, but said he would “continue to fight” the decision. He will have 30 days to do following his sentencing on July 11.

In messages seen by The Independent, and others reported by Reuters, Trump die-hards on social media are calling for violence in the wake of the verdict.

“Find the jurors. All of them. Take no prisoners,” wrote one user on a Trump-focused message board.

“Just give them the rope,” said another, in an explicit reference to lynching. “The time for talking has long gone. Let them swing outside the courthouse.”

Meanwhile, Trump gave a rambling speech at Trump Tower on Friday, blasting the US as a “fascist state.”

Doxxing Jurors

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  Trump has accused the Biden Administration of trying to kill him.

 Ryan Reilly at NBC:

The 34 felony guilty verdicts returned Thursday against former President Donald Trump spurred a wave of violent rhetoric aimed at the prosecutors who secured his conviction, the judge who oversaw the case and the ordinary jurors who unanimously agreed there was no reasonable doubt that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee falsified business records related to hush money payments to a porn star to benefit his 2016 campaign.

Advance Democracy, a non-profit that conducts public interest research, said there has been a high volume of social media posts containing violent rhetoric targeting New York Judge Juan Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, including a post with Bragg’s purported home address. The group also found posts of the purported addresses of jurors on a fringe internet message board known for pro-Trump content and harassing and violent posts, although it is unclear if any actual jurors had been correctly identified.

The posts, which have been reviewed by NBC News, appear on many of the same websites used by Trump supporters to organize for violence ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. These forums were hotbeds of threats inspired by Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, which he lost, and that the voting system was “rigged” against him. They now feature new threats echoing Trump’s rhetoric and false claims about the hush money trial, including that the judicial system is now “rigged” against him.

“Dox the Jurors. Dox them now,” one user wrote after Trump’s conviction on a website formerly known as “The Donald,” which was popular among participants in the Capitol attack. (That post appears to have been quickly removed by moderators.)...

The threats fit into an ongoing pattern. An NBC News analysis of Trump’s Truth Social posts earlier this year showed that he frequently uses the platform as a megaphone to attack people involved in his legal cases — and some of his supporters have responded. When the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022, a Trump supporter who had been at the Capitol on Jan. 6 sent angry posts about the search and then attacked an FBI field office. When Trump made a social media post last June that included former President Barack Obama’s home address, a Jan. 6 rioter reposted it and then showed up at the residence. When Trump was indicted in Georgia in August, his supporters posted the purported names and addresses of members of the grand jury. Special counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing Trump’s federal election interference case in Washington, was the target of an attempted swatting on Christmas Day. So too was U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will oversee that trial, if the Supreme Court allows it to go forward (though that could change if Trump wins in November). When Michael Fanone — the former police officer nearly killed on Jan. 6 by Trump supporters who believed the former president’s lies about the 2020 election — criticized Trump at a press conference outside the hush money trial earlier this week, his mother was swatted. When Trump and conservative media outlets spread false information about the jury instructions in the hush money case this week, threats against Merchan rolled in

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Trump posts article with photo of himself holding a baseball bat next to a photo of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. pic.twitter.com/B1XRbM5LGJ

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) March 23, 2023

Republicans Embrace Their Felon

Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. 

Shane Goldmacher and Luke Broadwater at NYT:

A day after Donald J. Trump’s conviction, it quickly became clear that Republicans across the country would not run away from his newfound status as a felon.

They would, instead, run on it.

Echoing Mr. Trump in casting the New York case as a disgraceful sham, Republican candidates and party committees used the first criminal conviction of a former president as a rallying cry — for campaign cash, for congressional hearings and for motivation to vote in November.

Whether they were congressional leaders, potential running mates or onetime rivals, prominent Republicans’ speedy alignment behind Mr. Trump, with little dissent or discussion, was no surprise for a party that has increasingly made displays of Trumpian loyalty a nonnegotiable requirement. But their ready-made outrage was not just about lining up behind the nominee. It was also about basking in the energy of a party base that remains as adhered to Mr. Trump as ever.

“The base has never been more motivated,” said Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas, Mr. Trump’s former doctor in the White House and a close ally.

In a 33-minute speech in the same Trump Tower lobby where he began his first presidential bid nearly nine years ago, Mr. Trump denounced his prosecutors as “sick people” on Friday and criticized the key witness in the case, seeking to pivot his candidacy from the confines of a Manhattan courtroom to the campaign trail.

The Trump campaign’s announcement on Friday morning that it had raised $34.8 million online in the hours after a jury found Mr. Trump guilty on all 34 felony charges was a reminder of how thoroughly he has persuaded Republican voters that his own legal threats are a proxy for attacks on them.

Donie O'Sullivan at CNN:

On online forums that have previously been linked to mass shootings, people are threatening violence and attempting to publicly identify the 12 New York jurors who on Thursday decided to convict former President Donald Trump.

The calls for retribution began immediately after the verdict was announced.

“Hope these jurors face some street justice,” one anonymous user on a pro-Trump forum wrote. Another suggestively asked, “Wouldn’t [it] be interesting if just one person from Trump’s legal team anonymously leaked the names of the jurors?”

Anonymity is supposed to add a layer of protection for jurors doing their civic duty. Once reserved only for cases involving violent criminal enterprises, the practice is becoming more common. The judge in the Trump New York trial issued an order in March agreeing with prosecutors that most information about the jurors would be sealed. Trump’s lawyers did not disagree, according to the order.

Overnight, however, anonymous internet users on sites that are known havens of hate and harassment began sharing names, home addresses and other personal information belonging to people they say might have been members of the jury, a practice known as doxxing.