Ivanka Trump Reveals Whether Or Not She’ll Challenge Rubio For His Florida Senate Seat

Back in December, we reported that rumors were swirling that Ivanka Trump was about to challenge Marco Rubio (R-FL) for his Senate seat. Now, however, she appears to be putting these rumors to rest.

Ivanka Says She Won’t Challenge Rubio 

Ivanka has reportedly informed Rubio that she will not be running against him after all, despite the fact that she just moved to Miami with her husband Jared Kushner and their three children.

Speculation had been mounting that Ivanka was planning to launch a political career of her own, and given her move there, it seemed likely that she would challenge Rubio when he was up for reelection in 2022.

Ivanka told Daily Mail that she considers Rubio to be a “good personal friend” of hers, which could be why she doesn’t want to run against him.

“Marco has been a tremendous advocate for working families, a good person friend and I know he will continue to drive meaningful progress on issues we both care deeply about,” Ivanka said.

Related: Ivanka Trump Reportedly Considering Florida Senate Run Against Marco Rubio, Source Alleges

Ivanka And Rubio To Team Up

Ivanka and Rubio are reportedly thinking about teaming up together on an event in Florida sometime in the next few months on their expansion of the Child Tax Credit, an issue she worked on when she served as a White House adviser.

“Marco and Ivanka did speak a few weeks ago. Ivanka offered her support for Marco’s reelection and they had a great talk,” said Nick Iacovella, a spokesman for Rubio. “We are discussing a joint event to highlight Marco and Ivanka’s successful push to expand the Child Tax Credit.”

If this event goes through, it will be seen as Ivanka’s endorsement of Rubio in his reelection campaign.

Related: Ivanka Trump Comes Out As ‘Pro-Life, And Unapologetically So’

This comes as Ivanka’s sister-in-law Lara Trump, who is married to her brother Eric, is reportedly considering a run for Senate in her home state of North Carolina.

After retiring Republican Senator Richard Burr voted in favor of impeaching former President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that Lara would almost definitely score the Republican nomination if she runs.

“My friend Richard Burr just made Lara Trump almost the certain nominee for the Senate seat in North Carolina to replace him if she runs,” Graham said last Sunday.

This piece was written by James Samson on February 19, 2021. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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The post Ivanka Trump Reveals Whether Or Not She’ll Challenge Rubio For His Florida Senate Seat appeared first on The Political Insider.

MAGA crashes into moderates in train-wreck Senate race

PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey isn't running for reelection in 2022. But his vote to convict former President Donald Trump is already rocking the race to succeed him.

County parties have censured Toomey, prompting backlash from centrists and even some Trump supporters who think the efforts will hurt the GOP in upcoming elections. Former Rep. Ryan Costello, a moderate Republican eyeing a bid for the Senate, has publicly come to Toomey's defense in the wake of his vote. Former Trump aides, in turn, are making plans to torpedo Costello before he announces a campaign.

The turmoil is the latest evidence that Trump's departure from office has not at all diminished his role in the GOP — in Pennsylvania, in fact, the primary is likely to be a proxy fight between Trump loyalists and those who believe the former president damaged the party's ability to compete here.

“Any candidate who wants to win in Pennsylvania in 2022 must be full Trump MAGA,” said Steve Bannon, a former White House chief strategist to Trump.

The back-and-forth over Toomey’s vote is also exacerbating party fissures in a state where Republicans lost Senate and gubernatorial contests in 2018 and the presidential contest in 2020. The intraparty tensions could damage Republican prospects in 2022, when control of both the House and the Senate will be up for grabs.

The Pennsylvania Senate race in 2022 is a must-win seat for Republicans, and there will be a critical gubernatorial election that year in the state as well.

Sam DeMarco, GOP chair in Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, said he strongly supports Trump and disagrees with Toomey’s vote to convict him. But he called the efforts to censure Toomey a “distraction” and believes that Democrats pursued the second impeachment of Trump explicitly to divide the GOP.

“At a time where we need to bring people into our tent, into our party, I worry that the attempts to censure or punish the senator for his vote would send the wrong signal to independents and other like-minded individuals who might lean Republican, but don’t think there’s a place in the party for them,” he said. “Politics is a numbers game. You only win through addition, not subtraction.”

