Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump is furious with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for daring to make fun of her singing, even though her voice sounds like two cats engaged in a fight to the death.
Appearing on Fox News Monday night, Mrs. Trump, the wife of Eric Trump, remarked, “This is where the DNC was putting their focus? To somehow mock me? [It] wasn’t even funny.”
Lara was referencing an artificial intelligence remix of her most recent song, “Anything Is Possible,” which includes these lines: “Oh Lara, Lara, what have you done? The party’s fallin’ down, it’s no longer fun.”
Actually, the song is pretty damn funny, no matter what Lara Trump says, and if her father-in-law had done something similar to attack President Joe Biden or First Lady Jill Biden, it’s safe to bet that Mrs. Trump would be delighted and sharing it all over social media.
Speaking of social media, many on Twitter were happy to give Lara a dose of well-deserved karma.
She's really hurt.
You can't tell because of the botox, but she's crying inside.
— Jack (but not THAT Jack) (@jacktomalis) April 2, 2024
In the surest sign yet that failed former president Donald Trump is toxic to the party that has sworn undying allegiance to him, the Republican National Committee (RNC) is facing a major cash crunch and having to make major financial cutbacks less than a year from the 2024 election.
The Washington Postreports the RNC is hemorrhaging money and cannot manage to get donations from large or small donors.
The Republican National Committee disclosed that it had $9.1 million in cash on hand as of Oct. 30, the lowest amount for the RNC in any Federal Election Commission report since February 2015. That compares with about $20 million at the same point in the 2016 election cycle and about $61 million four years ago, when Trump was in the White House.
The Democratic National Committee reported having $17.7 million as of Oct. 30, almost twice as much as the Republican Party, with one year before the election.
Oscar Brock, a member of the Tennessee GOP, said he cannot understand why times are so lean for the RNC:
“We’re going through the same efforts we always go through to raise money: the same donor meetings, retreats, digital advertising, direct mail. But the return is much lower this year. If you know the answer, I’d love to know it. The staff has managed to tighten down on expenses to keep the party from going into the red.”
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tried to downplay the financial problems facing her party, suggesting all will be well once Republicans have a presidential nominee.
“I think there’s more donors just fully committed to their candidate right now, saying I am all in, and once the nominee is set, I’ll be there. That’s what I hear more than anything. And they’re really solidly in the camps of their candidate, which is normal. There’s nothing unusual about this, because they know that once their candidate gets in that we will merge and that we’ll be working together to win the White House.”
But not everyone in the GOP is as sanguine about the financial crisis facing the party, with some suggesting McDaniel is the problem.
“The RNC’s electoral record since 2017 speaks for itself,” said Virginia RNC member Patti Lyman, who opposed McDaniel when she was reelected to another term in January. “The damage from that chair election goes far beyond the drop in donations. Our base was demoralized.”
However, McDaniel appears to have the support of failed former president Donald Trump, who said just last month that she had “done a fantastic job” and calling her “a real good friend.”
But in private, Trump seems to be less than sold on McDaniel, according to the Post:
Donors sometimes complain to Trump about McDaniel, and Trump has been asking people what they think of her, which is often an ominous sign that someone is losing their standing with him, according to three people close to the former president, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal discussions.
If money is indeed the mother’s milk of political campaigns, the GOP is currently sucking hind teat, and that suggests their electoral prospects are less than rosy in 2024.
Earlier this morning, President Joe Biden announced via an online video that he will indeed be a candidate for reelection in 2024.
In the video, CNN reports, the president again invoked a message he used in the 2020 race.
Biden framed next year’s contest as a fight against Republican extremism, implicitly arguing he needed more time to fully realize his vow to restore the nation’s character.
“When I ran for president four years ago, I said we are in a battle for the soul of America. And we still are,” he said in the video, which opened with images of the January 6, 2021, insurrection and abortion rights activists protesting at the US Supreme Court.
“The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer,” Biden says in voiceover narration. “I know what I want the answer to be and I think you do too. This is not a time to be complacent. That’s why I’m running for reelection.”
In response, the Republican National Committee (RNC) posted an ad generated by AI (artificial intelligence), according to Axios.
The Republican National Committee responded to President Biden’s re-election announcement Tuesday with an AI-generated video depicting a dystopian version of the future if he is re-elected.
