Tag Archives: Cheeto-in-Chief

Do Donald Trump’s Fundraising Emails Really Claim Biden Will Behead Him?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and working my way through Politico Playbook, when I came across this item about the latest scam from the Cheeto in Chief.

Donald Trump’s campaign is lying in fundraising emails to juice big bucks.

Isn’t this a dog-bites-dog story, Doc? Trump’s a pathological liar – what else is new?

– Chatter in Chief

Dear CiC,

Right – if Donald Trump’s mouth is moving or it’s a day ending in y etc. etc. But this particular grift does plow new ground, as Josh Dawsey and Isaac Arnsdorf report in the Washington Post.

The fundraising pitch from Donald Trump was neither accurate nor subtle.

It read: “1 MONTH UNTIL ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE! THEY WANT TO SENTENCE ME TO DEATH.”

The message blasted out to his supporters was a reference to the former president’s sentencing scheduled for July 11, when he faces fines or possible jail time after being convicted on 34 charges of business fraud in connection with hush money paid to an adult-film star. A death sentence is not under consideration in the case. Neither is a “GUILLOTINE,” as another fundraising pitch suggested last week.

Regardless . . .

There’s no doubt Trump would die a little if New York County Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan slammed the big door on him, but that’s highly unlikely to happen. Even more unlikely is Trump ever starring in a very special episode of The Celebrity Beheading.

Of course, that matters not at all to the ride-or-die MAGA mob, as WaPo’s Dawsey and Arnsdorf detailed.

Campaign finance records filed [June 20] showed the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and an allied super PAC raised $171 million in May. The surge left Trump and the RNC with more cash on hand than Biden and the Democratic National Committee, the reports showed.

The Doc’s diagnosis: Hang on tight. There’s no bottom to that well.

Will the Biden/Harris ‘Snapped’ Ad Really Make Donald Trump ‘Snap More’?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and tooling around Xitter, when I came across this post from corgi lover/Never Trumper/legal eagle George Conway.

That’s Adrienne Elrod, senior adviser and senior spokesperson for Joe Biden touting his latest swipe at the Cheeto in Chief, which “reminds voters of Trump’s presidency, which was just the beginning of Trump’s decline into the unhinged, power-hungry candidate he is today.”

Whaddaya think, Doc – is the Biden campaign on to something here?

– Snappy Comeback

Dear SC,

According to this piece by The Hill’s Alex Gangitano, Snapped “is part of the [Biden] campaign’s $14 million paid media buy for May and will run on general market television and digital platforms across battleground states, as well as on national cable television.”

De Niro: “From midnight tweets, to drinking bleach, to tear-gassing citizens and staging a photo-op, we knew Trump was out of control when he was president, and then he lost the 2020 election and snapped. Desperately trying to hold on to power. Now he’s running again, this time threatening to be a dictator, to terminate the Constitution . . . Trump wants revenge, and he’ll stop at nothing to get it.”

Nidia Cavazos of CBS News reports that the Biden campaign is also running this spot “slamming Trump on gun control 2 years after Uvalde shooting.”

The Doc’s diagnosis: George Conway is on to something. We’re likely see gun control before we see self control from Trump.

Why Is Nikki Haley Barely Nicking Donald Trump in Her First Iowa TV Spot?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and paging through the Weekend Wall Street Journal, when I came across this interview with Nikki Haley based on a sit-down the former South Carolina governor and U.N. Ambassador in the Trump administration had with the Journal’s editorial board.

Drove-me-nuts graf:

She is careful to give her former boss his due: “I think President Trump was the right president at the right time,” she says. “I really do.” But “chaos follows him wherever he goes. And every one of you knows I’m right.” She scans the room. “When the world is on fire and our country is completely distracted, we can’t continue down this chaotic path.”

Really? That’s her brief for replacing the guy who’s ahead of her by 50 points in polls and 91 felony counts in courts of law? He’s a chaos magnet? What the hell, Doc.

– Nik-Pikki

Dear NP,

Yeah, you’re not the only one eye-rolling about Haley’s rolling over for Trump. Here’s what The Bulwark’s Will Saletan wrote on Substack the other day.

Have you heard Nikki Haley’s pathetically weak description of Trump’s behavior? She says “rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him.” In today’s @The Bulwark podcast, @Charlie Sykes mocks her evasive language. “It’s a little bit like saying, ‘You know, wherever Jeffrey Dahmer goes, people are found dead.'” lnk.thebulwark.com/47Mq34r

Haley is just as mealy-mouthed in her first Iowa TV spot.