Costello, who represented a suburban House seat before retiring in 2018, told POLITICO that the censures “will hurt Republican candidates.” On Twitter, he went further, saying that a proposed resolution to censure Toomey drafted by the Chester County GOP — his home county’s party — is "staggeringly dumb" and “will indisputably brand them in such a way that it will make it *more* difficult to win county-wide elections this year.”

Bill Bretz, leader of Westmoreland County’s Republican Party in Western Pennsylvania, said his committee members censured Toomey because they were “pretty outraged” and downplayed concerns that the admonishment would divert the party from working to win upcoming elections.

“We’re capable of walking and chewing bubble gum at the same time,” he said. "We can express our dissatisfaction with his vote and still proceed accordingly with getting ready to get our statewide judges elected.”

It will be months until the Senate primary heats up, and some party operatives argued that Toomey’s vote is unlikely to have an impact on the election by the time voters go to the polls.

But as several Republicans fret over the political fallout of the party’s condemnation of Toomey, others are already battling over how the senator’s vote — and those who stood up for him — will be remembered by voters in 2022. Former Trump aides told POLITICO they are planning a public relations campaign against Costello, who has defended Toomey as a “foremost policy wonk” for GOP legislative priorities.

A person involved in the anti-Costello effort said their goal is to take on “Toomey plus people trying to follow in his form” in the party. Costello, a longtime Trump critic who is expected to launch an exploratory committee for the Senate in short order, brushed off the threat.

“They can say whatever they’d like, it won’t bother me,” he said. “It might help my fundraising, to be honest with you.”

Top Trump allies are also already openly criticizing Costello.

“Never Trumper Ryan Costello is a sellout to the globalists,” said Bannon in a statement that echoed Washington Republicans’ dissatisfaction with Costello for declining to run again after a court redrew Pennsylvania’s congressional map. “I don’t always agree with the [National Republican Congressional Committee], but when their Chairman Steve Stivers said Ryan Costello lacked intestinal fortitude, I agreed."

Costello replied: "Sloppy Steve will say whatever he's told [because] he's forever indebted for his pardon."

The national anti-Trump group Republican Accountability Project, meanwhile, is expected to launch a campaign to support Toomey and hopes that anti-MAGA Republicans will be encouraged to run for his seat in 2022.

Joe Gale, a Montgomery County commissioner who was an early Trump backer in 2016, launched a bid for governor this week bashing Toomey. He said in his announcement that the senator has a “track record of betraying President Trump” and that his brother, Sean, who is running for the open Senate seat, “will be the exact opposite of RINO Pat Toomey.”

The uproar over Toomey’s vote has also led to questions about the role he will play in attempting to influence the contest for his seat. Some pro-Trump Republicans predict that a stamp of approval from Toomey could be harmful in the Senate GOP primary. Toomey’s office declined to comment for this story.

Greg Manz, Trump’s 2020 communications adviser for strategy and a former spokesman for the Pennsylvania GOP, said Republican candidates who vie for Toomey’s endorsement or funding from his political action committee will be viewed unfavorably by pro-Trump activists.

A nod from the state party apparatus — whose members include many Trump loyalists — is seen as a significant benefit for primary candidates here.

“It would be foolish for any statewide candidate seeking the Pennsylvania GOP’s endorsement to accept Sen. Toomey’s endorsement or donations from him,” said Manz. “I imagine a feckless hack like Ryan Costello would gladly align himself with Sen. Toomey, but he won’t even place in the Senate primary. He’s a non-factor ultimately.”

In an indication of how divided the two flanks of the GOP are, Costello struck back at Manz with a scathing comment.

“Before Greg Manz worked for Trump, he worked at the state party. Everyone back then and before used to make fun of him [because] he’s a clown. No one respects him and a few years from now, he will probably be pumping gas in New Jersey,” he said. “No one knows who he is. He just does what he’s told like the little errand boy he is.”

Manz returned the barb: “People who disparage hard-working Americans, gas station attendants in this case, have no place in public office.”

Shortly after speaking with POLITICO, Costello took to Twitter to criticize Manz again. Jason Miller, Trump’s senior adviser, retweeted Costello and defended Manz, calling him “true #MAGA and a real-deal Patriot!"