The video features AI-created images appearing to show Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris celebrating at an Election Day party, followed by a series of imagined reports about international and domestic crises that the ad suggests would follow a Biden victory in 2024.
NEW: @Axios w/ a first look at RNC’s video response to Biden
It is also the committee’s first video that is 100% generated by AI software meant to create images that look and feel real (in this case an imagined dystopia look at the future of Biden wins)… pic.twitter.com/S9qH0MXINc
However, the Republican effort to troll Biden’s announcement got an emphatic thumbs down on social media, where many commenters noted that it was more applicable to failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump.
"Things are going well right now, so we had to ask AI to imagine things going poorly."
The unusual party of this video is that it's based on hypothetical "what ifs" — rather than what has already happened in term one. https://t.co/GSQz5bTPB3
The Republican National Committee (RNC) has told failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump that they will no longer pay his mounting legal costs.
But as with most things Trump, there’s a catch, Politico reports.
To be lead counsel in the case of his hoarding classified documents, Trump hired Chris Kise, a former Florida solicitor general. But the Donald will have to pay the bill this time.
For Kise’s services, Trump will have to pay on his own. A person familiar with the matter confirmed that the Republican National Committee is not paying for Trump’s legal fees related to the FBI’s investigation and retrieval of documents at Mar-a-Lago. That’s a departure of sorts from the past. The RNC has, for example, paid for Trump’s legal bills involving New York Attorney General Tish James’ investigation into the former president’s private businesses. The committee would stop paying Trump’s legal fees should he formally declare his candidacy for president in the 2024 election — a step he has hinted at but has yet to take.
However, the RNC will continue to foot the bill for all of Trump’s other legal problems, proving that they’ve only grown a portion of spine and are willing to cave to him on nearly every other demand he makes. One wonders if they’ll be so enamored if and when he’s charged with violating the Espionage Act and obstructing justice, both of which could send him to prison for decades.
A just released document from the FBI shows that Trump and his attorneys are currently arguing in federal court that he has “absolute authority” on all matters of national security, despite the fact that he is not longer president, with the AP reporting:
A May 25 letter from one of his lawyers, attached as an exhibit to the search affidavit, advances a broad view of presidential power, asserting that the commander-in-chief has absolute authority to declassify whatever he wants — and also that the “primary” law governing the handling of U.S. classified information simply doesn’t apply to the president himself.
But as Yale Law School professor Oona Hathaway rightly points out, Trump is no longer in the White House and has no such protection:
“When someone is no longer president, they’re no longer president. That’s the reality of the matter. When you’ve left office, you’ve left office. You can’t proclaim yourself to not be subject to the laws that apply to everyone else.”
Trump, however, has never believed the laws of this country apply to him.
Early Wednesday, the Fox News Christmas tree was set ablaze, the Washington Postreports:
The towering Christmas tree outside the Fox News headquarters in New York was set on fire early Wednesday, causing first responders to race to extinguish a blaze that engulfed the 50-foot tree in Midtown Manhattan.
Video posted to social media shows flames and smoke coming off the decorated tree shortly after midnight just outside the News Corp. building. The network cut in for a live broadcast of the blaze at Fox News Square, just days after the tree, covered in thousands of lights and ornaments, was ceremoniously lit to ring in the holidays.
A man was later arrested for the act:
Craig Tamanaha, 49, was arrested early Wednesday and charged with setting the fire, a New York Police Department spokesperson told The Washington Post. Tamanaha faces charges including criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and arson. The man “was observed by Fox News Channel security climbing the Christmas tree decorated outside their office building near the corner of West 48 Street and Sixth Avenue” about 12:15 a.m., police said.
End of story, right? Not according to Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Ronna McDaniel, who went on Fox and tried to blame the whole thing on President Joe Biden.
McDaniel was asked to predict how she thought the GOP would do in the 2022 midterms. She remarked:
“What this poll is telling us is we’re going to take back the House and the Senate and the American people want a change. Biden is underwater. Harris’s approval is under 30% and Republicans are more trusted on three key issues: the economy, inflation and crime.
“And these are issues we’re seeing every day on our streets, around our homes, in our communities, on the news. Look at your Christmas tree that was just burned down. This is a huge problem for Democrats.”
Wait! What was that? A random act of arson is a problem for Democrats? Sounds like a bit of a stretch, and it also suggests Republicans are in big trouble, despite their bragging about how they intend to win in 2022.