“A president must have moral clarity,” she says, “and know the difference between good and evil. Today, China, Russia, and Iran are advancing . . .”

And etc.

Oh, wait – Haley also says, “it’s time for a new generation of conservative leadership. We have to leave behind the chaos and drama of the past, and strengthen our country, our pride, and our purpose.”

The Doc believes that pitch was far more forceful in the original Esperanto.

To call Haley’s alleged presidential primary campaign against Donald Trump a pillow-fight is an insult to pajama parties worldwide.

And yet . . .

Another Bulwark stalwart, Jonathan V. Last, presented two theories of the case in his Triad newsletter: “Theory #1: You attack Trump in order to take his voters from him . . . Theory #2: If you attack Trump then you can’t get a hearing from Republican voters.”

The first gambit represents a gargantuan task, likely requiring Haley to go after Trump hammer and tongue. Last says that might be possible, but makes this “utilitarian case” for the second approach.

The only way to have a chance to beat Trump is to pretend that he’s fine and to pledge to support him at some point down the road. The act of telling the truth about Trump, or saying that you might not support him in the future, disqualifies you in the minds of Republican voters.

And so Haley has to play it this way in order to have even a 1-in-100 chance.

Haley doubled down on her campaign of least resistance this weekend in an interview with ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis.

“It’s not about fitness. I think he’s fit to be president. It’s ‘Should he be president?’ I don’t think he should be president. I thought he was the right president at the right time,” said Haley.

“We’ve got to look at the issues that we’re dealing with, coming forward with new solutions, not focusing on negativity and baggage of the past. So it’s not about being fit. It’s just I don’t think he’s the right person to be president,” she added.

The Doc’s diagnosis: If Nikki Haley truly believes the Cheeto-in-Chief is fit to be president, then she manifestly is not.

Is Donald Trump’s New Ad Really Like Some ‘Mob Boss Complaining’?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and scrolling through my Twitter feed, when I came across this tweet from #mapoli stalwart and former Bostonian David Bernstein.

Why is it the Trump campaign that’s running this ad, Doc? Doesn’t the former guy have a hitman to do his wet work?

– Mob Squad

Dear MS:

You’re right – the erstwhile Cheeto in Chief has a perfectly good PAC animal for just this kind of job (see Pudding Fingers for further details). Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough set out yesterday to deconstruct Trump’s new ad, but wound up spending all their time dismantling DeSantis.

The New York Post’s Josh Christenson has this helpful play-by-play.

“Ron DeSantis was struggling big time in his primary race for governor of Florida,” says the ad’s narrator, referring to the 44-year-old’s first gubernatorial run in 2018.

“Polls revealed DeSantis was failing so bad, he was losing by a staggering 17 points,” the narrator adds. “Then DeSantis was saved by the endorsement of President Trump.

“Trump’s support was so powerful, just two days after the endorsement, DeSantis took a commanding lead and it propelled him to being elected governor.”

The ad includes a clip from DeSantis’ victory speech in November 2018, in which the potential 2024 GOP challenger says, “I’d like to thank our president for standing by me when it wasn’t necessarily the smart thing to do.”

The spot ends with this dagger: “Instead of being grateful, DeSantis is now attacking the very man who saved his career. Isn’t it time DeSantis remembers how he got to where he is? Truth is, there’s only one person who can Make America Great Again.”

The Doc’s diagnosis? A few more ads like that one and Ron DeSantis could be sleeping with the fishes.

Is Anyone Winning the Trump-DeSantis Advertising Slap Fight?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading Charlie Sykes’s Morning Shots at The Bulwark, when I came across this item about how routinely weak Republicans’ criticism of Donald Trump has been.

Let’s start with some stipulations: the criticisms of Trump from his fellow GOPers fall way short since they continue to skirt the main issue: his fundamental unfitness to hold any position of public trust ever again.

And, given Trump’s lead in the polls and the well-documented proclivities of the MAGA base, they are also probably ineffective. All points granted.

But it is still worth noting that Ron DeSantis has finally realized that he needs to punch back.

What’s the deal, Doc? I thought DeSantis was running as Trump without the baggage. Now he’s gonna whack the former president with a briefcase?