Posted in Uncategorized

Is Trump Running For President Again? He Declares ‘Tremendous Support’ For 2024 Run

Amid much speculation about his future in politics and more specifically with the Republican Party, former President Donald Trump gave an interview to Newsmax indicating he could run for President again.

During an interview with Newsmax’s Greg Kelly on Wednesday, the 45th President would not commit to a second White House bid, but he did leave listeners with some juicy teasers.

After Kelly asked him if he would run again, Trump said, “Well, we have tremendous support. I won’t say yet, but we have tremendous support.”

“I’m looking at poll numbers that are through the roof. … I’m the only guy that gets impeached and my numbers go up. Figure that one out. … Typically, your numbers would go down. They would go down like a lead balloon.”

RELATED: Biden’s ‘Green Economy’ Will Be A Train Wreck

Lots Of Possibilities

Speculation about Trump running for President in 2024 – in the event that he lost the 2020 election – began even before Election Day.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), on an appearance on the Brian Kilmeade Show, laid out a sound road to a second bid, “I would encourage him to think about doing it. Create an organization, platforms over the next four years to keep his movement alive.”

While Democrats and the media might be fervently hoping that Donald Trump might just quietly retire to Mar-a-Lago, there is no indication that will happen.

If Trump decides not to run in 2024, other possibilities that have been mentioned are the idea of starting a third party as a challenge to never-Trump establishment Republicans.

Still another prospect for Trump is that he remains very active in the Republican Party. Trump has called out Republicans such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) after McConnell blamed him for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Trump has stated on several occasions that he would focus on supporting any primary challengers to never-Trump establishment members in both the House and the Senate.

The numbers seem to bear out Republican voters wanting Trump to play a vital role in the future of the party.

In a Politico/Morning Consult poll, 53% would like to see Trump run again, and a Quinipiac University national poll show that “three out of four Republicans would like to see Trump have a bigger role in the GOP.”

RELATED: Public Schools Are Ignoring Science And Harming Special Needs Students

There Have Been Hints At The Future

As far back as October of last year, there have been hints that Donald Trump would not be done with the presidency, even if he lost in 2020.

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon made what might now appear to be an on-point prediction. 

Bannon told “The Australian” that “2020 won’t be the end of Donald Trump,” and that “If for any reason the election is stolen from, or in some sort of way Joe Biden is declared the winner, Trump will announce he’s going to run for re-election in 2024.” 

At the White House Christmas Party in December, Trump himself teased during a live stream to the Oklahoma Republican Party that “We’re trying to get another four years,” in a reference to election litigation that was ongoing at the time.

Trump then added, “But otherwise I’ll see you in four years.”

RELATED: Biden Suggests Former Military, Police Are Helping To Fuel Growth Of White Supremacy

What Might Stand In Between Trump And 2024?

Recently, in an interview with the Associated Press, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel stated that the RNC would remain neutral, and “not actively back” Trump should he decide to run again.

McDaniel said that her preference would to see Trump help the GOP “win back majorities in 2022.”  

There is a visible split amongst the McConnell wing of the party and the Trump wing.

Trump recently attacked McConnell as being “weak,” and called him a “dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack.” Trump and McConnell have exchanged words in the past.

Average Republicans seem to be siding with Donald Trump, and are getting tired of establishment Republicans like Mitch McConnell.

An Axios/Ipsos poll shows large numbers of Republicans who are ready to vote for Trump again in 2024. 

Whatever Donald Trump decides to do in the future, he will have millions of MAGA Republicans behind him. It would be in the best interest of the establishment to pay attention.

The post Is Trump Running For President Again? He Declares ‘Tremendous Support’ For 2024 Run appeared first on The Political Insider.

Members of Maine GOP state committee condemn Susan Collins’ vote to convict Trump

Members of the Maine Republican Party state committee are condemning "in the strongest possible terms" Republican Sen. Susan Collins' vote to convict former President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial this month -- another sign of the backlash against lawmakers who bucked Trump, but one that may not have immediate impact given that Collins just won a fifth term.
Posted in Uncategorized

Caught vacationing in Cancun during a pandemic as Texas voters froze, Ted Cruz blames his kids

All right, we have to do it. We have to spend a few moments celebrating these new accomplishments by the forever hapless but somehow still-sociopathic Sen. Ted Cruz, a man who once had presidential aspirations but who now spends his days humiliating himself and those around him, chipping away at his own integrity in what appears to be a spirited game of Dog Turd Jenga.