–  Sky Cop

Dear SC:

Unfortunately, you’ve stumbled into a proxy war between the former Cheeto in Chief and his former Mini-Me, both vying for the hearts and (small) minds of the MAGAts. This is what changed everything for Ron DeSantis, compliments of the Trumpy Super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc.

Here’s the transcript for those of you keeping score at home.

Ron DeSantis loves sticking his fingers where they don’t belong. And we’re not just talking about pudding. DeSantis has his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements, like cutting Medicare, slashing Social Security, and even raising our retirement age. Tell Ron DeSantis to keep his pudding fingers off our money. Oh, and get this man a spoon!

That finger in the eye has triggered a couple of responses from the pro-DeSantis Never Back Down Super PAC. The first volley, as Axios’s Erica Pandey reported, came in the form of “a small online buy for ‘Gun-Grabbing Trump,’ which was geotargeted to Indianapolis for the NRA convention. The ad juxtaposes Trump’s comments about the Second Amendment with clips of Democrats: “TRUMP AGREED WITH NANCY PELOSI,” etc.”

The spot essentially accuses Trump of sleeping with the Second Amendment enemies. Drive him nuts graf: “Trump cut and run like a coward. Trump the gun-grabber doesn’t deserve a second chance.”

Ouch.

Now comes Fight Democrats, Not Republicans, which Never Back Down launched on “Fox News Sunday.” It asks the question, “What happened to Donald Trump?”

So what, in turn, happened to DeSantis’s old rope-a-dope strategy? The Bulwark’s Sykes points to this piece by Puck’s Tara Palmeri.

It’s only been a few weeks since Jeff Roe and his band of fellow Ted Cruz alumni parachuted into Tallahassee to help reverse Ron DeSantis’s wilting political fortunes, and yet they’ve already picked at an uncomfortable wound in the governor’s tight, sensitive, and less experienced inner circle. Roe’s more seasoned crew, for one, has a far less sanguine view of DeSantis’s current Trump self-defense strategy. They believe that DeSantis can’t just shrug off the former president’s public attacks on him, which coalesce around the notion that he’s an establishment stooge. Trump’s invective may be juvenile but it’s clearly moving the needle on his polling and allowing the former president to craft DeSantis’s public image.

All that brings us back to to the original question: Is anyone winning this ad-fueled slap fight? Let’s go to the highly unscientific YouTube Index for possible answers.

MAGA Pac’s Pudding Fingers  21,000 views  71 likes

Never Back Down’s Gun-Grabbing Trump  9000 views  61 likes

Never Back Down’s Fight Democrats . . .  136,000 views  125 likes

The Doc’s diagnosis: Donald Trump’s cheeks sure seem redder.

Is a Trump-Aligned Super PAC Ad Lying About Ron DeSantis?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and checking out the news on MediaPost when I came across Wayne Friedman’s piece about a new ad campaign funded by a Donald Trump-supported Super PAC. It attacks Florida governor (and likely Trump presidential rival) Ron DeSantis for his voting record in Congress on Medicare and Social Security.

A Republican-backed TV commercial campaign is targeting Florida Governor and potential Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, backed by Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” Super PAC . . .

The spot — called “Think You Know Ron DeSantis” — talks about how he has backed “deep cuts to social security and medicare” and says that when he was in Congress, DeSantis voted to raise the retirement age to 70. The bottom-line message, according to a voiceover, is that DeSantis “doesn’t share our values” and that “he is just not ready to be President.”

DeSantis is currently on a book tour saying he’s all about protecting Social Security and Medicare. What gives, Doc?

– Ron Conned?

Dear RC:

It is a fact well-established that Donald Trump and his merry band of remoras (a.k.a. suckerfish) are severely allergic to the truth (according to a Washington Post tally, the Cheeto in Chief alone made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his four years in office).

Against that backdrop . . .

The reported $1.5 million ad campaign (most of it spent on Fox News ads) claims that Ron DeSantis, while a congressman representing Florida’s 6th Congressional District from 2013 to 2018, “voted three separate times to cut Social Security . . . Worse, DeSantis voted to cut Medicare two times. DeSantis even voted to raise the retirement age to 70.” (You can see the spot here.)

So the question is: True? False? Alternative facts?

According to a PolitiFact piece by Yacob Reyes in the Tampa Bay Times last month, it’s not all that cut and dried.

In 2013, with Republicans controlling the House, DeSantis joined 103 Republicans on a failed resolution that called for raising the age to qualify for Medicare and Social Security to 70, according to a Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget analysis.

The measure also supported a transition of Medicare, a program funded by the federal government, to a premium support system, for which the federal government would designate a pot of money for each beneficiary to spend on a private insurance plan.

The resolution’s text stated the measure would have affected future beneficiaries; it says, “those in or near retirement will see no changes.”

A PolitFact piece by Amy Sherman five years ago, which addressed similar charges against DeSantis during Florida’s 2018 GOP gubernatorial primary, labeled them Half True:: “[The non-binding resolutions] were a cut in terms of the programs’ future growth relative to the baseline. But the goal of these resolutions was to persuade Congress to make changes to shore up these programs in the future to avoid steeper cuts down the road.”

Bottom line: Those votes cut no budgets, nor did they reduce seniors’ benefits.

Regardless, DeSantis is doing his best nowadays to rewrite his position on entitlement cuts, as the Tampa Bay Times piece noted.

“Look, I have more seniors here than just about anyone as a percentage,” DeSantis told Fox News’ Dana Perino on March 2. “You know, we’re not going to mess with Social Security as Republicans. I think that that’s pretty clear.”

(As if he didn’t represent seniors for the six years he was Florida’s 6th District congressman. But why get technical about it.)

What’s also pretty clear is that the Trumpiacs will keep touting half-truths about DeSantis as long as he remains a threat to the ex-president’s bid to regain the White House.

The Doc’s prescription: Just because in this instance the MAGAts have downshifted from outright lies to partial ones, we don’t recommend getting used to it.

Wait, What? There’s Already a Ron DeSantis 2024 Presidential Ad?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading a Politico Nightly post by David Siders and Charlie Mathesian, when I came across this item, which noted that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign announcement had failed utterly to freeze the 2024 primary field.

The Ron DeSantis bandwagon is already rolling.

Next week, in an advertising campaign shared first with Nightly, a pro-DeSantis super PAC will begin airing TV ads in Iowa, the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

The ads, which began airing digitally today, follow a week in which the Florida governor’s star has risen — and Trump, following a bruising midterm, has lost his luster with many Republicans.

Seriously, Doc – no rest for the weary?

– Ron DeSist, Please

Dear DeSist,

Now that Donald Trump has thrown his MAGA cap into the ring (and check out Michael Wolff’s New York Times op-ed for a sense of how ultra-shambolic the former Cheeto-in-Chief’s third run for the White House is shaping up to be), it’s off to the races, yeah?

The ad from pro-DeSantis super PAC Ron to the Rescue is its version of American Carnage: “Lockdowns. Rampant inflation. Rising crime. Soaring gas prices. A nation on the brink.”

Here’s how the voiceover ends: “To defeat Biden and restore our country, America needs leadership. We need Ron DeSantis.”

As the Sunday comics feature used to ask, What’s missing from this picture? If you guessed Donald Trump, you’re right! But Trump does come up on the super PAC’s website.

Under the current management of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer, our nation has drastically suffered. Inflation is shrinking the Middle-class, supply-chain issues are eroding small businesses, and soft-on-crime policies are destroying community safety.

If we don’t turn this ship around soon, we won’t have a nation to return to. We need someone with the courage to stand up to the woke radical left and return us to an America First agenda. We need someone with the bravery of President Lincoln, the charm of President Reagan, and the determination of President Trump.

Too bad what DeSantis actually brings is the glass jaw of Gerry Cooney, the tiny arms of a T-Rex, and a cast-off suit from his old man. But why get technical about it.

Besides, it’s early days, and what matters most to the chattering classes right now is the horse race. Politico Nightly helpfully provided some numbers.

Recent polling underscores DeSantis’ popularity with Republicans outside Florida. Earlier this week, the conservative Club for Growth released a polling memoshowing DeSantis running ahead of Trump in multiple states — the polling data less significant than what releasing it said about the heavyweight group’s leanings heading into 2024.

In a survey of likely Republican primary voters in GOP-oriented Texas, DeSantis was beating Trump by 11 percentage points. Even polling that shows Trump ahead of DeSantis has been moving in the Florida governor’s direction: In a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll this week, Trump was beating DeSantis by 14 percentage points among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. But the margin was 22 percentage points before the midterms.

The Doc’s diagnosis?  Sorry, folks – not seeing a DeSist anytime soon in DeFuture.