Oh, Ted. What are you, even?

As we all now know, Ted Cruz was caught taking a flight to the resort town of Cancun, Mexico, during (1) a massive natural disaster in his home state that caused much of the state to lose power and is now resulting in citizens dying in their homes and (2) a global pandemic that has killed 500,000 Americans, closed schools, shuttered businesses, and prevented many Americans from seeing their friends or loved ones for something approaching a full year now.

When caught, Ted blamed his young children. "Like millions of Texans, our family lost heat and power too," says Ted. "With school cancelled for the week, our girls asked to take a trip with friends. Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon."

You've heard of the general edict between politicians and press to "leave the children out of it." This is the other edict: When in political danger, throw your youngest daughter at reporters and bolt.

Now, there are sev-er-al problems with Cruz's statement up there, and that's being generous. Cruz previously said that his home did not lose power, suggesting he was selflessly hosting the neighbor children who were not so fortunate. The airport pictures show Cruz with a rather significant amount of luggage for a supposed one-night stay, but we will be good sports and presume that he is merely moonlighting as a Texas drug mule or that he never, ever leaves the country without a two week supply of his favorite canned soups.

Fine. But then there's the rather bigger problem of Ted Cruz, a United States senator, willingly declaring that despite a deadly global pandemic, his kids got bored during a school break and insisted daddy spirit them off to Mexico for funsies, which he of course did, but of course he had to shepherd them there himself before, um, turning right around and coming back. Really now? Really? The rest of us are conducting half our lives over Zoom to keep ourselves and our neighbors safe during a plague while the senators ostensibly in charge of these things are letting their daughters organize their own international superspreader events? Outstanding. Just outstanding.

By far the biggest flaw with Ted's claims here, however—and it is a doozy—is that an airline-knowledgable reporter was quickly able to check with a source and reports that Cruz's original United Airlines tickets originally had him booked to return Saturday. Ted Cruz is, apparently, just brazenly lying his confederate beard off on this one.

I realize that does not really come as a surprise to anyone, given that the current crop of propaganda-spewing Republicans quite literally uses lying as means of governance and therefore lies about absolutely everything, all the time, but it still needs to be said that this yellowbellied Texas lungfish blamed a weekend Cancun vacation on his kids, then lied to everyone in his state about how Actually he was just tagging along to show them how to work the hotel vending machines.

Nope. It seems Cruz had, among senators, a very particular reason for being outraged at the notion that the Senate might have to hear evidence in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump for longer than a few days. Cruz had an international beach trip planned for the Senate break, and didn't intend to let a probe of whether a former president attempted to have his vice president and a good chunk of the presidential line of succession killed in a coup attempt interfere with that.

Oh, and apparently he didn't even tell his staff where he was going, which was the reason his staff had no immediate response when pictures began flowing in of their boss leaving the damn country. The last time that happened we learned that a certain Republican governor had an Argentinian mistress, but not before his staff had piped up with a cover story claiming he was off hiking the Appalachian Trail on—shoulda done a little research on that one, kids—National Nude Hiking Day.

You may, at this point, be almost close to maybe having a microscopic bit of sympathy for Ted Cruz in the form of at least being embarrassed on his behalf for being such an amazingly craven little sea squirt. Don't bother. Once the Jan. 6 seditionist had been caught and had to book a quick flight back to Texas in order to pretend that he gave two biscuits about his voters freezing to death in their homes, one of the things his staff quickly made sure of was to contact the Houston Police Department to arrange for their "assistance" at the airport when he got back.

Sure, it's not like anyone in Texas has anything better to do right now. Surely there're some spare officers available to guide Cruz through an airport terminal and fend off anyone who wants to ask for more details about his international pandemic superspreader sleepover.

Cruz has managed to be a truly amazing human being these last few years, and that should not be taken as praise. He has managed to throw every member of his family, from his father to his wife to his children, under ye olde tour bus in his various attempts to slither through a political career. He has both Trump's sociopathic unwillingness to stick to the truth and a personality so magnificently awful that he could save 10 orphans from a burning orphanage and still somehow come out of it more hated than he was when he went inside. Above all, he somehow managed to maneuver himself into playing a central role in the biggest seditious anti-government conspiracy since the actual Civil War, all in service to an incompetent blowhard and gasbag, under the apparent impression that what the nation really needs these days is to just nix elections outright and put tax-dodging rapists in charge.

Did he support the nullification of an election because his kids and their friends were bored and wanted to play insurrection, or was that one on him? If any of us could still stomach even hearing this mulletfaced Gulf treasonfish bubble at us any longer it might make for a fascinating story, but if Texas voters still have a drop of dignity left maybe they'll run Ted out of town—the roads are slick, so a pair of skates and a little push is probably all it would take—and appoint a particularly irritable rat snake to fill out his term.

NY Assembly Republicans push for Cuomo impeachment commission to investigate nursing home scandal

Republicans in the New York State Assembly announced Thursday they will push to form an impeachment commission to "gather facts and evidence" surrounding Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the coronavirus crisis and underreported COVID-19 nursing home deaths in the state.

‘I don’t want to eat our own’: Senate Republicans fret over Trump-McConnell schism ahead of 2022

When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell first saw Donald Trump's pointed screed skewering him as a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack,” he laughed, according to CNN

That's certainly the image McConnell's allies want to project, as they assure reporters in multiple stories the the Minority Leader is moving on from Trump, likely won't ever speak to him again, and remains laser-focused on one thing only: retaking control of the Senate in 2022. In essence, Trump is riffraff and canny McConnell doesn't have time for it.

What is undoubtedly true in all that projection is the fact that McConnell's every waking moment is devoted to reclaiming power over the upper chamber. Power is everything to McConnell and it's only fitting that it's the legacy issue he cares about most. "Mr. McConnell needs to be returned to his top role after the 2022 elections to become the longest-serving Senate leader in history in 2023, a goal the legacy-minded Kentuckian would no doubt like to achieve," writes The New York Times. The Times also reports that one GOP senator said McConnell might have triggered a rebellion if he had voted to convict—which is exactly why he didn't. But think about that—McConnell, worshipper of raw power, didn't have the political juice to lead his caucus and so he once again fumbled the opportunity to navigate a way out of Trump's wilderness. 

Whatever McConnell wants everyone to believe about his cool, cunning strategery, 42 members of his caucus voted to acquit Trump and several of them are openly losing their minds about the Trump-McConnell schism. 

Trump's chief sycophant, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, is beside himself trying to find enough adjectives to convey how invaluable Dear not-Leader remains to the party. Since the acquittal vote, Graham has cast Trump as the most "vibrant," "consequential," and "potent force" of the Republican party in various interviews. Oh, and don't forget, daughter-in-law Lara Trump is "the future of the Republican Party." (Talk about single-handedly killing your own credibility.)

Anyway, Graham fretted about the internecine warfare Tuesday on Fox News, saying, “I’m more worried about 2022 than I’ve ever been ... I don’t want to eat our own.” Graham said that if McConnell didn't understand how essential Trump is, "he's missing a lot."

Trump ally Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has been a little more menacing in his denunciations of McConnell. “I think he needs to be a little careful," Johnson said in a radio interview earlier this week on The Ross Kaminsky Show. "When the leader of the Senate conference speaks, he has to understand what he says reflects on all of us. And I didn’t appreciate his comments, let’s put it that way.”

Johnson told the Times that McConnell could kill GOP chances with pro-Trump voters. “You are not going to be able to have them on your side if you are ripping the person they have a great deal of sympathy for in what he has done for this country and the personal toll President Trump has shouldered,” he said.

Poor Trump. The murderous riot he inspired has really taken a toll on him and his cultists. 

But Johnson isn't wrong about the Trump-McConnell feud being a vote killer—he's just over-representing one side of it. Sure, pro-Trumpers have already proven they're not particularly jazzed about turning out in support of Senate Republicans if Trump isn't on the ticket. But on the other side of the equation, a whole bunch of once-dedicated GOP voters are abandoning the party over Trump's post-election rampage against a free and fair contest that he quite simply lost. Trump's months-long campaign to overturn those results, underwritten by the vast majority of congressional Republicans, has done incalculable damage to the party.

So however steely McConnell's resolve, Trump is still the noxious blow torch McConnell has repeatedly failed to neutralize.